Opinions of Russian townspeople about involvement of protected natural areas in their life

Abstract

Along the development of specially protected natural areas (SPNA), many urban areas are also deeply saturated with them. SPNAs can play an important role in the local economic and social development, however, the methodology for studying the involvement of SPNAs in the local population life is not well developed that determined the purpose of the paper. It is proposed, on the basis of a survey of the population living in the territories adjacent to the SPNA, and within the region, to identify the features of the cultural, recreation and economic behavior of citizens in the protected areas. The methodology was tested in the urban districts of Orenburg, Bryansk and Krasnodar. As a result of the survey, the opinion of the population about specific SPNAs in urban districts was revealed. On average, SPNAs are visited by 20% to 40% of the local residents, who mostly stay in SPNAs for 3–5 hours. More than half of local visitors to protected areas use catering services. Payment for sports and recreation services is more typical for residents of Orenburg and Bryansk. According to local residents, they spend an average of 1.1 to 3.6 thousand rubles per visit to protected areas. According to the frequency of visits to protected areas declared by people, the cost per month can range from 13 rubles to 7.9 thousand rubles. Taking into account the data of economic statistics and the results of the survey, the annual expenditures of local residents on protected areas were estimated, which in Orenburg made 1.4 billion rubles (or 0.9% of the income of the city population), in Bryansk — 2.1 billion rubles (or 1.6%) of the income), and in Krasnodar — 8.7 billion rubles (or 1.7% of the income). The approach of analytical processing of survey results and comparison of different sources of information, proposed by the authors, makes it possible to expand data on municipalities.