On the categorial uncertainty at federal and regional levels in the sphere of regulation of specially protected natural territories

The analysis of federal and regional legislation on specially protected natural territories revealed the need to unify the approach to the formation of key concepts in this area. Today, at the federal level, there is no definition of such categories as “functioning of specially protected natural territories”, “regime of protection of specially protected natural territories”. When creating protected territories, the special protection regime includes areas of land, water surface and air space above them. As a result, each object is subject to double regulation (on the one hand, as part of such a territory, on the other, as a component of the natural environment and an object of civil law). At the same time, the concept of "protection regime" at the regional level (for example, in the Chelyabinsk region) differs from the federal one. The lack of a unified approach leads to the emergence of legal conflicts in law enforcement practice. The article concludes that it is necessary to improve environmental legislation in terms of unification of concepts related to protected territories, and it is also proposed to eliminate the identified shortcomings by making changes to regional legislative acts.