The Russian government has approved the creation of the Volcanoes of Kamchatka national park following a decree signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. The new federally protected natural area will cover nearly 888,000 hectares, consolidating the existing South Kamchatka and Klyuchevskoy regional parks. Management of the site has been transferred to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
The park will be situated across the Ust-Kamchatsky, Milkovsky, Ust-Bolsheretsky, and Yelizovsky municipal districts of the Kamchatka territory. Almost the entire area consists of designated forest lands. Approximately 143,000 hectares currently under lease or in permanent use will be incorporated into the national park without being removed from economic activity. The initiative will be financed from the federal budget under the Ecological Well-being national project.
Within six months, the Ministry of Natural Resources must develop and approve the administrative framework for the new park. This document will establish the conservation regulations for the natural complexes, while the ministry has also been instructed to accommodate amateur and sport hunting within the territory in accordance with current Russian legislation.
The legal formalization of the park boundaries will span several years. The ministry is required to submit the necessary data for inclusion in the Unified State Register of Real Estate by the beginning of summer 2027. The reclassification of forest plots into the category of specially protected territories must be finalized by December 2029.
Elevating the protection status of the Kamchatka volcanoes to the federal level follows concerns raised by United Nations agencies. In the autumn of 2023, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee considered moving the Volcanoes of Kamchatka – a designated site since 1996 – to its list of World Heritage in Danger. To avert this reclassification, Russian authorities agreed to comply with international recommendations. To preserve the unique ecosystem, the region has definitively abandoned planned gold mining projects that carried a potential investment value of up to 15 billion rubles.