Duplication and Originality in Establishing Regional Categories of Specially Protected Natural Territories in Russia

In empirical studies of environmental law and policy, an important place is occupied by the issue of the underlying mechanisms that determine the relationship between territorial state structure and environmental performance. Duplication is among such mechanisms in the federations, including Russia. This paper addresses a specific aspect of the problem, i. e. the duplication in the establishment of regional categories of specially protected natural territories. The goal of the research is to determine the combination of originality and duplication among regional categories and to provide a legal interpretation of the observed phenomena. The objectives are (1) to collect a database of legal information about all regional categories; (2) to compare each federal category with each regional category and to find out whether the given regional category is original or duplicated; and (3) to aggregate the results of the comparison and make their legal interpretation. The main method of the study is a comparison made with a special quantitative technique. Additional methods are analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction. Also, a few methods of statistical data analysis are used. As a result of the research, it is determined that duplication among regional categories in Russia often prevails over originality, and the median level of similarity between federal and regional categories is higher than the normal level of similarity. Most likely, part of the duplication results is explained by the fact that regional legislators do not sufficiently regulate the specifics of regional categories. Duplication has negative and positive consequences; i. e. it could result in lax legal protection of valuable territories,but it also could act as a compensatory mechanism overcoming the drawbacks of the federal regulation, and as a safeguard against negative changes of federal legislation. Thus, it may be proved that duplication could be unreasonable or justified. The regional legislators should avoid unreasonable duplication and regulate in detail the specifics of regional categories.

Keywords: specially protected natural territories; categories of specially protected natural territories; kinds of specially protected natural territories; governance types of protected areas; comparison of categories; federalism; regional legislation; duplication; statistical analysis; empirical legal studiest