Then, once the tourists have actually arrive, there must be infrastructure in place to support them. Even if the tourists want to camp out under the stars, there needs to be some kind of communication available, medical services and places to buy food. And if Russia really wants to tap into the trend, it will need hotels as well. Modern ecotourists like to spend their holidays in reasonable comfort, but without causing harm to the natural surroundings.
For many Russian regions, the development of this ecotourism infrastructure could help them support their natural resources financially. Forest rangers in Russia are underpaid and understaffed. Many nature preserves rely on the help of volunteers. The workers and volunteers of the Baikal nature reserve, for instance, have independently created 200 meters of special paths for disabled visitors who use wheelchairs, and plan to extend it to 2.5 km.
Although state funding for projects in forests and parks is still in the initial stages, plans were made to finance a development project for nature preserves at a recent meeting between Vladimir Putin and Yury Trutnev, the minister for natural resources and the environment. Twelve areas were selected as priority zones, and infrastructure development there is scheduled to take place between 2013 and 2020. Putin and Trutnev also proposed to double the number of annual visits to nature preserves from 6.5 million to 12 million by 2013.
Masha Gerisimova and a dozen of her coworkers ended up in a nature reserve in Tankhoe in the Kabansk Region of the Republic of Buryatia. The area is intended to be part of the Great Baikal Trail. This is a single system of eco-trails around Lake Baikal that cover the special protected areas of the Baikal Region. In recent years, the unregulated use of natural resources has led to a sharp deterioration in the ecosystems in and around the lake. And some of the visitors were unimpressed by the area’s beauty.
“The taiga is not the savannah, where you can see an elephant from miles away. Moreover bison aren’t going to stand around posing for the cameras – they’re scared. So you end up going over seven hundred kilometers to look at mosquitoes,” said an accountant from Masha Gerasimova’s office.