In the context of current environmental crisis, the study of the rich Russian historical and legal experience in the field of environmental protection, which is valuable not only in scientific but also in applied terms, is of particular relevance. In the Russian empire of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the first systematic steps were taken to create protected areas, and a regulatory framework governing their activities was developed and adopted. In the pre-revolutionary period, the fundamental foundations of the regime of specially protected natural territories (hereinafter – protected areas) were laid, which continues to develop in modern Russia. The purpose of the article is to identify effective and problematic aspects of its functioning based on the study of historical and legal experience of formation and evolution of protected areas regime in Russian empire. In course of the research, relevant methodological approaches were applied: civilizational and systemic, as well as a set of general scientific and special methods: analysis and synthesis, historical-comparative and comparative-legal methods. The author conducted research of historical and legal experience of formation and development of protected areas in pre-revolutionary Russia, revealing its strengths and systemic shortcomings. The article concludes that the legal principles of functioning of protected areas regime in modern Russia have deep historical and legal roots that lie in science and law of Russian Empire of period under review. The analysis of studied issues allowed us to focus on one of urgent problems in activities of Ministry of natural resources and ecology of Russian Federation – the difficulties of procedure for approving creation of protected areas of regional importance. To solve this problem, a clearer and more effective regulation of creation of protected areas in subjects of Russian Federation is proposed.
Grigoriy Egorovich Vedernikov (Thu,) studied this question.