The objects of Nature Reserve Fund of Poltava oblast as a factor of ecological tourism development
Authors: Alekseeva Tetiana 
Published: November 2020

The feature of present time is a sharp deterioration of environmental quality, so it is important to form the population with careful attitude to nature. The efficient approach of influence on the people’s consciousness is ecological tourism that is spreading in many countries. Its development in Ukraine is closely connected to environmental areas. That’s why the Nature Reserve Fund for ecological tourism development question is interesting and socially important.

At one time, the contribution to the development of ecological tourism was made by domestic and foreign scientists. In this way works of A. S. Kuskov considered the main tasks of ecological tourism and requirements for work. O. Dmytruk defined principles, functions, and integration foundations of ecological tourism. V. V. Khrabovchenko studied the question of origin and development of ecological tourism and analyzed the phenomena of ecological tourism as a factor of stable development. General theoretical and practical aspects of recreational nature management in Ukraine were covered by K. Y. Kilinska, V. M. Rudenko, N. P. Anipko, N. S. Andrusiak, N. I. Konovalova. The foreign scientists B. Dzhons, R. Bakli, H. Lofman developed the conception of ecological tourism.

The each region has its own specific conditionals of development of ecological tourism. Among them is the Natural Reserve Fund.

The aim of this work is to study the objects of Poltava Regional Natural Reserve Fund as factors of ecological tourism development.

The paper used the domestic and foreign geographical sources and methods: descriptive, analytical, synthesis, comparison, deduction, graphic, cartographic and others.

Nowadays there are in existence several definitions of the concept ecological tourism. The Ukrainian scientist O. Beidyk thinks ecotourism is a recreational activity which has the least impact on the natural environment.

The ecological routes are applied for different purposes: recreational, educational and upbringing, gaining the emotional impressions from communication with nature etc.

The Nature Reserve Fund – is a territories and objects which have a special protective, scientific, recreational and other value. They are created for saving the natural diversity, maintaining the general ecological balance and environmental monitoring.

Ukraine has 11 categories of nature-reserved objects. All of them differ in potential needed for ecological tourism development. There are 384 objects in Poltava oblast. They make up 4,95% of a the total area of the region. Among them there are 178 partial reserves, 2 national natural parks, 5 regional landscape parks, 137 natural monuments, 2 dendrological parks, 1 botanic garden.

The partial reserves are one among the most numerous environmental objects of Poltava oblast. They are created to maintain the ecological balance and to save biological kinds and natural complexes. Botanical, landscape, geological, hydrological, forest partial reserves of Poltava oblast are picturesque areas around coasts of rivers where the plants are well preserved. The environmental legislation still has not provided them for recreational use.

Natural monuments are a big category of environmental objects that have protective, scientific, cognitive, cultural, and recreational value. The most promising for tourism developing are complex, botanical, geological and hydrological natural monuments. They can be attracted to make ecological routes, or be used for educational and upbringing purposes.

A large value for ecological tourism development has regional landscape parks that are created to save natural complexes and objects to provide the conditions for rest of population. The main functions of regional landscape parks are protective, defense the culture and history memorabilia, recreational and educational.

Among of such objects Dykan regional landscape park that saves age-old broadleaf forests. The regional landscapes Kremenchuk Plains park is located within the floodplain and island of Dnipro (Zelenyi and Shalamai) has a lot of opportunities for making of ecologically oriented routes, organizing excursions for pupils and students.

Protect tracts are characterized by considerable potential for development of ecological tourism, but the legislative mechanism to use them are still unregulated.

The dendrological parks are made to save different kinds of trees and shrubs for the most efficient scientific, cultural, recreational, educational use. So their resources are actively attracted to organization of tourist activity. In this way, the ecological tours are done in the Ustimov dendrological park, where visitors can become familiar with its interesting history and variety of plants.

So, environmental territories and objects play a big role for development of ecological tourism in Poltava oblast. The resource of national landscape parks are attracted to the most to recreational activity. The cognitive direction of ecological tourism is the most important for dendrological parks, natural monuments, botanical gardens of Poltava oblast. This gives them special educational and upbringing value. The organization of tourist activities within the protected tracts and environmental areas can still be considered (with some exceptions) as a potential task.