Media: agreement on Chechen-Ingush border threatens "Erzi" Reserve

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation is studying the issue of changing the territory of the "Erzi" Natural Reserve in connection with the border agreement on the Chechen-Ingush border, the "Kommersant" reports. Environmentalists fear that the reserve will lose the land that was passed over to Chechnya.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 26, Ramzan Kadyrov and Yunus-Bek Evkurov signed an agreement on fixing the above border. On October 4-17, residents of Ingushetia held a protest action in Magas, the capital of the republic.

On October 30, the Ingush Constitutional Court (CC) declared the law on the border with Chechnya unconstitutional. The head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Evkurov, said that this decision does not cancel the border agreement, as it had already entered into force.

Ingush activists reported construction works in the reserve, which now belongs to Chechnya. According to Barakh Chemurziev, the chairman of the social movement "Support of Ingushetia", trees are already being cut down here.

Such activities are illegal and violate the protection regime of the reserve, Mikhail Kreindlin, an expert of the "Greenpeace of Russia" has stated.

In response, the above Russia's Ministry said that the area of the reserve is not decreasing, but, "on the contrary, it will grow by the new territory."

It should be noted that back in late August, the "Support of Ingushetia" reported about construction works under the protection of Chechen law enforcers in the territory of Ingushetia. The authorities of Ingushetia left these actions without any public reaction, activists then stated.