Administrative responsibility as an element of ensuring the legal regime of specially protected territories and facilities

Introduction. The article discusses the problems of providing specially protected areas and facilities with legal protection measures. The abundance of areas of the natural environment classified as protected, the lack of their systematization, the multitude of legal sources, the use of nonunified terminology lead to problems of legal qualification of delinquent behavior. Materials and methods. When writing the article, both general scientific and special legal methods of scientific knowledge were used, such as analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, logical, comparative legal and other relevant methods. Analysis. Legal responsibility as a reaction of the state to the unlawful behavior of subjects pursues several goals: from the suppression of an unlawful act, the punishment of the perpetrators to the education of both the violators themselves and other persons, and the restoration of violated public relations. Therefore, it is important that the act designated as an offense be correctly formulated in the normative legal acts of the protective branches of legislation, thereby giving law enforcement officers the opportunity to adequately qualify them. Specially protected territories and sites need legal protection more than any other due to their uniqueness, vulnerability, vastness of species, ecological and recreational significance. Results. The analysis of the legislation made it possible to identify the shortcomings inherent in the legal protection of these territories and facilities and suggest ways to improve the legislation.