Russia’s environmental legislation 1855–1913

We study the development and change in priorities in Russia’s environmental policy in the period of 1855–1913. We systematize all of the important legislative acts on nature management (land use, forests, rivers, fishery, the animal kingdom, etc.), geographical regions, ruling figures, and authorities that changed over time. We examine the expediency of taking into account the derived patterns in contemporary nature conservation practice. Important for modern Russian are legislative acts devoted to state regulation of private trade in natural resources, the exclusion of coastal strips of waterbodies from private property, the introduction of rare animal species and forest restoration, protection of the environment from pollution resulting from extraction and transport of oil and oil products, combatting the depletion of fish resources, and many others.