Creation of the proposed national park is part of the Ust-Koksa regional development plan, which is based on the concept of creating a reasonable combination of nature conservation and enhancement of the region's recreational abilities with sustainable economic development. This development plan was created in 1991, and has been a catalyst for nature conservation activity in Ust-Koksa region in Altai Republic.
This part of Altai is characterized by very wide-ranging combinations of landscapes, which provides many different kinds of recreational opportunities for humans, from extreme alpine routes and Class V whitewater to leisurely dayhikes in the regions mountains and lazy floats on the regions rivers.
Mountain hiking is a very popular form of recreation in Russia, and Mountain Altai is reknowned as a favorite destination for hiking. People from all over the former Soviet Union and from many other countries travel to these mountains for recreation. Unfortunately, due to the unorganized, even chaotic, nature of this recreation, significant harm to the region's natural resources has resulted. In addition to braided trails, random firewood gathering, bonfire-rings, overuse of popular campsites, and other typical impacts, etc., there has also been significant encroachment upon the habitat of rare plants and animals species. Significant among these are the argali mountain sheep and snow leopard, two species at the brink of extinction.
Continued economic crises in Russia in recent years has led to a recession in recreational activity in the region, but exposed another type of human impact upon the area. Economic activity in this region has long been considered impractical. Traditionally, cattle grazing was the only agricultural activity in the region. In recent years this has contributed to a severe overgrazing problem as graziers have expanded grazing into fragile landscapes. Additionally, the local government, which is also beset with economic problems, is attempting to make quick money through the sale of natural resources through expanded clearcutting of forests, even more expansive grazing concessions, and mineral development.
It is assumed that in the coming years tourist activity in Mountain Altai will increase again, particularly from tourists from Siberia. Creation of national park is expected to expand the management regime of the Katun Nature Preserve and to bring some semblance of order to the impact of human activity, both tourist and economic. It is also critical at this juncture to incorporate new scientific methods of management to reach environmental protection as well as economic development.
The key point in landscape-based zoning is difference of landscapes in ability to resist or tolerate anthropogenic influences. High-altitude mountain landscapes are extremely vulnerable, and removing vegetation (for example, clearcuts) causes destructive processes such as erosion, landslides, etc., and these processes are irreversible and will lead to an even longer chain of changes to the landscape.
In development of a management regime, it is necessary to consider the current landuse regime in the region. We cannot remove the population points and all the agriculture actvities associated with them, but some limitations are well within the realm of reason. Additionally, it would be extremely difficult to close off access to popular tourist sites altogether, though some limitations would certainly be realistic..
Taking all the above into account, the scientists conducted field research in the Ust-Koksa region, and created a resultant landscape map at a scale of 1:200,000. And, by considering landscape properties and historically established situations, we developed a map of proposed landuse, and divided landuses in the whole territory into zones of 7 types:
- preserve zone, closed for any visitation but scientific researches;
- buffer zone, outlining the preserve;
- reserve zones, similar to preserve;
- zones of limited recreational activity (tourist sites that are already severely impacted);
- zones of intensive recreational activity;
- zones of traditional management (agriculture, hunting, fur farms etc.);
- highly impacted zones, associated with human settlements.
The resilience level of each type of landscape is known, so a first step is denoting the most vulnerable ones as preserve and reserve zones. Since we deal with rough mountain territory, we'll encounter the situation when desired preserve zones will happen to be separated by areas not indicated to require preserve regime. (Lower-elevation places with more stable landscapes, for example). A preseve core, however, cannot have such "corridors" inside the core, so these "corridor" polygons were selected and turned into "islands," and dissolved into the core preserve.
The next step was to identify the buffer zone (for preserve zone only). This was done by selecting the polygons of a more stable landscape classes contiguous to the preserve zone.
The problem we faced next was human settlement places, which are surrounded by the areas most impacted by human activity. We had to accept these zones as hard to change, regardless of landscape condition or fragility. We selected these manually -- there are very few of them, and we know which landscape near the settlements is most probably used by humans for their needs.
The same way is used to define the zones of recreational activity, both intensive and limited. The places of this type are known as attractive and can be selected manually. The only difference is in initial sets: intensive recreation zones are selected from the rest of territory (excluding protected areas), while limited recreation zones can change the boundaries of supposed protected areas.
The remaining territory is destined for traditional management. Given the historical productive properties of landscapes belonging to this zone, it is possible to subdivide the zone into the areas of particular use (hunting, grazing, etc.).
Technically, ArcView 3.0 was much easier than PC ARC/INFO for selecting (manual especially). It also allowed recalculation of any item in the attribute table for selected features. So a reasonable method was to perform this preliminary selection in ArcView, and then return to ArcInfo for merging adjacent polygons belonging to the same zones (using DISSOLVE command) and for extracting (RESELECT) and using (ERASECOV) mask coverages for eliminating islands inside the zones desired to be continous.
AKNOWLEGEMENTS The author would like to express his gratitude to Viktor Rudsky and Zoya Lysenkova, Altai State University, Russia, and to Timothy Bechtold, The Ecology Center, Inc., Missoula, MT, USA.
REFERENCES Rudsky, V.V., 1996. Altai. Ecological and geographical principles of nature management. Altai State University publishings. Barnaul. Pages 172-198.
Rudsky, V.V., M.Yu.Shishin. Katun National Park (problems of creation). Proceedings of the Second Conference ALTAI-COSMOS-MICROCOSM ,1994.
Alexander Ramirovich Yumakaev
GIS Projects Coordinator
Socio-Ecological Union-Altai
Post Box 845
656015 Barnaul Russia
phone +7(3852)22-0908, 22-2371
email: katun@glas.apc.org