The Professional Ethos of Rangers in Russian Nature Reserves

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of Russian nature reserves, which are now changing their form and status as all organizations have done since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author is mostly concerned with the study of the professional ethos of the ranger. The similarity of the rangers’ ethos is determined by their common experience of work in the forest. The variability is explained by the difference in the environments of nature reserves, such as the proximity of a city or state border. The attempt to integrate this study in the corpus of works about social effects of nature reserves is made in the conclusion.

Keywords:

• Professional ethos
• Nature reserve
• Social environment
• Russia

Notes

1. I have studied nature reserves since 2002, when I spent 2.5 months in Altaj nature reserve (Gornyj Altaj republic) in the training camp for rangers. In 2004, with the help of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, I conducted 1 month of fieldwork at Volzhsko-Kamskij nature reserve (Tatarstan republic). In 2006 I studied Jerga nature reserve (Buryatia republic) for almost 2 months for my PhD research, supported by INTAS. In the autumn of 2006 I spent 3 weeks at Biosphärenreservat Süd-Ost Rügen in Germany.

2. Since 2001, rangers have only been permitted to go into the forest in groups consisting of three persons. The third person can also be a scientific researcher, but the other two must be rangers. This rule is prescribed in frames of the administrative law.

3. Catching, grasping (German).

4. Pointing (German).