Steppe Program

The mission of this unit is to establish a comprehensive database on the current environmental situation in the steppe zone, and to use this information pool as the basis for developing specific conservation projects to be carried out by the program itself or in collaboration with the interested agencies.

Prior to the advance of settled agriculture into the steppe zone, which started on a large scale in the early 19th century, pristine grasslands had occupied immense areas in southern Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. These countries derive a large part of their agricultural output from the steppe zone, usually at the cost of the destruction of its native communities. The replacement of virgin steppe by plowed fields, sown pastures for livestock, and planted forest belts has seriously damaged the integrity of the natural ecosystems, resulting in devastating droughts, crop failures, and the ubiquitous degradation of agricultural areas.

In the spring of 1999, BCC joined Natural Ecosystems Laboratory (Samara) and the Siberian Environmental Center (Novosibirsk) in establishing a combined program aimed at preserving the biodiversity of, and fostering sustainable land management in, the steppe zone of Russia and the former Soviet Union.

The Program’s current activities include:

• the publication of a quarterly Steppe Bulletin (in Russian) and its English-language verion - "Open Country";
• a project on “Developing a Support System for Decision-making in the Management of the Ecological backbone of the Samara Province”;

In addition to this, the Program has identified the following initiatives as the core areas for its future work:

• preparing an analytical report on the problems of biodiversity preservation and the development of a viable agriculture in the steppe zone across the former Soviet Union;
• promoting new legal norms to bring land use within the steppe zone of Russia in accordance with ecological principles;
• elaborating methods of steppe restoration and sustainable steppe agriculture;
• developing economic incentives for sustainable land management in the steppe zone;
• creating networks of specially protected natural grasslands in southeast European Russia and west Siberia;
• fostering biodiversity preservation within military ranges covering extensive areas in the steppe zone of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine;
• implementing the “Steppe Frontier” project, aimed at maintaining the reservoirs of biodiversity along the border between Russia and Kazakhstan (and possibly, the Russian-Ukrainian border as well).

Program Head: Andrey Elizarov, Ph.D. (Laboratory of Natural Ecosystems, Samara)

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