The conceptual question – to be or not to be eco-tourism in nature reserves – has been debated for many years, with many representatives of the scientific community and the nature reserves themselves insisting that it is unacceptable for nature reserves (they continue to insist).

In the U.S., the development of ecotourism is the direct responsibility of the administration of a national park or refugium.

Ecotourism activities in nature reserves are extremely small-scale. There are dozens, hundreds, in the best case – thousands of visitors per year. And in the total figure the majority of visitors are nature museums’ visitors on the central estates of several reserves, the visitors themselves – mainly from among local schoolchildren or holidaymakers of neighboring resorts. Classical, cognitive tourism, associated with visits to specific routes in the protected area, is better developed. The Valley of Geysers in Yellowstone National Park in the USA is visited by 2 million tourists annually.

The development of mass tourism in our reserves is very popular. But limited, cognitive (not entertaining, “here listen to the birds, not transistors”), carefully regulated tourism in the reserves, taking into account their size, specificity, traditions will only raise the rating of our reserve business, will increase the social significance of reserves, will increase their credibility in the eyes of the population and authorities (which reserves lack), and become an additional and strong argument against continuing attempts to engage the natural resources of protected areas in other forms of economic de