Bellona: Medvedev shows progressive “green” thinking
Environmentalists are pleased with the Russian president’s laudable efforts to push the country into the right direction, but refrain from applauding before real changes in ecological policy gain traction.
A new list of ecological directives issued in late May by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and recently made public by the Kremlin’s press service includes orders to develop a range of environmental protection laws, target programs, and regulations, as well as solutions to improve funding for environmental protection and ecological education, among other items, Bellona writes on its web site.
The directives were approved at a hearing of the Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation on May 27. At the meeting, Medvedev said unequivocally that Russia needed a uniform ecological policy to deal with the many issues it is facing in the sphere of environmental protection. Observing environmental laws, he also underscored, must become the accepted standard of conduct.
The list of environmental orders to be implemented by the federal government include amongst other things a number of long-term target investment programs that will be developed to improve the management of solid domestic waste and waste recycling projects in Russia’s regions. Increased focus on renewable energy sources is another point.
One step undertaken by Medvedev – a proposal of extreme importance, Bellona writes – is to put together a law that would finally determine the one federal authority which would be in charge of coordinating ecological supervision in the country. Russian environmentalists have clamoured for such a law since 2002, when the State Environmental Protection Committee was abolished and as many as three state agencies took over as a result: the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology, the Russian Federal Service for Natural Resources Management Oversight (Rosprirodnadzor), and the Russian Federal Service for Ecological, Industrial Production, and Atomic Supervision (Rostekhnadzor).
But first, all planned activities, measures, and initiatives need to bear forth some tangible results – these are the only merits to make a judgement on how serious and progressive these steps are. While the president’s agenda got a nod of approval from environmentalists, real changes and real shifts in environmental policy are what they are waiting for, Bellona underlines.
