Ecological tourism
For ecotourists two main options exist to visit Berezinsky, either individually and on their own, or as a member of a tour organized by an external tour operator such as Great Glen Wildlife.
The main advantages of choosing the latter route are: most of the formalities associated with travel to Belarus and Berezinsky will be taken care of for you, you will not have to worry about the language barrier most of the time, you will come with an experienced tour leader. The main disadvantages are: depending on your location it may be difficult or not feasible to use a tour operator from a particular country and you depend on the schedule offered by the tour operator.
However, with the way ecological visits to Berezinsky are organized, difficulties associated with individual travel to Belarus can be substantially minimized.
The reserve will issue an invitation for the tourists to acquire Belarussian visa. Then if Berezinsky is the only location in Belarus to be visited, the reserve can dispatch a vehicle that will transfer the tourists to Berezinsky upon their arrival to the airport or train station. Since the reserve employs English speaking interpreter no linguistic issues should arise.
Ecological tourism is not among the main tasks of Berezinsky reserve. This may appear to be not a very encouraging statement, but actually it is quite the opposite. For, among other things, it means that now, doing only a few ecological tours per year, Berezinsky can grant to ecotouists access to parts of the reserve that are off-limits to general public. As soon as the number of visitations increases, that access will be granted no longer as anthropogenic pressure will interfere with nature conservation, which is one of the priority tasks of the reserve.
Berezinsky does not have a set of rigidly defined ecotourism programs either. Instead, preparing an itinerary typically proceed as follows. After receiving a request with specifically outlined requirements, Ecotourim department that is in charge of organizing and conducting ecotours, invites specialists from the Scientific and Forestry departments to review the request and present their suggestions. Based on these suggestions a new tour program is created. Each of these specialists — who will later on participate in the tour as guides — apart from being an expert in a particular field has already worked with visiting scientists and ecotourists and has a good idea of their expectations. The above procedure applies to every ecotour for individual visitors as well as groups coming through an agency with a tour leader, even those that repeat year after year. This means that tours to Berezinsky reserve are highly customized. This also means that the reserve is open to and interested in new cooperation proposals, requests, and ideas. Please feel free to submit them for review by our staff.
To anyone considering a visit to Berezinsky we very much recommend having a look at the report, written by David Kent, proprietor of Great Glen Wildlife in Scotland, after his 2007 spring tour to Berezinsky. From this report you will get a general outline of an ecotour to Berezinsky reserve and you will also learn how a typical spring tour to Berezinsky unfolds.