Ubsunur Hollow Biosphere Reserve - History

History

Ubsunur Hollow was nominated for inclusion in Russia's second World Heritage Site (the first being the Virgin Komi Forests) in 1995 as "one of the largest intact watersheds in Central Asia where up to 40,000 unexcavated burial mounds and other archaeological sites can be found from historically famous nomadic tribes such as the Scythians, the Turks and the Huns." The nomination was submitted in conjunction with the Tuva Republic and Mongolia and included 75,000 square kilometres of forest and steppe and associated cultural and natural heritage. Other sites included in this first Russian listing proposal were:

• The Virgin Komi Forests in the Russian Far East (40,000 km2), the principal habitat of endangered species such as the Amur tiger.
• The Volcanoes of Kamchatka (40,000 km2) including unique forests, salmon streams and volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula).
• The sources of the Ob River in the Altai Mountains (65,000 km² of mountain ecosystem) of Siberia.
• Vodlozero National Park (including Lake Vygozero) (10,000 km2), Europe's largest intact wetland and old-growth boreal forest (taiga) ecosystem.

Ubsunur Hollow Reserve (Tuva) was awarded international Biosphere Reserve status in 1998, as a step toward protecting Southern Siberia's wilderness which contain Russia's largest intact tracts of Siberian Pine and Siberian Fir-dominated ecosystems.