Review and improvement of the present legislative and regulatory framework for establishment of SPAs and conservation of biodiversity

1. Develop a uniform legal policy, improve the effective national biodiversity legislations and harmonize them among the three riparian countries.

2. Propose legislative amendments and mechanisms of building an infrastructure for managing specially protected areas of national and international importance.

3. Develop recommendations on optimizing the land use structure and plans of introducing environmentally friendly agricultural practices in Poless andye. Design and implement a series of measures to restore or maintain traditional commercial activities on pastures and hayfields of the Dnipro floodplain and those of its tributaries.

4. Review the national legislations on forestry, with the aim to amend it by providing for the conservation and development of biological and landscape diversity.

5. Amend the riparian countries’ effective legislations by including regulations on methods and systems of forestry management.

6. Amend the three countries’ legislations by envisaging a transition to intensive selective cutting and reduction of areas under clear-cutting.

7. Adopt a system of by-laws regulating the use, loading and restoration of biological resources and their quality categories, as well as relationships among the users with regard to biological resources.

8. Create conditions for the effective implementation and enforcement of adopted laws. To this end, develop feedback mechanisms and hold the authorized agencies responsible for the enforcement. The above responsibility should be governed by the law.

Improvement of the SPA system management

1. Set up a unified international body in charge of managing and developing the SPA system.

2. Develop uniform, theoretically substantiated principles of establishing specially protected areas. Design a basin-wide management scheme and a strategy of the SPA management and development.

3. The following measures should be taken to conserve biodiversity in the middle part of the Dnipro Basin:

- Reorganize some of the existing SPAs and identify SPA protection zones, analyze the coverage of regions with maximum concentration of rare and protected plant species by the SPA system (Drogichin, Stolin, Pinsk, Dokshitsa, Gomel, Zhlobin, Kalinkovichi, Lelchitsy, Loev, Mozyr, Petrikovsk, Rechitsa, Khoinik, Borisov, Logoisk, Minsk, Pukhovichi, Smolevichi, Bobruisk, Osipovichi);

- Design and implement plans of SPA management, particularly in what concerns the conservation of wetlands, including preserves “Millde Prypiat’”, “Vygonoshchansky”, “Olmanskiye Bolota”, “Dnipro-Sozhsky”, “Staritsa”, “Smychek”;

- Develop environmentally sound structure of the region’s territorial planning that will regulate the location and development of residential settlements, industrial, agricultural and recreational sites and facilities, transport and engineering infrastructure with the aim of preserving biodiversity resources;

- Promote the establishment of the following SPAs: national park “Svosloch-Berezinsky”, hydrological preserve “Golubitskaya Pushcha”, biological preserve “Danilevichsky”, and specially protected areas in the Dnipro flood-lands at the stretch Zlobin-Rechitsa and in the River Ubort flood-lands.

Forming the SPA cadastre (inventory)

1. Introduce an inter-state cadastre of specially protected areas of the Dnipro Basin.

Information support to management and environmental monitoring

1. Complete inventory of biological resources and the assessment of changes in ecosystem natural state, and plant and animal genetic pool in the Dnipro Basin.

2. Complete inventory of biodiversity of the Dnipro Basin ecosystems and the assessment of their environmental condition (environmental spectrum of species).

3. Organize monitoring of biodiversity of rare and endangered species, on one hand, and the biodiversity monitoring as a system of assessing quality of human, animal and plant habitats, on the other.

4. Further develop forest monitoring system, particularly focused on biodiversity conservation.

5. Organize a network of zoological monitoring sites in the region and include them into the inter-state environmental monitoring system.

6. Establish inter-state information systems on biodiversity conditions in the Dnipro Basin.

Conservation of landscape and biological diversity

1. Carry out measures for rehabilitation (re-introduction and natural restoration) of rare and endangered species of flora and fauna.

2. Set up an ecological network (ECONET) based on SPAs as key territories, and on protection forests and river valley wetlands as “green corridors” to ensure protection and spatial relationships of typical and rare natural complexes in the Dnipro Basin.

3. Further develop the system of the most significant SPAs at the international level as a unified ecological framework of the Dnipro Basin

4. In order to conserve biodiversity in the Upper Dnipro Basin, it is necessary to finalize the process of granting specially protected area status to water-divide sectors of three sea basins, namely:

- First of all, SPAs should be set up on the Dnipro River. Its headstreams are in close vicinity of the River Vazuza tributaries (River Losminka), the Vazuza River – the Moskva River – the Oka – the Volga – the Caspian Sea. This region should receive a national park status, its boundaries should be clearly established and area recorded;

- The headwaters of rivers starting in Viazma highlands should be placed under special protection. Here lies the border of the water divides of the Caspian Sea Basin (the Vazuza with its tributaries, numerous tributaries of the Ugra – all within the Volga system) and the Black Sea Basin (the Dnipro tributary Viazma);

- Of special interest are the headwaters of rivers staring in Dukhovshchinskaya highlands, particularly the Khmost’ (the Dnipro Basin) and the Zherespeya (the West Dvina). Their headstreams are situated 2 km apart from each other. The region, especially the Zherespeya flood-lands, is a habitat of about 10 bird species indicated in the Red Book of Smolensk oblast and the Red Book of Russia. Therefore, a federal preserve shall be established here to preserve and protect the headwaters and rare bird species.

- The area of Yelninskaya highlands where numerous Dnipro Basin rivers (the Khmara, the Desna, the Uzha, the Volost, etc) and the Volga Basin rivers (the Ugra with its multiple tributaries) start, requires special protection. A federal preserves should be created here to fulfill three important objectives: biodiversity conservation at the border of two sea basins; protection of the Vazuza hydro-engineering facilities supplying water to Moscow from contamination; and preservation of an important cultural heritage site – A.S.Griboyedov manor – situated in this area.

5. Continue the designation and description, according to the Ramsar criteria, of key wetlands in order to grant them an international or regional protection status.

6. Continue to identify key habitats of rare and endangered species beyond SPAs and place them under protection.

7. Develop theoretical substantiation and establish international biosphere reserves in transboundary territories, most significant for biodiversity conservation, design and implement transboundary Belorussian-Ukrainian projects of improving the SPA system in the Prypiat’ Basin.

8. Develop and implement action plans of conserving European endangered species: reedwarbler, double snipe and others.

9. Carry out a study of the trans-Polessye migration corridor and organize a regional center for ringing and studying bird migration.

10. Identify and protect the areas of the largest bird migration gatherings.

11. Revise land use practices in separate areas to ensure the conservation of rare plant populations; search for new habitats and assist in settling species in acceptable eco-topes (using active and passive methods); tighten control of anthropogenic impact.

12. Plant forest shelter-belts (with dominating original tree species) on eroded or erosion-susceptible soils.

13. Develop theoretically substantiated program of rehabilitating landscapes disturbed by human activities. This program should foresee a gradual installation of more effective treatment facilities and introduction of cleaner production technologies.

14. Develop a forecast of environmental impacts of reconstructing amelioration systems; prepare recommendations on mitigating its adverse impact on biotic complexes.

15. Design and implement a basin-wide program of using ineffectively drained lands and/or former peat mines (peat dug-outs), and of remedying adverse impacts of large-scale drainage projects in the Dnipro River Basin.

16. Design and implement a target program of forestation of exhausted peatlands and lands withdrawn from agricultural use.

17. Adopt a sustainable approach to regulating water drainage systems in the course of exploiting and re-vegetation of peateries to prevent uncontrolled fires.

18. Develop an inter-state basin-wide program of optimizing forest coverage.

19. Combine commercial forestry activities with environmental functions of the forests.

20. The following steps should be taken for biodiversity conservation in the Lower Dnipro Basin:

- Withdraw 3.5 million hectares of arable land from agricultural use at the expense of eroded land and restore their natural biodiversity – forest, meadow, steppe and marsh in the following ratio: 1.5 : 1.0 : 0.5 : 0.5 million hectares;

- Develop a new concepts of drainage amelioration in Polessye and a plan of biodiversity re-naturalization, first and foremost, within the boundaries of river drainage areas;

- Carry out afforestation and establisment of meadows on eroded lands and ensure their use for designated purposes, paying special attention to afforestation and meadowing of steep slopes;

- In the steppe zone, withdraw from agricultural use the erosion-susceptible land and ensure re-naturalization of steppe diversity there. It is desirable to plant forests in sectors with sufficient soil moisture;

- Remove all river floodplains and other lands adjacent to water resources from the inventory of arable lands, and restore forests and meadows on them. Tilling all arenas of the Dnipro and its tributaries should also be stopped;

- The Dnipro water reservoirs, with the total area of 700 thousand hectares, are of particular concern. The most accessible territories requiring limited financial resources and hydro-engineering works should be withdrawn from these water reservoirs. Contemporary geo-morphological, hydrological and technical conditions allow restoration of natural complexes, that used to exist in these territories, with regulated water regimes similar to polder systems.

21. Develop a strategic action plan of conserving forest ecosystem biodiversity.

22. Carry out forest certification.

State environmental control

1. Tighten up controls over the use of land within and beyond specially protected areas.

Environmental expert assessment

1. Introduce procedures of branch and strategic environmental impact assessment, including assessment of threats to biodiversity.

2. Tighten up requirements to environmental impact assessment at the project level, especially with regard to urban development and mining projects, including assessment of threats to biodiversity.

Environmental education and awareness

1. Design and implement a series of environmental awareness programs and educational activities in the region: develop informational and methodological materials for landowners and land users whose land parcels are included in SPAs or on whose land parcels protected species populations have been registered; organize special training for forestry workers and water resource managers in the basin.