InfoNorthARCTIC

VOL. 52, NO. 3 (SEPTEMBER 1999) P. 317– 324

The Status of Biological Research in the Russian Arctic

317

closely held by local authorities and can be obtained onlythrough local contacts. In present-day Russia, as in manyother parts of the world, scientific information, especiallyaccurate data about natural resources and the environment,has become a very valuable commodity.

Many Russian ecologists argue that in reality little newenvironmental information is being collected in Russia,because state interest and financial support for environ-mental research and monitoring have declined by 90%over the past seven to eight years. This decline is signifi-cant because, despite the recent decrease in industrialactivity and agriculture in Russia, threats to the environ-ment remain, both in the Arctic and elsewhere. For exam-ple, during 1991–94 the annual industrial output of Russiadeclined by 44%, but air and water pollution decreased byonly 22% and 18%, respectively. Numerous environmen-tal accidents have been caused by old technology, oldequipment, old pipelines, and declines in training and self-discipline. In many cases, local authorities have begun toexploit natural resources in protected areas and naturereserves. State support of nature reserves and nationalparks has declined by over 80% during the past eight years.Since Perestroika, the state of the natural environment inRussia has declined. Even though about 40% of Russia isstill unexploited wilderness, 14% is considered to be inecological crisis.

Despite the problems and challenges facing Russiatoday, the situation is far from hopeless. Russian andWestern scientists continue to find support for importantbiological, ecological, and environmental research in Rus-sia and the FSU. The current broad scope and high qualityof basic and applied biological research in the RussianArctic reflect the importance of this area to the RussianState and the traditional interest of Russian biologists inissues concerning the North. Contemporary biologicalresearch in the Russian Arctic reflects current trends in thedevelopment of post-Soviet science, and has the followingprimary focus:

• Integrated, multidisciplinary research into naturalbiological systems;

• Historical research emphasizing the importance ofthe past in explaining the present;

THE “opening” of Russia and the former Soviet Union(FSU) to foreign scientists earlier this decade brought

a surge of international interest and new scientific activity.This was especially true for biological and environmentalscientists, most of whom had never visited this part of theworld and had read only the few English-language ac-counts of Soviet scientific activities and environmentalproblems. Relaxed travel restrictions for both foreignscientists visiting Russia and the FSU and Russian scien-tists visiting the West provided many new opportunitiesfor collaboration. Numerous scientific and research alli-ances were forged, and valuable long-term cooperativerelationships were established between foreign institu-tions and scientists and their Russian counterparts.

Unfortunately, the early enthusiasm has waned in re-cent years, mainly because of political and economicinstability in Russia. Internally, the economic and politicalturmoil caused money to be redirected away from re-search, education, and science. The result has been aslowdown in environmental and biological research con-ducted in the Russian Arctic and Subarctic by both foreignand Russian scientists.

For Russian scientists the situation is especially diffi-cult. Nearly a decade of economic inflation and the chang-ing priorities of the central government in Moscow havereduced financial support for science in general and forbiological and environmental science in particular. De-spite existing alliances and funding from western aca-demic institutions and businesses, the current situation formost Russian scientists is considered worse than duringthe Soviet era. Salaries average about US$50 per month,buildings are in disrepair, laboratories are without sup-plies, and halls are darkened to conserve electricity. Inaddition, the quagmire of political and bureaucratic obsta-cles at all levels of government continues to be a majorbarrier to new scientific initiatives.

Fierce competition between local authorities and theRussian central government for the control of naturalresources and for information relating to those resourceshas become a serious problem throughout Russia. Duringthe Soviet era, virtually all information was centralized inMoscow. Scientists interested in a particular resourceissue could obtain all available information from one ofseveral central repositories. Today, much information is

By Stephen R. Johnson, Sergei B. Yazvenko, Yurij Yu. Dgebuadze and Evgeny A. Kriksunov

318 • INFONORTH

• Cooperation between different research groups,laboratories, institutions and countries in addressingcommon scientific issues.

Basic biological research in the Russian Arctic is coor-dinated by the Russian Academy of Sciences, mainlythrough the Russian Fund for Fundamental Research.However, some of the most significant research projectsconducted during the past 10 years have been in coopera-tion with scientists from other countries.

The following is a partial list of research institutions inRussia that have active projects in the Arctic. Their affili-ation with the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN) isnoted in parentheses.

• The A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology andEvolution, Moscow (RAN)

• Murmansk Marine Biological Institute, Murmansk(RAN)

• The Institute of Biological Issues of the North,Magadan (RAN, Far East Division)

• The Institute of Marine Biology, Vladivostok (RAN,Far East Division)

• The Institute of Biology and Soil Science, Vladivostok(RAN, Far East Division)

• The Institute of the Ecological Issues of the North,Apatity (RAN)

• The Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology,Ekaterinburg (RAN, Ural Division)

• The Institute of Biology, Syktyvkar (RAN, KomiScience Centre)

• The Institute of Biology, Petrozavodsk (RAN,Karelian Science Centre)

• The Institute of Botany, Saint Petersburg (RAN)• The Institute of Zoology, Saint Petersburg (RAN)• Yakutian Institute of Biology, Yakutsk (RAN,

Siberian Division)• The Polar Botanical Garden, Murmansk (RAN)• The Institute of Environmental Protection, Moscow

(State Committee on Environmental Protection)• Moscow State University, Moscow• Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg• Petrozavodsk State University, Petrozavodsk• Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk• Vladivostok State University, Vladivostok

The work conducted by these institutions falls into twomajor geographical regions of the Russian Arctic: theWestern-Central Region, with the Taimyr Peninsula as thetentative eastern boundary, and the Pacific Region. Thescope of research activities includes the following: inter-actions within and between biological populations in localand regional ecosystems; population dynamics;biogeochemical cycles and energy flow; biodiversity andtaxonomy of various groups of organisms; biological pro-ductivity; resource management and sustainable develop-ment in the Arctic; biology, conservation, and restoration

of populations of rare, threatened, and endangered spe-cies; biology of economically important species; and habi-tat restoration in areas degraded by past human activities.

Among the most important studies are those on thestatus of the biota and the impacts of human activities onmarine ecosystems, particularly in the Barents Sea. Ma-rine and freshwater fish are both critical components ofthis ecosystem and important food sources for indigenouspeople living in the area. The present status of this re-source is precarious because of commercial overfishingand the poorly understood ocean dynamics that affectcarrying capacity. Industrial pollution is an added threat tomarine and freshwater organisms in the Arctic seas. Re-cent oil spills in the Pechora and Ob river basins haveattracted considerable international attention and havebeen intensively studied. Many other applied researchprojects related to arctic and subarctic marine environ-ments are currently being carried out by Russian institu-tions. The most notable of these institutions include:

• VNIRO, Moscow (State Committee on Fisheries)• TINRO-Centre, Vladivostok (State Committee on

Fisheries)• Sakhalin-NIRO, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (State

Committee on Fisheries)• TINRO, Chukotka Division, Anadyr (State

Committee on Fisheries)• KamchatNIRO, Petropavlovsk (State Committee on

Fisheries)• PINRO, Murmansk (State Committee on Fisheries)• SibRybNIIProjekt, Tyumen (State Committee on

Fisheries)• Salekhard Division, SibRybNIIProjekt, Salekhard

(State Committee on Fisheries)• East Siberian NIIProjekt, Yakutsk

The main goals and objectives of biological scientistsworking in the Russian Arctic today can be summarized asfollows:

• The creation and expansion of databases onbiodiversity for various taxonomic groups;

• More intensive and systematic research on thebiological resource potential of Arctic regions, bothterrestrial and aquatic;

• Development of a theoretical basis for assessing thestability and dynamics of Arctic populations andecosystems;

• Development of scientifically defensible criteria ofoptimum land-use patterns and sustainable development;

• Development of an ecological typology of the Arctic,ecological maps of the Arctic, and maps of land-usepatterns and human impacts;

INFONORTH • 319

• Development of experimental ecology in the Arcticand its application to bio-indication, bio-testing andecological assessments of the status of populationsand ecosystems;

• Wider application of remote sensing approaches tothe assessment of Arctic ecosystems;

• Development of theory and methodology forpredictive ecological assessment, risk analysis, andcrisis prediction;

• Development of new types of protected territoriesand methods for conserving biodiversity in the newsocioeconomic conditions of post-Soviet Russia;

• Development and application of land restorationtechnologies adapted to different regions.

Research and the protection of nature in the RussianArctic traditionally were carried out in the system of statenature reserves (Zapovedniks) and biological stations. Asmentioned earlier, Russian state support of nature reservesand national parks has declined dramatically in recentyears. Nevertheless, 11 Nature reserves currently exist inthe Russian Arctic. Some of these reserves were recentlyestablished with financial support from the German andDutch governments and international organisms such asthe World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Through these and othercooperative ventures over the past six years, protectedareas in the Russian Arctic have doubled in size to over350 000 km2.

In spite of the recent economic and political difficultiesin Russia, there are many examples of successful interna-tional cooperative and collaborative scientific ventures inthe Russian Arctic.

• The Willem Barents Biological Station wasestablished in 1995. This project was funded by theDutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management,and Fisheries to support Russian and internationalfield studies in the Arctic. The station is locatedwithin the boundaries of the Great Arctic Reserve onthe Taimyr Peninsula.

• The Lena-Nordenskjold International BiologicalStation, situated in the Lena River delta in easternSiberia, was also inaugurated in 1995. This project wasfunded by WWF-Sweden and the Yakutian Government.

• The Integrated Marine Arctic Expedition, conductedby the Russian Research Institute for Cultural andNatural Heritage, has carried out investigations onNovaya Zemlya and on Vaygach and Kolguyevislands since 1986. Research includes the climatologyand geology of the coast and continental shelf, arcticsoils, terrestrial fauna and flora, and littoral zone

Ob River in full spring flood, late May 1996. Near KhantyMansyisk, Northwest Siberia, Russia. Photograph by StephenR. Johnson.

ecosystems. This research was supported primarilyby the Russian government and by the Dutch Ministryof Agriculture, Nature Management, and Fisheries.

• The Russian-Swedish Tundra Expedition wasconducted in 1994. The Russian research vesselAcademician Fedorov spent more than 100 daystraveling across the Russian Arctic, conducting awide array of ecological studies in coastal and tundraenvironments.

• The International Arctic Expeditions to the TaimyrPeninsula during 1989-96 to study arctic birds, mainlythe ecology of brent geese, were coordinated by theRussian Academy of Sciences. However, theexpeditions were financially supported primarily byDutch, German, French, and Polish organizationsand institutions.

• The joint Russian-German Laptev Sea System-2000project was conducted mainly in the Lena Riverdelta. The project focused primarily on the seasonalvariability of modern fluxes in permafrost; variabilityin the terrestrial-marine environment of the SiberianArctic during the past 100 years; terrestrial-marineinteractions and their influence on the sediment budgetof the Lena Delta; short- and medium-term climatictrends in terrestrial environments in the SiberianArctic; and long-term climatic trends in the marineenvironment in the Siberian Arctic.

• Small expeditions to the Russian Arctic to studyavian ecology have been organized under the auspicesof the Study of the Status and Trends of MigratoryBird Populations in Russia, financially supportedthrough the collaborative efforts of the multinationalMigratory Birds of the Western Palearctic program.

320 • INFONORTH

Various other Arctic and Subarctic biological researchprojects and expeditions have been conducted over thepast several years. The National Geographic Society spon-sored studies of waterfowl in the Vaygach Island area, andvarious Japanese businesses and research institutions havesponsored expeditions to the Russian Far East. Westernpetroleum and mining companies have sponsored a widearray of biological research projects in the Arctic andelsewhere in Russia and the FSU. Numerous other publicand private institutions have supported projects that fo-cused efforts on individual species and their habitat, suchas the Amur Tiger (Alaska Department of Fish and Game,Hornocker Wildlife Research Foundation) and the Sibe-rian Crane (International Crane Foundation, Amoco Eura-sia Petroleum Company).

Since the signing of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. EnvironmentalAgreement (Area V. Protection of nature and establish-ment of reserves) in 1972, which was renegotiated in 1994as the U.S.-Russian Environmental Agreement, conserva-tion agencies and other organizations in both countrieshave sponsored several hundred exchanges of specialistsin rare and endangered species of fauna and flora, refugesand reserves, migratory birds, marine mammals, and fish-eries management. The Environmental Agreement andother joint projects relating to terrestrial/marine ecosys-tem biodiversity outlined under Area V have contributedsignificantly to the protection and management of sharedor unique resources.

Some notable Area V joint projects and activities car-ried out in the Arctic include the following:

• Determining the nesting areas, migratory routes,wintering grounds, productivity and adaptations toenvironmental changes of geese, ducks, swans andother waterbirds, with particular emphasis on areascurrently or potentially subject to human disturbance;

• Monitoring the Asian nesting population of SnowGeese on Wrangel Island, Russia;

• Studying the systematics and zoogeography ofmammals of the Holarctic, including the problem ofgene pool conservation for certain species and theevaluation of genetic variabili ty in certainpopulations.

Since 1990, the Alaska Science Center of the NationalBiological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior and theLaboratory for Space Monitoring and Eco-informationSystems of the Russian Academy of Sciences have col-laborated on a program to evaluate and exchange contem-porary technologies that have applications to biologicalresearch in Arctic regions. The goals of the program(Applications of Contemporary Technology in EcologicalStudies of Large Mammals) are to develop joint methodsto collect, process, and integrate remotely sensed data andto create geographic information system (GIS) database

structures and models for ecological studies of large mam-mals in arctic environments. Both laboratories have estab-lished compatible capabilities for analyzing and exchangingsatellite imagery and GIS databases.

Other areas of collaboration between the National Bio-logical Survey and the Russian Academy of Sciences(A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution) in-clude the following: collecting concurrent optical andimaging radar satellite data for sea-ice habitats and devel-oping databases for investigating large mammal (polarbear, walrus) ecology in arctic environments; incorporat-ing Canadian RADARSAT synthetic aperture radar (SAR)data with the completed ERS-1, JERS-1, and Landsatdatabase for Prudhoe Bay, Alaska; continuing to analyzethe capability of SAR to discriminate landscape character-istics; and expanding a multitemporal SAR database to aidin developing techniques for monitoring changes in emer-gent wetland tundra ecosystems.

Multidisciplinary projects conducted in the RussianArctic over the past 10 years have shown that humans havetraditionally played a far greater role in shaping the naturalenvironment in the Arctic than was previously understood.There is a growing realization that the Arctic is a distinctnatural and cultural entity that should be studied andpreserved as such, and that traditional knowledge is aninvaluable source of information about the Arctic environ-ment and human adaptations. There is a renewed commit-ment in Russia today to study and preserve thesefast-disappearing cultures before they are overcome bymodern industrial civilization. One major step in thisdirection is the proposed creation of protected natural-cultural areas that would preserve traditional ways of lifeand land-use patterns.

In summary, the levels of cooperation and collaborationbetween Russian and foreign scientists specializing inArctic research over the past decade have been impressive.However, as Russia struggles with internal political andeconomic issues over the coming years, we need to main-tain existing avenues of communication and continue tooffer international support. The Arctic is an importantregion that offers a unique opportunity for cooperative andcomparative research, in part because it is subdividedamong different countries (i.e., study areas) in the easternand western hemispheres, each supporting some similarand some unique natural biological and cultural systems.The Arctic, and especially the Russian Arctic, deservesour best efforts in understanding and conserving it.

Stephen R. Johnson and Sergei B. Yazvenko, LGL Limited,Environmental Research Associates, 9768 Second Street,Sidney, British Columbia, Canada V8L 3Y8

Yurij Yu. Dgebuadze, Deputy Director, A.N. Severtsov Instituteof Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences,Leninsky Prospekt 33, Moscow 117071, Russia

Evgeny A. Kriksunov, Professor of Ichthyology, Moscow StateUniversity, Vorobievy Hills 119899, Moscow, Russia