An intact forest landscape (IFL) is a large forest area that is free from signs of human management or infrastructure, such as settlements, transportation corridors, agricultural fields or logging sites. An IFL may contain naturally tree less areas such as lakes, wetlands and alpine meadows. An IFL is large enough to sustain viable populations of all organisms that occur naturally in it, including large predators and species which are sensitive to changing conditions. It is sufficiently large to protect the core area and resist disturbances from outside (so called edge effects), e.g. logging, colonization by invasive species, poaching, etc. All areas shown as IFL on this map are at least 50,000 hectares in size and at least 10 kilometers wide (i.e. wide enough to fully contain a circle with this diameter).

Many people think of the Russian taiga as an unlimited expanse of undisturbed nature. The main purpose of this study was to find out to which extent this notion is true-to answer such questions as How should undisturbed nature be defined? How can undisturbed natural landscapes be identified? Where are the remaining intact natural landscapes? What is the economic importance of these areas? What is the level of threat?