Problems of Regulatory and Legal Support for the Regulation of

Tourist Flow in the Recreational Territories of the Murmansk Region

Marija Menshakova

, Ramziya Gainanova

and Eugeny Potorochin

Laboratory Monitoring and Preservation of Natural Ecosystems of the Arctic, Murmansk Arctic State University,

Murmansk, Russia

Institute of North Industrial Ecology Problems of Kola Scientific, Separate subdivision of the Federal State Budgetary

Institution of Science of the Federal Research Center "Kola Science Center" (INEP KSC RAS), Apatity, Russia

Keywords: Regulatory framework, specially protected natural area, regulation of tourist flow, recreational load.

Abstract: The analysis of the regulatory framework for regulating the tourist flow and determining the recreational

capacity of natural territories is carried out. The importance of sustainable development of tourism and

recreation is declared in the legislation on tourism activities, in the field of forest relations and protected areas.

It is established that the existing methodological approaches to determining the recreational capacity of

territories have limitations and cannot be applied in the Arctic zone.

1 INTRODUCTION

The development of tourism in the XXI century in

Russia is largely associated with the sustainable

development of the regions. This direction of the

economy is often contrasted with industrial

production and in some single-industry towns

becomes an alternative to enterprises that are closed

for various reasons. It is generally accepted that

tourism, including nature-oriented tourism, does not

cause significant damage to ecosystems. However,

these ideas are not entirely correct, since tourism

associated with recreation in natural ecosystems

inevitably causes various damages, the degree of

danger and damage from which is often difficult to

quantify. Pinning their hopes on tourism as one of the

drivers of socio-economic development, the regional

authorities are setting the business to increase the

tourist flow. Particular attention was paid to the

growth and development of domestic tourism in

2020, when holidays outside the country were very

limited due to the pandemic. The Murmansk region is

one of the most promising regions for the

development of the tourism industry due to its

geographical location and the uniqueness of nature,

which allows you to create tourist products for a

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variety of tastes and budgets. Tourists especially

appreciate the proximity of the ocean, the wide

opportunities for extreme recreation, the opportunity

to observe the aurora for almost 9 months of the year.

The attractiveness and tourist potential of the North

of Russia and the Murmansk Region, in particular, are

evaluated in a number of works (Sevastyanov, 2018;

Gainanova, Potorochin, 2019; Petrova, Borovichev,

2019; Yakovchuk, 2020).

At present, the main limiting factors for deterring

the tourist flow are the relatively low development of

the relevant infrastructure (hotels and campsites,

high-traffic transport, etc.). On the territory of nature

reserves, the number of visitors is also determined by

the fact that visiting ecological trails on their territory

is possible only if accompanied by an employee.

The need to normalize the tourist flow is

becoming more and more obvious, and this problem

is most acute in specially protected natural areas, such

as national and natural parks, nature reserves and

natural monuments, where tourists can stay

independently.

Unfortunately, the issues of determining the

recreational capacity of tourist areas in the Arctic are

currently not fully developed. At the same time, an

adequate assessment of recreational capacity is a

Menshakova, M., Gainanova, R. and Potorochin, E.

Problems of Regulatory and Legal Support for the Regulation of Tourist Flow in the Recreational Territories of the Murmansk Region.

DOI: 10.5220/0010681900003169

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc-Practical Conference "Ensuring the Stability and Security of Socio-Economic Systems: Overcoming the Threats of the Crisis Space" (SES 2021),

pages 29-32

ISBN: 978-989-758-546-3

prerequisite for making rational decisions on the

regulation of recreational loads.

The purpose of this work was to analyze the

regulatory framework for regulating the tourist flow

and determining the recreational capacity of

territories located in the Arctic zone.

2 RESEARCH METHODS

The current regulatory legal acts were analyzed: the

Temporary Methodology for Determining

Recreational Loads on Natural Complexes in the

organization of tourism, excursions, mass everyday

recreation and the temporary norms of these loads

(hereinafter referred to as the Temporary

Methodology), as well as the regulatory legal acts of

the federal and regional levels that determine the state

policy in the field of tourism development, issues of

recreational development of protected areas:

1. Federal Law No. 132-FZ of 24/11/1996;

2. Order of the Ministry of Natural Resources of

the Russian Federation No. 69 of March 19,

2012;

3. Order of the Federal State Budgetary

Institution "All-Russian Research Institute of

Ecology" dated 09/08/2016 No. 18;

4. Resolution of the Government of the

Murmansk Region of 15/10/2020 No. 701-ПП;

5. Resolution of the Government of the

Murmansk Region of 24/03/2011 No. 128-ПП;

6. Resolution of the Government of the Russian

Federation No. 1039 of 13/07/2020;

7. Resolution of the Government of the

Murmansk region of 11/11/20 No. 780-ПП;

8. Order of the Government of the Russian

Federation No. 2129-р of 20/09/2019.

9. Order of the Government of the Russian

Federation No. 2322-р of 22/12/2011.

3 RESULTS OF THE STUDY

The analysis of the regulatory framework showed that

there are gaps and inconsistencies in the current

legislation that do not allow for a full assessment of

the recreational capacity of tourist territories. While

the Tourism Development Strategy until 2035

actually obliges the authorities and economic entities

to conduct such an assessment. The Federal law "On

the basics of tourist Activity in the Russian

Federation" declares the need to normalize

recreational loads. The legislation in the field of forest

relations provides for a mandatory assessment of the

recreational capacity when using forests for

recreational purposes. Such an assessment is carried

out using a Temporary methodology, which on the

one hand provides a fairly complete classification of

recreational activities and creates a methodological

basis for assessing the recreational capacity of

territories covered with forests. On the other hand,

this document does not take into account the recent

types of recreational activities, such as: such as

snowmobiling, which is a very popular entertainment

at many tourist sites in the Murmansk region,

especially located in the tundra zone and mountain

ranges. It can not be attributed either to sports tourism

or to excursions. But the impact on the environment

of this type of activity can be quite significant: the

compaction of snow cover inevitably leads to

negative consequences for wintering plants and

animals, with a thin snow cover, branches of tundra

shrubs break, and there is also pollution from engine

exhaust gases and petroleum products.

Even in the forest communities of the Kola

Peninsula, it is quite difficult to make an accurate

assessment of recreational capacity using these

methods, since the specifics of boreal forests are

extremely low soil thickness and surface occurrence

of root systems. In this regard, even very intense

recreational loads do not lead to the destruction of the

soil to the mineral parent rock, but to the exposure of

the roots of woody plants, which are located very

densely in the surface layer of the soil. Thus, Time-

based measurements would lead to an incorrect

impact assessment.

One of the most vulnerable ecosystems in the

Murmansk region also turned out to be marine littoral

areas, which in some areas do not so much serve as a

place for excursions, but are the only possible place

to travel to certain tourist sites on the White Sea coast.

It is not possible to assess the damage using a

Temporary technique on the littoral.

Decree of the Government of the Russian

Federation No. 1039 of 13/07/2020 regulates

measures aimed not so much at preserving natural

ecosystems as at increasing the accessibility of

recreational facilities for tourists, including people

with limited mobility. At first glance, this document

is rather loosely related to the issues of assessing the

recreational capacity of protected areas. But if we

take into account that the arrangement of tourist

routes for visiting them by different categories of

tourists contributes to a significant increase in the

recreational load, then the connection becomes

obvious.

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The current Concept for the development of the

system of specially protected natural territories of

federal significance for the period up to 2020

emphasizes the role of protected areas in creating

conditions for the development of regulated tourism

and recreation. Among the tasks for the

implementation of the direction "Development of

educational tourism", the document provides for an

assessment of the maximum permissible loads and

determining ways to minimize the negative impact on

natural ecosystems.

The concept of functioning and development of

the network of specially protected natural territories

of the Murmansk Region until 2018 and for the future

until 2038, as one of the goals of functioning and

development of the network of protected areas of the

Murmansk region, defines the implementation of the

socio-economic interests of the region through the

development of natural and ecological tourism. As a

mechanism for ensuring sustainable recreational

development of territories, the document provides for

the environmental regime approved by the

regulations on protected areas.

Thus, the Concepts of development of protected

areas networks at both the federal and regional levels

recognize the importance of regulating recreational

loads, but do not contain information about

methodological approaches and mechanisms for

implementing this task.

The analysis of the normative legal acts regulating

the creation and functioning of protected areas also

showed that the assessment of recreational capacity is

not provided for in the preparation of justifications for

giving territories the status of protected areas in the

Murmansk region (Decree of the Government of the

Murmansk Region of 15/10/2020 No. 701-ПП), when

maintaining the state cadastre of protected areas

(Order of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the

Russian Federation of 19//03/2012 No. 69; Order of

the Federal State Budgetary Institution "All-Russian

Research Institute Ecology" of 09/08/2016 No. 18).

4 CONCLUSIONS

In the current legal framework, the assessment of the

recreational capacity of territories is a mandatory

requirement only for forest lands. The existing

methodological approaches (Temporary

Methodology) do not allow assessing the recreational

capacity not only in tundra and coastal ecosystems,

but also in the northern taiga and forest tundra. For

protected areas, regulatory documents do not contain

requirements for assessing the recreational capacity

of territories either at the stage of creation or at the

stage of operation, which creates prerequisites for

irrational establishment of the boundaries of

functional zones and protection regimes of such

territories.

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SOCIO - ECONOMIC SYSTEMS: OVERCOMING THE THREATS OF THE CRISIS SPACE"