Exclusion of a land plot from the boundaries of protected natural territories (OOPT) is permitted only upon confirmation of the loss of its special significance for the entire territory.
To exclude a land plot from the boundaries of a protected natural territory that has lost its scientific, cultural, aesthetic, and other special significance, it is necessary to determine the value and purpose of the excluded part in relation to the entire protected natural territory.
Citizen challenged the decision of the city council dated 2023, which introduced changes to the resolution adopted in 2009 on the establishment of a protected natural area of local significance in the form of a protected landscape, specifically regarding the exclusion from the boundaries of this protected natural area of a land plot with an area of 5.3 hectares.
At the same time, citizen pointed out that there were no grounds for such changes, since the land plot excluded from the PNA is located in an economic zone, ensures minimization of anthropogenic impact on adjacent forest areas, its exclusion does not meet the objectives and tasks of establishing the PNA, removes restrictions on economic activities carried out on it, which will contribute to increasing anthropogenic load and the degree of degradation of the PNA ecosystem.
Establishing the absence of data indicating the loss by the excluded territory of its particular scientific, cultural, aesthetic, and other particular significance, court concluded that the contested decision did not comply with the requirements of federal and regional legislation, and therefore canceled it in the contested part.
The Court also noted that the loss by a part of the protected natural area (OOPT) of its special scientific, cultural, aesthetic, and other special significance must be determined with reference to the objectives, functions, and tasks for which the OOPT was established, specifically those tasks and functions for which this area was included in the OOPT. At the same time, it is necessary to establish the inability of this part of the territory to fulfill the tasks assigned to it in relation to the [territory](/enc/33369/ "Definition of the term 'Territory' in
("legal encyclopedia") Protected Natural Areas of Particular Importance and impossibility of restoring its qualitative characteristics (preamble, point 1 of article 2 of the Law on Protected Natural Areas of Particular Importance).
Thus, research on the excluded part of the territory of the protected natural area, considered separately from the entire territory of the protected natural area and its purpose, cannot serve as a basis for concluding that part of the protected natural area has lost its special scientific, cultural, aesthetic, and other special significance.
In the case under consideration, the court has established that an assessment of the value of the excluded part of the territory from the disputed protected natural territory by relation to the entire natural complex was not conducted. The data contained in the expert opinion submitted to the court do not confirm the loss of special scientific, cultural, aesthetic and other special significance by the excluded part of the protected natural territory.
Unjustified exclusion of part of the territory from protected natural areas (PNA) does not correspond to the objectives of establishing PNA and functional zoning of such territory.[Source](/enc/31662/ "Definition of the term 'Source' in the legal encyclopedia): Thematic Review of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 11/2026. On consideration by courts of cases related to rights to land plots of certain categories of land removed from circulation and restricted in circulation, and use of such plots