KRASNOYARSK, July 19. /TASS/. Employees of the Taymyr Nature Reserves joint directorate and local schoolchildren have created a tourist environmental path in Ary-Mas, the world’s northernmost forest located on the Taymyr Peninsula.
Ary-Mas is located beyond 72 degrees north latitude, while the other forests across the world end at 68 north latitude. There are no more trees from Ary-Mas to the Arctic Ocean.
"Ary-Mas itself is small: it is 20 km long and 4 km wide at its widest point. Its area is just 156 square kilometers. Still, there is a great variety (about 90) of bird species," said Yekaterina Lisovskaya, Deputy Director of the Taymyr Nature Reserves joint directorate, which manages the Ary-Mas forest.
The directorate, which organized an environmental and ethnographic camp for schoolchildren from the boarding school in the village of Khatanga - one of Russia’s northernmost communities - established the environmental route, one of the northernmost tourist routes in the world as well. Children from hard-to-reach areas and nomad families created the six-kilometer path named "The Legends of Lake Bogatyr-Kyuel" after the area’s largest body of water.
The nature reserve’s employees made a registered route map, which contains the admissible tourist load which poses no danger to the forest’s ecosystem. The established tourist route targets mostly local holidaymakers.
"As you know, the tourist potential has problems: mass tourism is impossible in Taymyr, as it greatly depends on the changing weather conditions. Still, we want to work with the local population on this route. There are just about 5,000 people living in the Khatanga settlement, so we don’t think the locals may do any harm (to nature,)" Lisovskaya said.
Tourists from mainland travel as far as Ary-Mas several times a year, she said, and there are even projects of regular entry for groups, including foreign groups. However, in this case visits to the forest, including the environmental path, will be highly restricted.
"These are just plans now, but if they become reality not all tourists will be able to enter Ary-Mas. It is not taiga, it is very fragile, so we will restrict visits to avoid trampling," she said.