Lake Baikal

Status: State Biosphere Reserve, National Park

Status: State Biosphere Reserve, State Nature Reserve, National Park, Nature Preserve

Area: over 8 mill ha

Current state: inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 1996

Lake Baikal is located in southeastern Siberia. The area included into the World Heritage List in 1996 (by all four criteria), is 3,150,000 ha. Lake Baikal is one of the greatest lakes on the planet, a lake of "superlative degrees". It is the deepest (1637m) and the oldest (about 25,000,000 years old) lake that contains the greatest number of flora and fauna species among all freshwater bodies on the Earth. The lake contains 23,600 cubic meters of water unique in its quality and volume (over 20% of the world stock). The depression of Lake Baikal is the central link in the ancient Baikal rift system.

The whole basin of Baikal is a unique and a very fragile natural ecosystem, maintaining a unique natural process of production of clearest drinking water. The climate of the Baikal shores is amazingly mild compared to the typically rigorous Siberian climate. In fact, the number of sunny days in the Baikal exceeds that in most of the Black Sea resorts.

The depression of the lake basin together with the mountain systems surrounding it make an important natural border in Siberia. It is the junction of habitat limits of a number of flora and fauna species. It is also a place where unique biocenoses that cannot be met elsewhere in the world are represented. Due to its isolation and ancient origin, the Baikal basin became a place where the richest and world's most unique freshwater fauna originated. It has exceptional importance for the study of the world's evolutionary processes.

Out of 2635 plant and animal species and subspecies discovered in the lake to date, over 80% are endemic to the area. They emerged and developed in the lake and are not encountered anywhere else. Who has not heard of the famous Baikal omul and the Baikal sturgeon? Two other unique viviparous fish species known to the ichthyologists worldwide are the large and small golomyanka (Comephoridae baicalensis and Comephoridae dubowski). The Baikal seal, a typically marine mammal, crowns the top of the lake's ecosystem pyramid.

EXISTING THREATS

1. Forest logging in the catchment area.
2. Destruction of wild animals' habitats in the catchment area of Lake Baikal resulting from construction activities, excessive impact of recreation and withdrawal of land from National Parks and reserves.
3. Biological contamination of the lake.
4. Contamination of the lake and inflowing rivers by industrial and agricultural wastes.
5. Atmospheric emissions of the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill and the Selenginsk Cardboard and Pulp Mill, as well as of the Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo industrial area.
6. Contamination of soils in the Baikal region by toxic wastes of industrial facilities.
7. Local radioactive contamination.
8. Construction of the oil pipeline from Estern Siberia to Pacific Ocean crossing the Upper Angara River.