Year: 2020, Number: 4, Pages: 114-137
The State Kerzhensky Nature Biosphere Reserve was organized in 1993 with the aim of preserving of the taiga biological diversity in the Volga River basin. The reserve is located in the Nizhny Novgorod Region on the left bank of the Volga tributary - the Kerzhenets River. The territory of the reserve is a part of wetlands of international importance and an international key ornithological territory - the Kamsko-Bakaldinskaya group of bogs. According of the UNESCO program "Man and Biosphere" by the decision of the international coordinating council in 2002, the Kerzhensky Natore Reserve received the status of a Biosphere Reserve, becoming the core of the biosphere reserve "Nizhegorodskoe Zavolzhye". At present, on the basis of many years of research on the territory of the reserve, 383 species of fungi, 207 species of lichens, 841 species of algae, 216 species of bryophytes, 649 species of vascular plants have been identified. In the reserve, its protected zone and in the village of Rustai, adjacent to the reserve, 2586 species of animals were found, including 1711 species of insects, 178 species of arachnids, 110 species of crustaceans and 103 species of rotifers. There are 8 species of amphibians and 6 species of reptiles in the reserve. The bird fauna of the reserve with the adjacent territories of the buffer zone and the village of Rustai includes 183 species, the fauna of mammals - 47 species. In 2014, the Kerzhensky Nature Reserve began a program for the reintroduction of the forest subspecies of the reindeer, which disappeared from the territory of the Nizhegorodskoe Zavolzhye at the beginning of the 20th century.