Development of Russian Legislation on Geoparks

At the end of 2015, a new category of UNESCO sites appeared — global geoparks. Due to the gap in federal legislation, some Russian constituent entities have created geoparks in various ways, which has led to heterogeneous changes in their regional legislation. Geoparks have become the subject of domestic ecological and legal research from the perspective of models of their organization, legal regime, legal protection of geographic diversity and rational use of geological heritage. The scientific approaches to the creation and operation of geoparks in Russia are considered to be narrow (exclusively as an independent category of specially protected natural territories) and broad (variability of organization models). There are two main directions in the regional legislation for the creation and operation of geoparks: 1) as a certain territory, including specially protected natural territories of regional significance, objects of natural and cultural heritage and other valuable objects (Republic of Bashkortostan); 2) as a specially protected natural territory of regional or local significance (Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)). The weaknesses and strengths of such legislative directions have been identified. The following alternative trends in the development of Russian legislation on geoparks at the federal level are predicted: 1) consolidation of the only legal model for the creation and functioning of geoparks as a way to manage nearby specially protected natural territories of any category or parts thereof, cultural and natural heritage sites and other valuable objects, as well as adjacent territories without reducing the severity of the protection regime of specially protected natural territories, objects of natural and cultural heritage with a special regime of entrepreneurial activity in the environmental, scientific, educational, educational, cultural, historical and tourist spheres; 2) consolidation of the variability of legal models for the creation and functioning of geoparks.