Regions Nature Protection Commissions Taken Away

On Monday, August 02, the State Duma plans to consider in the second reading a draft law on introduction of amendments and supplements to more than 150 federal laws. This draft law is called “Bill on Benefit Payments”, but it includes also amendments to all basic environmental and resource laws. Environmental non-governmental organizations: WWF Russia, Center for Wild Nature Protection, Socio-Ecological Union, Russian Regional Environmental Center, believe that the proposed amendments would affect in a catastrophic manner the efficiency of nature protection and environmental surveillance in Russia, because the draft document virtually deprives the individual member territories of their authorities in the these fields.

According to the Constitution, the use of natural resources, the ownership for them and any activities relating to environmental protection are subject to joint management by both the Russian Federation and its respective member territories. The draft law deprives the member territories virtually completely of their authorities relating to regulation of the use of natural resources, environmental surveillance and environmental protection, delegating those authorities to the federal level. The draft law liquidates the institution of environmental surveillance in individual regions and the inspectors’ staff within the governance bodies in member territories. At the same time, the most recent restructuring of the government has already resulted in a serious cut in the number of inspectors in the federal surveillance bodies.

The only efficient instrument for preventive environmental control in Russia, and as a consequence, for protection of constitutional rights of citizens for amenable environment is the environmental assessment system (environmental expertiza). As a matter of fact, its efficiency has been guaranteed due to the fact that environmental reviews of projects are performed by an environmental agency, which is independent of the bodies planning commercial activities. The new law will permit it to assign any agency to perform environmental review on the basis of a decision to be taken by the Government, i.e. it will disintegrate the currently integrated environmental assessment system. For example, it will be possible that industrial projects will be assessed by the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the RF and transport projects will be reviewed by the Ministry of Transport.

Articles of the existing environmental protection law regulating establishment of objective-oriented environmental programmes and all specific environment-related authorities of member territories will be repealed. WWF and other public organizations have been carrying out practical environmental projects and programmes in specific regions of Russia, and many of such projects are based on advanced strategies and programmes aimed at wildlife conservation. Deprivation of such organizations of these opportunities will not only affect the environment state, but it also means violation of constitutional rights of member territories and their population.

The new law will deprive the regions of their right to establish such protected nature territories as nature parks and botanical gardens; it will also prevent them from participation in establishment of federal protected nature territories. Russian environmental organizations have always paid special attention to development of a network of protected nature territories and protested against rapid curtailment of the efforts aimed at creation of new protected nature territories, among other things through prevention of the individual region from development of their own nature territories. Currently, regional protected territories account to over 90% of the total number of protected nature territories of Russia and up to 70% of the protected territories in terms of their area; they ensure a system for real protection and conservation of the natural environment in the country.

The draft law “On amendments to legislative acts of the Russian Federation in connection with enactment of federal laws “On amendments and supplements to the Federal Law ‘On general principles of organization of legislative (representative) and executives bodies of state governance in member territories of the Russian Federation’ and ‘On general principles of organization of local governance in the Russian Federation’” was proposed to the State Duma by the RF Government on May 31, 2004 and was subjected to the first reading on July 2.

According to the applicable procedure, a period of one month has been provided for comments, but virtually no time has been planned for their discussion, because the second reading has been appointed for August 02, i.e. exactly after one month, while several thousands of comments and amendments have been received. The draft law refers primarily to social issues, but it hides among them some basic amendments, which radically modify the principles of the federalism in Russia with respect to aspects managed jointly by the federal center and respective member territories in relation to the use and protection of natural resources and the environment in general.