Reconstruction Of A System Of National Parks And Protected Areas In China And Russia According To New Demands And Challenges Facing Implementation Of The Belt And Road Project

The Protected Areas (PA) system serves to support healthy ecosystems and threatened species, biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as providing multiple benefits to people The ecological doctrine of Russia considers the development of a system of specially protected natural areas (SPNA) to be one of the key directions of state policy In the history of this country, the creation of SPNA is a traditional and effective step, but currently, state environmental policy is very different from that of the policy of the past, as dictated by the USSR Today’s global events, such as the economic collapse resulting from the COVID-19 epidemic, have changed social life dramatically However, for both Russia and China, there is a clear interest in not repeating Western national park commercialization, as seen in the US and European countries The authors consider the idea of adding a new wilderness protected area category, because in reality, it is a very effective form of environmental conservation, especially in «Eastern» Russia It is discussed that the terrestrial protected area system is not ecologically representative at present, although most countries have reported considerable success in this field China has declared and is promoting the construction of a community with a «shared future for humanity» The focus of this paper is on China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as it aims for the functional creation of a new model of international economic cooperation that must include a new and close look at nature conservation © 2020, Russian Geographical Society All rights reserved