Global 200 Ecoregions

Dramatic Achievements in a Region of Natural Superlatives Boreal Forests & Taiga


 
Major Habitat Type
Boreal Forests & Taiga

Biogeographic Region
Palearctic

Location
North-central: Russia on the Arctic Ocean



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Biological Diversity

The People

The Threat

The Challenge

The Response


Summary


The boreal forests and taiga of central and western taiga represent the largest unbroken tracts of forest on Earth, and one of the last opportunities to conserve ecosystems where species populations and ecological processes, such as fires disturbances, can fluctuate within their natural range of variation.

The Republic of Sakha, also referred to as Yakutia, contains vast expanses of Siberian forests and taiga. It is truly a region of superlatives. The Republic covers one-fifth of the Russian Federation, an area comparable to the size of India. Forty percent of its territory falls within the Arctic circle, and it has the coldest place on the planet: -68oC. The difference between winter and summer temperatures can reach 100oC.

Yakutia has over 700,000 rivers with a total length of 1.5 million kilometres. The largest is the Lena River, which flows for 4,400 kilometres. There are more than 700,000 lakes in the Republic.

In October 1995 President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree which approved a revised programme for protected areas in Russia. This programme mentions only one non-governmental organisation - WWF. The decree supports WWF's position that up to 50 percent of the Arctic should be placed under strict governmental protection.

In a dramatic follow-up, the President of Yakutia decided to extend the Republic's system of protected areas and pledged the complete protection of 700,000 square kilometres of virgin territory as a "Gift to the Earth", an area roughly twice the size of Germany, by the year 2000.

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