World Heritage Russian sites of WH


Great Vasyugan Mire

great_vasyugan_mire  

Status of Property: Nature Park

Area: 0.509 million ha

Situation: Inscribed on the Russian Tentative List

 

Большое Васюганское болото

 

The Great Vasyugan Mire - the largest mire system in the northern hemisphere of the planet - is located in the central sector of the West Siberian plain, which is a geographical phenomenon because of extremely wide spread of mire. The mire takes a considerable amount of the territory of the country between the river Ob and the river Irtysh. Spread of the mire from west to east is about 550 km, from north to south in the axial part - in average 50-80 km; spurs or "tongues" taken into account, spread of the mire from north to south reaches 270 km. The square of the Great Vasyugan Mire is more than 55 000 km² which is about 2% of the whole square of peat bogs of the world.

The eastern part of the Great Vasyugan Mire (5090,45 km²) is suggested to be nominated for inclusion into the World Heritage List.

The Great Vasyugan Mire is a natural phenomenon having no analogues in the world. It has a unique system of natural complexes, extreme complexity of the landscape structure, development of special types of mire massif. Location of the mire in a transitional belt between a sub zone of small-leaves forests and a southern taiga zone, different rate of salinity and alkalify of soil of the mineral mire bed and various time of the beginning of mire formation resulted in vegetation diversity and peat deposits of different types, as well as considerable distinction in the structure of forest and mire complexes on its southern and northern periphery. The mire is a model of marsh landscapes of the southern part of a forest zone in West Siberia.

Being a natural reserve for a large range of forest and mire landscapes and connected with them associations, population and species of plants and animals, including rare ones, the Great Vasyugan Mire simultaneously fulfills important biosphere functions connected with depositing carbon into peat deposit and producing oxygen with the help of mire vegetation. Being a region of forming water collectors of big tributaries of the Ob and the Irtysh the Great Vasyugan Mire is a zone of extreme environmental importance on the territory of West Siberian plain. Its biosphere role and regional functions taken into consideration the territory "Great Vasyugan Mire" suggested for nomination does not yield to the world-known complex of reserves in the Central Amazon area in this respect.