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Both Russian Environmental Protection Committee and Federal Forest Service have been eliminatedOn 17th May, 2000 new Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed the Decree no. 867 on a new structure of the Russian government. This Decree has abolished the Environmental Protection Committee - Russian federal agency responsible for environmental protection. Its functions have been delegated to the Natural Resources Ministry - the agency responsible for nature resources exploitation, particularly for oil, gas and other minerals' extraction. This is a clear interests conflict situation since the Natural Resources Ministry is interested in resources exploitation not in any environmental limitations. Russian environmental NGOs tell this looks like letting fox to watch chicken. In fact, this means the disappearing of any independent environmental control in Russia on the governmental level. The Russian Federal Forest Service (Rosleskhoz) has been abolished by the same President's Decree. Read more on this issue here. Unfortunately, it looks like the weakening of the environmental control and standards is the solid part of the new Russian governmental policy. In the new economic program written for new Russian President it is directly stated that economic development should be the priority and Russia does not have sources for carrying environmental issues yet. The liquidation of the Environmental Protection Committee and these last government's decisions look to be the connected steps in one direction. Other recent activities by Russian government follow the same direction. Thus, the Natural Resources Minister has recently told in public that Russian pollution limitation standards are too strong and should be weakened. Also on 25th May Russian Government has taken the decision to construct 40 (!) more nuclear power reactors to the year 2030. Here you could see some English publication on this. The plans of Russian Nuclear Energy Ministry (Minatom) to import foreign nuclear waste in Russia for processing and depositing are also very well known. Now this practice is directly prohibited by the federal Environmental Protection Act (1991). According to the information we have, now the government is going to apply to Russian parliament to change the legislation in a way to allow import of the foreign nuclear waste (used nuclear fuel) to Russia for processing. Some agreements on this issue have been achieved in the last US-Russian summit between two countries' presidents beginning of June. See some materials on this issue. All these activities by Russian government will result in increasing environmental threats other in Russia or internationally. Ironically, many environmentally destructive development projects in Russia will be paid by western countries consumers. For more information You could also read some English language publications on the issue. For those of you who read Russian there are also some Russian language sources available. Contacts: | |||||
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