Sokhondinskiy Biosphere Reserve

UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, inscribed 1984, in Russian Federation. Set in eastern Russia’s Zabaykalsky Krai, about 25 kilometres north of the Mongolian border, Sokhondinskiy Biosphere Reserve centres on Mount Sokhondo, an isolated massif trending south-west to north-east, with elevations from roughly 900 to 2,500 metres. The reserve lies at the junction of two biogeographical regions, the East Siberian taiga and the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe, creating a pronounced transition from forest to steppe that rises into subalpine and alpine belts. The reserve’s objectives are to uphold strict non-intervention in the core, regulate resource use in the buffer, and use the transition zone to study interactions between people and nature and to model sustainable land management.