Five natural areas of Kazan to receive protected status

(KZN.RU, February 25, by Taisiya Basharkina). Comprehensive environmental survey of five areas that may be granted the legal status of protected areas will be held in Kazan this year. Kazan Federal University professor Nafisa Mingazova told the meeting of the city Environmental Council that they will include the Kadyshevo woodland, Chuykov Street wetland, Aki pine forest, Komsomolskoe Lake in the town of Derbyshki and the area around the source of the river Kinderka.

The total area under survey is 300 hectares. The collected materials confirming the uniqueness of the areas and the presence on their territory of valuable plant and animal species will be forwarded to the RT Cabinet of Ministers, which may give these areas protected status. This means that they will be guarded against further development and misuse.

"This is good news. The work undertaken will further preserve the green areas from development and protect green spaces," expressed his confidence Mayor Ilsur Metshin.

The city administration will take care of the remaining green areas. Currently, on behalf of the Mayor of Kazan, work on securing borders and cadastral registration of green areas is underway at 157 sites. It is intended that126 of them will be turned into public gardens, and 29 will be preserved as natural landscapes.

Ilsur Metshin thanked the members of the Environmental Council for their work and hoped that they will continue their work systematically, rather than on a case-by-case basis. "We need to keep the greening and landscaping bar high," he stressed.