Hello. I am Mikhail Yablokov. I have devoted almost my entire conscious life to conservation work - the Nature Protected Areas System. I am a Ph.D. biologist. From 2006 to 2016, I have worked as Director of the Polistovsky National Nature Reserve (Pskov Region), 2016-2017 as Director of the Joined Directorate of Baikal Protected Areas "Zapovednoe Pribaikalie" (Irkutsk Region). In 2018 I set off in a new direction as a freelancer and independent expert.
Currently I am:
- Coordinator from Russia on the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA IUCN Focal Point);
- Steering Bureau Member of the Expert Council on Russian Protected Areas;
- Coordinator of the Association of Reserves and parks of the North-West region of Russia;
- team member of Nature Defender's School project.
Areas of work
I work mostly with Russian federal protected areas and participate in conservation projects with various non-profit organizations. These activities can be divided into four major areas, though many projects may be classified under more than one heading:
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is the most effective approach to planning the activities of institutions that manage protected areas. It is not very time-consuming, maximally resistant to constantly changing conditions and minimally dependent on resources. This is the most successful choice for those institutions who want to develop.
Tourism in Protected Areas
Tourism in Russian national parks has existed for as long as the parks themselves, since the 1980s. Tourism in the Reserves of our country is a relatively new phenomenon, which has been officially developing since 2011. However, all this time questions arose: whether tourism is needed in protected areas, what kind, how to develop it, for what?
Sociology of Nature Conservation
My biggest discovery in nature conservation is that we protect nature both from people and for people.
All conservational work is built on continuous interaction with people, from preventive conversations with violators to building long-term relationships with the locals or partnerships with NGOs.
SMART System
The SMART system is a software complex designed to optimize the work of protected areas protection services around the world. This tool is used in almost 50 countries of the world, in Russia it is used in the protected areas of the Far East and beyond.
Something else could be here. But I didn't come up with :)
Contacts
