Western Caucasus

• Lack of Management Plan
• Weakening of conservation controls and laws
• Impacts of proposed tourism infrastructure development
• Road construction
• Deforestation

On 30 January 2014, the State Party submitted a State of conservation report, which is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/900/documents/. This report addresses some of the issues raised by Decision 37 COM 7B.23: 

• The State Party plans to submit a proposal for a significant boundary modification of the property. Part of the Lagonaki plateau would be removed from the property. The State Party intends to establish the so-called “Lagonaki biosphere polygon” by June 2015, and to allow the construction of large-scale tourism facilities on part of it. The State Party also plans to include the Upper Mzymta Valley as well as part of Sochi National Park within the newly nominated site. This would upgrade their status and forbid new construction and extensions of existing infrastructure there:
• A sustainable tourism strategy and overall management plan are under discussion with stakeholders and will also address the establishment of an overall coordination body for the property;
• The State Party plans to set up a “reservation area” within the Western Caucasus State Biosphere Reserve by the end of 2014, which is said to contribute to the newly nominated site and its buffer zone. It is unclear which area is referred to and what will be its protection status;
• Regarding the request to adapt certificates of nature monuments inside the property, the State Party concludes that “sanitary cutting” cannot be forbidden by the existing legislation, and general logging, road construction, power lines and other constructions are already forbidden by the existing “certificates”.

Decision 37 COM 7B.23 should be recalled, in particular that the installation of any capital construction on the Lagonaki Plateau, including Mounts Fisht and Oshten would constitute a case for the inscription of the property on the List of World Heritage in Danger, in line with Paragraph 180 of the Operational Guidelines. The State Party is developping a proposal for a significant boundary modification of the property including the exclusion from the property of parts of Lagonaki Plateau, in order to permit construction of large scale tourism facilities. While the State Party report notes that the areas proposed to be excluded are already degraded, the proposal for boundary modification will have to demonstrate that excluding these areas would not impact on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property. The 2012 World Heritage Centre/IUCN reactive monitoring mission considered that given the importance of the Lagonaki plateau area, it would be clearly impossible to exclude all the areas which have been identified as suitable for alpine ski development without seriously impacting the OUV of the property.

The State Party Report does not explicitly address the request to send Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports on all infrastructure upgrading/development projects to the World Heritage Centre before any decisions on these are taken. No information is provided about the Persian Leopard reintroduction project or on the development of infrastructure at the biosphere centre at Lunnaya Polyana.

Several other pressures are worth noting:

• Federal Law N°406-FZ adopted on 28 December 2013 adapts the Federal Law on Specially Protected Areas, weakening the protection status of strict nature reserves, including parts of the property, by allowing the construction of tourism facilities. The World Heritage Centre requested the State Party, in conformity with paragraph 174, to provide detailed information regarding legal instruments and regulations applicable to the World Heritage natural properties in the Russian Federation. At the time of the preparation of this document, no response has been received.
•  Various works inside the strict nature reserve (e.g. upgrade of Babuk Aul forest road, cable car construction at “Biosphere scientific centre” and other facilities nearby), have been carried out in 2013 without prior assessment of their effects on the OUV of the property. The World Heritage Centre requested the State Party, in conformity with Paragraphs 172 and 174 of the Operational Guidelines, to verify the information and to submit an EIA for any proposed infrastructure upgrading inside the property for review by the Advisory Bodies before a decision is taken.
• The development of infrastructure at the biosphere centre at Lunnaya Polyana which is not in line with its function as a meteorological research centre.
• There remains no buffer zone around the property and the situation of the buffer zone on the northern boundary of the property has not yet been clarified;
• No progress has been reported regarding the implementation of an overall management plan.

There is limited progress with the implementation of the recommendations of the 2012 joint World Heritage Centre/IUCN reactive monitoring mission. No operational measures and decisions to significantly strengthen the protection regime seem to have been taken since the previous session of the Committee, while the legal basis for effective conservation of the property's OUV appears to have deteriorated. The requests made by the Committee in Decision 37 COM 7B.23 therefore remain valid.

Furthermore, it is recommended that the World Heritage Committee request the State Party to report on the state of the proposed reintroduction of Persian leopard in the Western Caucasus, which is directly linked to the OUV of the property, which is reported to have been approved in early 2014.