The landscape and ecological framework as a territorial basis for stable development in Russia’s agricultural regions

Forming a landscape‐ecological framework is an urgent task supporting the adoption of a strategy for the progress of specially protected natural territories in Russia by 2030. According to the author, the strategy does not fully reflect the specifics of the development of the network of territorial nature protection objects in the agricultural regions of the country.Aim Substantiate proposals for optimizing the network of protected areas.Materials and Methods. Methods of cartographic analysis of schemes of physical and geographical zoning, generalisation of the results of expedition research, assessment of the representativeness of the existing network of protected areas and a comparative assessment of the most valuable landscape and natural biotic plots were used in the paper.Results. As a result of this study a complex of new and promising sites has been identified for inclusion in the landscape and ecological framework, which can constitute the natural reserve fund of the regions as clusters. The study covers steppe and forest‐steppe landscapes of southern European and Asian Russia. The problem has been considered in the context of subjects relating to physical and geographical zoning. Proposals for the modernisation and expansion of the network of objects included in the landscape and ecological framework were compiled based on expedition studies, combined with quantitative and qualitative indicators of natural diversity.Conclusions There is a need to modernise the existing network and to create new nature reserves based, among other things, on as‐yetunrealised projects for the creation of reserves.