Murmansk adopted new environmental programme
The new three-year programme approved by Governor Dmitri Dmitriyenko this week aims at a “significant improvement of the environmental situation” in the region.
The programme, which covers the period 2011-2013, is to help preserve and develop the protected areas in the region, increase the level of waste reprocessing and regulate the number of waste deposit sites, a press release from the regional government reads.
It is also to prepare the ground for the elaboration of a regional Environmental Strategy for the period until 2030, the programme reads.
The programme ambitiously proclaims that it will lead to “a significant improvement of the environmental situation” in the region. However, the key programme indicators at the same time reveal that the region does not face any environmental revolution and that ambitions within several fields are rather modest. For example, the number of people engaged in environmental activities, as well as eco information work, is in the programme period to increase from 5,8 percent of the population to 6,3 percent. Waste reprocessing is to increase from the current three percent of all waste to seven percent, and automatic air quality measurement is to cover 59,1 percent of the regional territory, up from about 47 percent today.
Likewise, several questions can be asked regarding the programme financing, the lion’s share of which is to be covered by the municipal budgets. The total programme financing amounts to 360 million RUB, itself a modest sum. Of this, 109 millon RUB is to be covered by the regional budget and 250 million by the municipalities. Considering the constantly strained economical situation in the municipalities, the environmental projects might not be given the necessary priorities.
Touching on regional longer-term objectives, the programme highlights the introduction of new and more environmentally-friendly industrial technology, the improvement of drinking water quality, clean-up of the heavily polluted Kola Bay, restoration of polluted land, as well as support and development of the environmental movement in the region.
Murmansk Oblast is extraordinary rich on natural resources and has a mining and metallurgy industry which accounts for more than 50 percent of regional GDP. The region is also underway to become a new hub for hydrocarbon developments in the Arctic.
Interestingly, the programme does not much look at the major environmental challenges currently linked with the region’s quickly developing oil and gas industry, neither does it look at the situation within shipping and the potential risks for the region’s rich marine environment.
Read the whole programme here (in Russian)
