The rich­est in species diver­si­ty water area among the seas of Rus­sia. The pur­pose of its cre­ation is to pre­serve the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment of the rich­est in marine and island fau­na and flo­ra of the Peter the Great Bay of the Sea of ​​Japan and, above all, the gene pool of marine organ­isms. In Sep­tem­ber 2003, the reserve received the sta­tus of a UNESCO bios­phere reserve for the mer­its and sig­nif­i­cance of the ani­mals and plants, com­mu­ni­ties, land­scapes and nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na under its pro­tec­tion.

The area of ​​the reserve is 64,316.3 hectares, includ­ing 63,000 hectares of marine water area and 1,136.3 hectares of ter­ri­to­ry. The reserve is locat­ed in the west­ern part of the Sea of ​​Japan. It occu­pies about 10% of the area of ​​the Peter the Great Bay — the south­ern­most and warmest water area of ​​the Far East­ern seas of Rus­sia. The reserve includes 11 islands, the total area of ​​which is 1,100 hectares. A marine pro­tec­tion zone 3 miles wide has been estab­lished around the marine bor­ders of the reserve. The land pro­tec­tion zone is estab­lished as a 500-meter-wide strip along the land bor­ders of the reserve.

Main objects of pro­tec­tion.
Ani­mals: Far East­ern trepang, Kam­chat­ka crab, giant octo­pus, Far East­ern garfish, large-scaled rudd, Japan­ese hair-toothed tor­toise, largha seal, yel­low-billed heron, lit­tle spoon­bill, island war­bler;
Plants: prick­ly rasp­ber­ry, quad­ran­gu­lar ker­mek, lance­o­late lily, dense­­ly-flow­ered pine, point­ed yew, maid­en grape, Schlip­pen­bach’s rhodo­den­dron, den­tate oak.
Under­wa­ter world: a unique com­bi­na­tion of bore­al-arc­tic and sub­trop­i­cal fau­nas — the rich­est species diver­si­ty among the seas of Rus­sia.
Furugelm Island: mul­ti-species bird colonies, the largest colonies of black-tailed gull and Ussuri cor­morant in the world. The only nest­ing place in Rus­sia for yel­low-billed heron and lit­tle spoon­bill.