The territory of Russia is great - over 17 million square kilometers. Hence rich natural diversity. In this article, we cite some major statistics of animal, fish and plant species existing in Russia.

Flora

Russian flora consists of more than 11 thousand species of plants, about 5 thousand of the moss family and lichens and about 30 thousand species of mushrooms. 1363 species have various useful properties, 1103 species of them are used in medicine. A big part of them can be used commercially.

Russia has always been rich in forests — 22% of the Russian territory is covered with forests. Wood stock in Russia is about 82 billion cubic meters, but forest fires occur quite often in dry summer months. The biggest forests can be found on the large territory of Siberia and Far East, while in central Russia there are fewer forests.

Russia exports timber overseas. But although the country is still quite rich in forests, some types of it including lichen tundra and taiga are disappearing. The reasons include not only the fires that occur especially often in the Republics of Komi, Buryatia, the Khabarovsk Krai, Chita, Irkutsk and Arkhangelsk regions, but urbanization and forest degradation as well. The worst forest exploitation began in the XX century. The damage accounts for about USD 110 million a year. Forests are not used rationally and biodiversity is decreasing.

There are certain norms of wood cut and some actions are taken to reproduce forests, but the management is still quite poor because of the high costs. There are about 23 air bases with a hundred airplanes protecting about 700 million hectares of forests.

Fauna

The territory of Russia is very big and the number of animal species living in it accounts for about 150,000. Among them there are 732 species of birds, 320 species of the mammals, 29 species of amphibians, 80 species of reptiles and about 2,000 species of sea and fresh-water fish.

Also about 1500 species of sea fishes live in the seas washing our country.

There are also some endemic species that live only on this territory.

Among the fur animals are sable, fox, polar fox, mink and nutria. Some of them, for example polar foxes, are grown in the special farms. People living in the cold regions of Russia often wear fur hats and fur coats in cold winters.
In Russia hunting 60 species of mammals and 70 species of birds is allowed. The common objects for hunting are waterfowls, heath-cocks, hares; wild reindeers are popular for hunting in some regions.

Fish

The Fish industry is very well developed in some regions of Russia. Fishing and fish processing is popular in some regions of the central part of Russia and Russian Far East located near the seas or rivers. Fishing is developed in the regions located near the White, Baltic, Caspian, Black Sea, Sea of Azov and northern seas including Barentsevo and Okhotsk Sea. In general, the fish stocks are used most intensively in the European part of Russia - about 80% of fish are caught here. And the share of the water reservoirs of the Ural and the Western Siberia makes up to 70% of the total catch of the river fish. The most popular fish is the lancet fish, capeline, herring, sprat, the sea flounder, the sand dab and the pollack. Among the other popular but more expensive fish are salmon, Chatka crabs, beluga and sturgeon. The numbers of some of these fish are falling now, that is why in 2001 catch of the sturgeon was prohibited in some places.

In 2000 the total catch of fish in the fresh-water reservoirs of Russia reached 111 000 tons. The same as earlier, the main part (more than 41%) is small fine-mesh fish; the bream and white-fish species (16% each) and some sturgeon and salmon species.

It is not surprising, because the population of the rare species of fish (sturgeon, salmon and pikeperch) is reducing, as well as the stocks and the number of the predatory fish species, such as the pike, the turbot, and catfish. Intensive human activity (not only the catch, but industrial development as well) resulted in the decrease of fishing in such lakes as the Ladoga, Onega, Ilmen and Beloye.

Environmental Protection
The Red Book

The Red Book is the list of rare animal, plant, fish and other species under threat of disappearance. The reasons for disappearance vary from urban impact, lack of protection measures or peculiarities of natural conditions. It was created in 1974 and since that time is regularly updated and enlarged. At the present time the Red Book cites 415 species of animals and plants including 65 mammals, 123 birds, 21 reptiles, 8 amphibious, 43 fishes and 155 species of invertebrates, 95 of them insects. It is an official legal document that refers to the nature protection legislation. In Russia, there are national and regional Red Books.

In some of the regions, violations of the environmental legislation occur quite often and the hunting of rare species takes place.

Natural Protected Areas

Natural Protected Areas (NPA) are objects of national property. The NPA represent sites of land, water and air above that cover natural complexes and objects that have special nature protection, scientific, cultural, aesthetic, recreational and health-improving value.The Russian government has set up special categories of these zones. These objects include national parks, natural parks, botanical gardens, health-improving districts etc. They are always the property of the Russian central or regional government. These natural complexes and objects are absolutely (or partially) withdrawn from economic activity by the decisions of state power bodies and special protection orders are established for them.
The state natural reserves are the nature protection, scientific research, ecological, educational organizations founded for preservation and study of natural processes and phenomena, genetics of flora and fauna, separate species and communities of plants and animal, typical and unique ecological systems. Currently there are about 100 natural reserves in different regions of Russia. Management of these reserves is subject to national legislation.

National park is another form of protected zones management. Presently there are 34 national parks, most of them in the central part of Russia. The first national parks called Sochinsky and Losiny Ostrov in the Moscow region were created in Russia in 1983. In the national parks, both the unique nature and historically and culturally valuable objects are under protection.

Environmental problems became subject to public attention at the end of the Soviet era, after the Chernobyl disaster and some other environmental crises. In the beginning of the1990s, at the time of democratic reforms that led to decreased industrial production air, water and earth pollution reduced. However the present management of natural resources in Russia is still very poor. Little or now attention is paid to disappearances of some species with only small groups of enthusiasts concerned. Much has to be done to grab public attention, to change attitudes and management of natural resources.

Evgeniya Stroganova