Critical pressure: wildlife refuges on the brink of destruction. Expedition report.

I rarely write materials with personal observations from the wild. In my experience — nobody is really interested, only a handful of people read them! In fact, this is very unfortunate because it shows a lack of interest in practical research, observations, and no need for any experience. And therefore, no expansion of personal horizons of knowledge!

But we constantly conduct expeditions. I personally study remote corners of the wild, and when I talk about environmental issues — I always rely on my own practical observations! That’s how we traveled through the distant corners of the Russian Taiga, dozens of expeditions from one edge to the other of mighty Russia. We studied deforestation, documented violations, and solved problems!

If I tell readers that it is urgently necessary to ban the logging of cedars, as the centers of interspecies connection in the boreal taiga biogeocenoses, it means that I primarily see these problems myself! And I pass on this practical experience not only to readers, but also to government agencies.

In recent months, I have been conducting local expeditions in the jungles — equatorial tropical forests. This work is very important for a future international project that we are currently preparing! I want to create maps of future Total Ecological Peace Territories, but in order to do this, I need to gain on-the-ground experience. To understand what we are opposing and what we are trying to achieve.

I want to share my observations with you today.

There are now many scientific meta-studies on the colossal impact of humans on wildlife around the world. In just 50 years, people have led to the extinction of about 73% of all living species; these are the estimates of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). At the same time, I studied data from IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) from 2019, according to which over 1 million species on the planet are threatened with extinction due to human activity.

Logging, water pollution, intensive agriculture, and other factors.

So then! What am I constantly talking about?

You know that we have launched the TEP (Total Ecological Peace) Concept, presenting a real plan to solve global problems in the world — by forcibly allocating refuges for wildlife.

In general, the Earth’s biosphere has its own refuges, called refugia — these are relatively isolated areas of wildlife where conditions still allow species that have been displaced from other regions to survive. However, these areas are usually limited in size and are also surrounded by degraded natural territories and lack “corridors” for essential biological processes to circulate.

This leads to the effect of isolation! That is, we see the complete exploitation of all terrestrial ecosystems by humans, while the remaining refuges (mainly in mountainous ecosystems) are isolated from each other and barely withstand pressure from all sides.

I have studied a lot of scientific research on this subject. For instance, there is good scientific work indicating that when forest areas are fragmented, isolating the “forest mosaic” from each other, it leads to a gradual and inevitable decline in biological diversity. Animals and plants resist for some time, but then begin to give up — slowly dying out.

In my local expeditions now, I conduct research observations. Agree, one person can do very little, especially without proper funding! And as you know, we do everything with our own resources.

But then how do we carry out observations, understand ecological problems, and attempt to forecast the future boundaries of peace territories?

As a researcher — I can do a range of work in the wild. Expeditions allow me to record the visual condition of forest areas and coastal zones, assess the degree of deforestation, the presence of garbage, observe soil erosion. All of this is a key indicator of the state of biological systems!

It’s actually very simple: these problems should not exist in wildlife refuges. Therefore, it’s enough to visit remote ecosystems to visually assess their condition! I usually create a chart for a specific ecosystem, break it down into main signs of ecosystem degradation, and then examine the wild nature by land squares, noting my personal observations in a field journal.

I also keep track of sightings of wild animals and birds, try to identify specific species, under what conditions they were encountered, and at what time. It’s especially important to identify invasive species (which shouldn’t be there) and also to see if certain species dominate over others! This usually indicates ecosystem degradation.

But the most important thing that allows me to conduct personal research observations is talking to hunters, farmers, fishermen, fruit gatherers, and so on. That is, everyone who interacts with wildlife! They usually provide information about the local ecology, such as which animals have become more or less common, the last time they saw certain species, whether the behavior of animals is changing — are they entering villages, are their activity cycles changing?

Many specialists ignore this issue, but it is no less important: if animals have suddenly become much more common near populated areas, taking fruit from orchards, what subsequently fixes the situation? Under what circumstances did animals stop coming to humans?

Typically, it turns out that the animals first approach people, then farmers start spreading poison, and the animals just die out! Thus, people’s personal impressions are distorted, whereas in reality — the entire local ecosystem begins to perish, step by step.

In general, the work is very long and difficult! But I don’t understand how it’s even possible to protect nature if you don’t know anything about it and don’t observe it. How can we talk about the need to protect refuges if we’ve never even seen them in person?

Therefore, it is extremely important to carry out this work. But, I repeat, few people are interested in it! And if you, my dear reader, are reading this text now — know that you are one of the few who actually read this far. Someone who expanded their personal horizons of knowledge and helped pass them on!

And I’m immensely grateful to you for that!

Let’s return to my observations.

I see that the problem of wildlife destruction is becoming completely unmanageable. In recent years, the pressure of humanity on ecosystems has increased thousands of times, and as the exploitation of the wild expands, the remaining animals are beginning to retreat under human pressure. They leave their usual habitats and move toward refuges! And people follow, finishing off the animals and trying to tear their refuges to pieces once and for all.

So, my personal research, observations in expeditions, show that the last wildlife refuges are already undergoing uncontrolled degradation. Forced migration of animals from destroyed ecosystems into the remaining “islands of nature” is starting to cause overcrowding!

Imagine: your city is being destroyed, and you know that there is one district in the city center that still provides food, a place to sleep, and life. You go there, along with a huge crowd of people! Everyone competes, tramples each other, kills for food. And everyone wants to live!

That’s exactly what is happening right now in the wild.

First I saw it in Russia, in our country’s regions. From Karelia to Kamchatka! We conducted a lot of expeditions. And now I’m making observations in expeditions through the southern tropical forests!

I see that there is already a shortage of forage, predators are putting more pressure on their prey, herbivores are eating vegetation more intensively, and as a result, all food chains are disturbed! The order of ecosystems is disrupted.

And animals keep arriving from destroyed territories. And they clash in fierce competition with each other!

I spoke with residents of different parts of the wild in various countries where I conducted my observations. Everyone agrees that there have been more epizootics (the spread of diseases among animals). There have been diseases in livestock, and people have started using more chemicals and medicines! In fact, we determine the rise of diseases by this sign. This can be catastrophic for small wildlife refuges, since without alternative habitats, animals simply have nowhere to go to escape diseases. A single epidemic can destroy them all.

Then I studied the connecting corridors between refuges! In rare cases, there are such transitions, but they also become isolated after two or three wildlife areas. All the rest lack biological corridors, meaning that populations become isolated and lose genetic diversity.

Why is this dangerous? It’s simple, and I’ve written about it many times in my materials!

Inbreeding increases — when animals form closely related ties due to a small population, it leads to genetic diseases, anomalies, extinction. Animals become smaller, they suffer! Gradually moving toward a biological dead end that simply makes life impossible for them.

Animals also lose adaptability, adaptation skills; they develop serious defects in instinctive behavior and methods of obtaining food.

I also see that a “mutual” flow of species begins: wild ones go to people for food, while domestic and invasive species begin to inhabit the outskirts of wildlife refuges. This again leads to the exchange of zoonoses (diseases) and irreparable consequences.

In every case when I spoke with local residents, they unanimously stated that they started killing more animals. If animals come to their gardens for fruit, for instance, people take guns — and go shoot them! Conflicts only grow. And almost always, the killings are committed illegally, without licenses or control!

A monkey took your banana — you killed the monkey and its entire family. You left the forest, nobody knew! You saved your fruit, and the ecosystem got even more disrupted.

WE NEED REFUGES

These are my personal observations from our expeditions. And I realize that action must be taken urgently! But which of the officials, various “administrators” in state governance systems, knows anything about this at all? Who has personally touched upon these problems, assessed the state of biological systems, or at least read any scientific data from scientists?

I even see dead bees in wildlife refuges! Wild bees fly to people’s fields to collect nectar. People spread tons of poisons, the bees get poisoned, return to the family and, upon contact, wipe out the entire colony! That’s it — you walk through the refuge, and under your feet, in the grass, even on the flowers, you literally see piles of dead bees.

So, I see an urgent need for radical changes. And having studied ecological problems for more than ten years — I personally see no alternative to our TEP Concept. In reality, nature can be saved (and so can we, as people) only by forcibly and very urgently withdrawing all remaining wild areas into global Total Ecological Peace Territories.

At the same time, it is important to link these territories together. To ensure the interconnectedness of biological systems! I studied a scientific work on this subject, a meta-analysis, supposedly published in the journal Biological Conservation in 2018 (7 years ago!!) — the presence of connectivity among forest areas increases species diversity by 20–30%, compared to completely isolated areas.

In other words, even simply connecting areas of wild nature with corridors already provides up to a 30% increase in biological diversity.

And we are talking about an even greater effort! Creating peace territories around the world. I am now completing a very important stage in my work, and my team is preparing the website infrastructure to launch an international project.

Let’s prepare peace territory projects worldwide! Let’s do a full-scale development, economic justification, backed by scientific data and personal observations! We will promote all of this in the form of separate “TEP Initiatives” individually around the world. Let’s try, after collecting proposals (it’s a very long process) — to contact states directly, from the smallest island ones to the largest, and offer them projects to solve environmental problems.

Nature urgently needs refuges from humans! One more step — and the situation can’t be fixed. These are the main conclusions I see in my work today: from my expeditions.

© PAVEL PASHKOV