History and current status of reserve management and study in Russia

A brief history of reserve management and study in Russia is presented; the background of modern ideas of reserves that established various approaches to the formation of a network of specially protected natural territories is analyzed. The author holds to the classical ideas of reserves, which were formulated by domestic scientists V.V. Dokuchaev, I.P. Borodin, G.A. Kozhevnikov, and V.P. and A.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shanskii, and insists on the necessity to retain their status as “inviolable territories of virgin nature taken under protection for ever and ever.” This article is dedicated to the Year of Specially Protected Natural Territories of Russia (2017), announced by a decree of the Russian President. The author calls for a moratorium on the withdrawal of conservation territories for economic and recreational and tourist purposes.