| Summary: | In the late 1960s, a group of scientists of the Komi Scientific Center conceived a national park to undermine the plan of Soviet engineers to divert the Pechora and Vychegda Rivers south to the Caspian Sea. Without guidance or support from central planning ministries, they conceived a national park in the Nether-Polar Urals that they hoped would reorient much of the region’s economy away from extractive industries and toward tourism. As was the case with other national parks, however, the transformative—almost quixotic—vision for Iugyd Va National Park (established in 1994), coupled with political and economic collapse, sowed the seeds for the park supporters’ disappointment. Pointing to the unrealistic vision of the park’s founders, representatives of the mining industry have repeatedly asserted that the national park has prevented the republic from developing its most valuable economic resource as it sought to pressure government officials to redraw its boundaries.
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