Washington Post, May 23, 2000
Putin Abolishes Russia's Lone Environmental Agency
Original link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53015-2000May22.html
President Vladimir Putin has abolished Russia's lone
agency for environmental protection, triggering protests that he has
turned his back on post-Soviet Russia's bulging inventory of pollution
disasters.
In a decree made public over the weekend, without elaboration, Putin wiped
out the State Committee on the Environment, as well as the State Committee
on Forestry. Their functions were transferred to the Ministry on Natural
Resources, which licenses development of Russia's oil, natural gas and
other deposits.
It was the latest signal that Putin takes a dim view of those who call
attention to Russia's ecological plight. Earlier, Putin said that foreign
spies use environmentalists as cover. Several leading Russian
environmental activists and researchers have been targets of investigation
by the security service.
Putin's decree abolishing the environmental agency was unexpected.
"What can I say? We were really surprised," said Vladimir Kadochnikov, deputy
chairman of the ecology committee in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
"It was demolished," said Alexei Yablokov, who was once environmental
adviser to President Boris Yeltsin and is now a leading activist. Yablokov
said the decision reflects a deep-seated philosophy in the Kremlin that
the environment is not important. "It's an absolutely primitive point of
view," he added, "that we need to solve the economic problems and later
the environment, that ecology is only for a rich country."
Yablokov and several other scientists informally gave Putin a letter in
protest today at the annual meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"I will think about it," Putin replied, Yablokov recalled.
The abolished agency, once a ministry, was downgraded under Yeltsin.
Yablokov said it had grown "extremely weak" in recent years.
Russia's environmental troubles, which have been increasingly well
documented, include radioactive contamination from Soviet-era nuclear
weapons plants and submarines; high levels of lead pollution from
smelters; and a host of health disasters, such as the spread of
tuberculosis.
Putin's decree, made public Saturday, trimmed five state agencies, four
federal ministries and three federal services in what appeared to be a
budget-cutting move.
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