Bd. Carol I. Nr.20A, 700505 Iași, România [600573]

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Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Iași
Facultatea de Geografie și Geologie
Departamentul de Geografie

Bd. Carol I. Nr.20A, 700505 – Iași, România
Tel.: +4.0232.20.1075, e-mail: [anonimizat]
http://www.geo.uaic.ro/

Analiza unor probleme de mediu cauzate de activitățile economice
din Rusia

– Materia: Geografia economica si a resurselor naturale –

Cadru didactic Lucrări Practice :
Lect.Dr. Gabriel Camară

Autor :
Dan Daiana

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Bibliografie

1. http://www.objectivemind.org/en/environment/russia/russias -environmental -problems/
2. https://www.bowdoin.edu/faculty/v/vdouhovn/pdf/douhovnikoff -environmental -issues –
in-russia.pdf
3. http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/faculty/ rwhittaker/Day02 –
Research/Russia_%20Environmental%20Issues.pdf
4. http://www.appropedia.org/Environmental_Issues_in_Russia
5. http://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=542
6. http://countrystudies.us/russia/25.htm
7. http://www.worldmapper.org/technotes. php?selected=298
8. http://www.capital.ro/exporturile -de-petrol -ale-rusiei -in-crestere -cu-75.html
9. http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_9285 -544-2-30.pdf?061018121625
10. http://fas.org/irp/nic/environmental_outlook_russia.html

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Scopul acestei lucrari este de a examina probleme de medi u cauzate de activitatiile
economice intalnite in Rusia, cum ar fi defrisarea padurilor, poluarea apei, calitatea aerului,
deseurile menajere , precum și cele nucleare.
Rusia este o tara care se intinde pe cele doua continente Europa si Asia. Avand o supra fata de
17 milioane km² este cea mai intinsa tara din lume . In Rusia sunt prezente urmatoarele doua
climate: continental si arctic.
In Rusia fabricile si echipamentele sunt vechi, acest lucru reprezentant un factor
important in poluare.
‖Exporturile d e petrol au ajuns la 238 milioane de tone. Exporturile de cărbune au
rămas nemodificate comparativ cu nivelul de 155 milioane de tone înregistrat anul trecut,
chiar dacă producția de cărbune a Rusiei a crescut în 2015 cu 4,1 % până la 373 milioane de
tone. ‖
Poluarea apei
Doar j umatate din locuitorii Rusiei au acces la apa potabila. Poluarea apei este
provenita din activit atile umane , precum si din diferite surse. Cele mai poluate ape ale Rusiei
sunt situate in partea europeana, unde traiesc peste 60 de milioane de oameni.
Poluarea aerului
Poluarea aerului poate sa afecteze zona superioara a atmosferei, numita stratosfera.
Peste 200 de orașe depa sesc limitele de poluare rusești. Poluarea aerului este
responsabila pentru apariția bolilor respiratorii si celor endocrine . Aerul respirat de rus i se
numara printre cele mai poluate din lume.
Obiectivele sale pentru reducerea gazelor cu efect de sera au fost stabilite in 1990 in
timpul ocupatiei sovietice si de atunci, emisiile au scazut cu aproape o treime. Rusia a vandut
companiilor straine cote de emisie a substantelor nocive si a gazelor de sera in atmosfera.
Managementul des eurilor
Generarea des eurilor menajere a crescut considerabil datorita adopt iei stilului de viata
occidental . Pe de alta parte, Rusia nu dispun e de aceeasi experienta in gestionare si nici de
aceeas i capacitatea a depozitelor de deseuri pentru a face fata problemelor de eliminare a
gunoaielor. S e estimeaza ca i n jur de 200 de tone metrice c u unele dintre cele mai toxice si
periculoase deseuri sunt descarcate in fiecare an in locatii unde normele de sanatate publica
nu se respecta .
Contaminarea cu des euri nucleare
Contaminarea cu deseuri nucleare este atat de extinsa, iar costurile pentru a o anula
sunt mari. Pe plan international, tend inta continua a Rusiei de a trata ca secrete de stat
informațiile despre anumite deseuri nucleare si arme chimice va ingreuna programele de
asistenta occidentala. In prezent, in Rusia operează 31 de reactoare nucleare. Mai multe dintre
acestea, precum cel de la Kola NPP, si -au depasit de mult durata de functionare si prezinta un
pericol pentru populatie.

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Padurile vaste ale Rusiei sunt o resursa naturala de importanta globala, atat din punct
de vedere ecologic, cat si economic. P adurile acopera peste 20% di n teritoriul tarii,
majoritatea fiind păduri de conifere (molid sau pin), denumite taiga.
Exploatarea forestiera industriala si incendiile ulterioare acesteia, folosirea terenurilor
in agricultura si constructia de drumuri sunt princip alele cauze ale frag mentarii si
transformarii suferite de Rusia.
Peste 10.000 de scrugeri de petrol au loc in Rusia in fiecare an, din cauza conductelor
de petrol rupte. Jum atate din aceste scurgeri ajung in mediul inconjurator afectandu -l in
acelasi timp.
Scurgerile de pet rol, scurgerile din conducte de gaze naturale distrug ecosistemele.
In prezent tot mai multi oameni isi indreapta atentia asupra problemelor de mediu .
Exista organizatii non -guvernamentale , non -profit care au ca scop conservarea,protectia
naturii si sana tatea locuitorilor Rusiei.
Companii le mici ofera noi solutii de purificare a apei . Pentru a face apa potabila sunt
aplicate diferite metode: clorinare, ozonare, tratament UV, ultrafiltrare si electroliza.

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Environmental problems ca used by econom ic activities in R ussia

Introduction
At nearly twice the size of the United States, and encompassing 11 time zones, Russia
is by far the world's largest country. Russia also contains some of the world's most abundant
natural resources. In addition to huge deposits of fossil fuels, Russia's other natural resources
include boreal forests that comprise over 20% of the world's forest cover; a vast Arctic tundra;
seemingly endless steppe lands (the 'taiga'); and Lake Baikal, the world's largest inland lake,
which alone accounts for 20% of the world's freshwater. The Arctic, the Siberian forests, and
Russia's Far East regions – home to geothermal resources, indigenous peoples and endangered
wildlife – make up ecosystems that are important parts of the world's bio logical balance.
There are numerous environmental issues in Russia. Many of the issues have been
attributed to policies during the Soviet Union, a time when officials felt that pollution control
was an unnecessary hindrance to economic development and in dustrialization. As a result,
40% of Russia's territory began demonstrating symptoms of significant ecological stress by
the 1990s, largely due to a diverse number of environmental issues, including deforestation,
energy irresponsibility, pollution, and nu clear waste. Russia is the world's largest producer of
crude oil (including lease condensate) and the second -largest producer of dry natural gas, after
the United States. Hydrocarbons play a large role in the Russian economy, as revenue from oil
and natura l gas production and exports accounts for more than half of Russia's federal budget
revenue. However, recent international sanctions on Russia, coupled with low oil prices, have
put pressure on the Russian economy.
Russia exported more than 4.7 million ba rrels per day (b/d) of crude oil and lease
condensate in 2014, based on data from the Federal Customs Service of Russia. Countries in
Asia and Europe received more than 98% of Russia's crude oil exports. Asia accounted for
26% of Russia's crude oil exports , and Europe —which depends on Russia for more than 30%
of the region's oil supply —accounted for 72% of Russian crude oil exports. Russia's economy
largely depends on energy exports: oil and natural gas revenues accounted for 68% of total
export value in 20 13.

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Much of Russian crude oil production comes from the West Siberia and Urals -Volga
regions in central and western Russia, but production in East Siberia and Russia's Far East
regions has increased, and oil fields in eastern Russia and in the Russian Arctic stand to play a
larger role in the country's future production. However, new projects may be delayed or
otherwise affected by economic sanctions currently in place.
In 2014, a series of progressively tighter sanctions, imposed by the United States in
response to Russian actions and policies in Ukraine, led to reduced investments in Russia's
upstream sector. The sanctions limited the ability of Russian firms to access U.S. capital
markets and prohibited the export to Russia of goods, services, or tec hnology in support of
deepwater projects, Arctic offshore projects, or shale projects. The European Union also
imposed sanctions, although different in some aspects from those imposed by the United
States.
These sanctions have halted virtually all involv ement in Arctic offshore and shale
projects by Western companies. Without such involvement, new Arctic resources are unlikely
to be developed. Although this has little immediate effect on Russian production, the
sanctions, along with the low world oil pric es, have made it more difficult for Russian energy
companies to finance new projects.

Wildlife
Russia has many protected areas, such as zapovedniks and natural parks, which are
made to preserve the natural state of environments. There are currently 101 zapovedniks that
cover a total of over 33.5 million hectares. However, some animals, such as the Amur tiger,
polar bear and Caucasian leopard, are facing extinction. The Russian government is
attempti ng to revive those populations. A tiger summit was held i n St. Petersburg in 2010 to
discuss how to save the dwindling tiger population, which is threatened by deforest ation and
poaching in Russia.

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Deforestation

Excessive logging is causing the widespread deforestation of certa in areas of Russia .
Despite efforts of Russian authorities to preserve forests using nature reserves and parks,
funding for park rangers is lacking, limiti ng the protection of forests. Illegal logging is also
widespread, especially in the north -west and in the Far E ast parts of Russia. It is estimated
that Russia loses $1 billion every year due to illegal logging. According to the Center for
Russian Environmental Policy, 16 million hectares of forest are lost each year to a variety of
causes, including logging, pollut ion and fires. Inefficient logging and clearcutting strategies
result in 40% of harvested trees never being used, and the implementation of forest prote ction
policies has been slow.
Forests in more accessible parts of the country suffer from deforestation caused by
extensive logging. The rat e of deforestation has increased in the Ussuri region in extreme far
eastern Russia because of the activities of foreign logging operations. Some large stands of
undisturbed forests are protected in Russia‘s extensive network of national reserves and parks .
Adequate funding for park rangers and other personnel is lacking, however, and poaching
(illegal hunting) of endangered animals such as the Siberian tiger has increased as a result.

Airborne pollutants have caused damage to vegetation in many areas of R ussia. Copper,
cobalt, and nickel smelters emit huge amounts of sulfur dioxide in the northern Siberian city
of Noril‘sk and on the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia. Winds spread these
contaminants across northern Europe, where the pollutants have cau sed widespread
destruction of Scandinavian forests. They have also affected large areas of forests in the
Kuznetsk Basin and the southern Urals.

Radioactive and nuclear waste
The disposal of nuclear waste is also an i ssue, due to a lack of funding. Unsafe
dumping methods are sometimes used to get rid of nuclear waste, which was dumped into the
Sea of Japan until 1993. The Commission of Ecological Security, founded in 1994, helped
bring the dumping of nuclear waste into ocean to the public's attention. It is estimated that

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bringing nuclear safety levels to official standards would cost $26 billion.

The testing and production of nuclear weapons also had an effect on the environment,
such as at the Mayak nuclear weapons pro duction plant near Chelyabinsk.
Currently, there are 10 operating nuclear power plants with 30 reactors in Russia, some
of which are first generation RBMK reactors similar to the ones that operated in Chernobyl in
Ukraine. Although maintenance h as improved in recent years and security against terrorist
attacks has increased with the cooperation and financial assistance of the United States, the
Russian nuclear industry nevertheless continues to register numerous accidents and incidents.
The European Union considers the RBMK reactor design to be fundamentally -flawed since it
does not have a containment dome. Nevertheless, despite safety concerns, Russia is seeking to
extend the operating life of several reactors that are nearing the end of their proscribed
operating lifespan, as well as increase the country's nuclear capacity by building 40 new
reactors by 2030.
Radioactive contamination has damaged several regions in Russia. Lake Karachay,
adjacent to the Mayak complex in Chelyabin sk, is one example of the nuclear industry's
careless past, and is now considered to be one of the most polluted spots on Earth. Lake
Karachay has been reported to contain 120 million curies of radioactive waste, including
seven times the amount of stronti um-90 and cesium -137 that was released in the April 1986
explosion of the Unit 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The area
surrounding the
Mayak complex suffers from radioactive pollutants from over 50 years of plutonium
production , processing and storage.
Nuclear waste from both civilian and military nuclear power installations has become
a severe threat to Russia's environmental health. Adding to the problem, in 2001 the Russian
parliament approved legislation to allow the storag e of foreign nuclear waste on Russian soil.
Atomic energy authorities claim that between 10,000 and 20,000 tons of high -level nuclear
waste could be imported for storage and reprocessing over the next decade, with the storage
plan projected to earn the cou ntry $20 billion in foreign revenues over the ten -year period.
The Russian government has said that it plans to use the revenues to clean up the
environment. Neighboring states have expressed safety concerns regarding nuclear waste
traveling close to thei r borders, while environmental groups have voiced their overall
opposition to Russia's long -term storage plans.

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Oil and Natural Gas Issues

The oil and gas extraction industries not only contribute to the air pollution problem in
Russia, but are also significant sources of pollution in their own right. Environmental
standards are weak, enforcement is poor, and small -scale accidents, pipeline leakage, and
tanker spills have contaminated many areas of Russia. Oil pipelines in areas like the Tyumen
region and Khanty -Mansiysk autonomous district leak significant volumes of oil.
Serious health problems from oil pollution have been reported in the more contaminated
areas. Oil spills in Siberian rivers near the city of Nizhnevartovsk, for example, have pollute d
drinking water and have been linked to increased cancer rates in several affected areas.
The most severe problems however, are in Chechnya, where an estimated 30 million
barrels of oil have leaked into the ground from the region's black market ("pirate" ) oil
industry. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, thieves have tapped into the pipelines and
have stolen large quantities of oil from reserves at refineries in Grozny.
Also, according to Russian military ecologists, an estimated 15,000 "mini -refiner ies"
have been built. These mini -refineries, which produce less petroleum products from the crude
oil that they process than do normal refineries, typically dump their residual refining wastes
with little regard for the environmental consequences, contamin ating the ground and water
supplies, rivers and fish.
There are now concerns that oil pollution from Chechnya could spread into the
Caspian Sea, which itself is polluted from oil and gas waste, petrochemical industry
discharges, and agricultural runoff. Th e World Bank already has designed and implemented
regional programs for the other major seas that Russia borders, the Baltic
and Black Seas, while providing environmental project loans amounting to several hundred
million dollars for cleaning up major oil spills and other environmental reclamation and
improvement projects.
Heightened concerns about the environmental impacts of oil and gas development in
Russia could hinder growth in these sectors. However, the importance of the hydrocarbon
sector to Russi a's economy could mean that new projects in eastern Siberia will go ahead
regardless of the environmental consequences. Planned oil and natural gas pipelines from
eastern Siberia to Asian markets are being challenged by environmental groups who claim
that Russian officials are ignoring the protected status of the Siberian Plateau (Ukok Plateau),
which covers parts of Mongolia, China, Russia and Kazakhstan. Road and pipeline projects
will not only incur enormous costs in both construction and maintenance, bu t they will also
have a severe impact on the environment, since they would be routed through highland
marshes, tundra, permafrost areas, mountain passes and elevations of up to 1.6 miles.

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Due to Russia's poor record of protecting the environment, as well as the country's
lenient standards and lax enforcement of existing regulations, environmental groups feel that
the road and pipeline projects could endanger the Siberian Plateau.
However, a proposed oil pipeline from Angarsk in eastern Siberia to Daqing, China, was put
on hold in 2003 after the Natural Resources Ministry ruled that the proposed route would
violate Russia's environmental regulations (although a different oil pipeline from Angarsk to
the Russian Pacific coast at Nakhodka has been proposed an d may be built instead of the
pipeline to China). In addition, the Natural Resources Ministry, which was created in 2000
through the combination of the functions of the former State Committee for Environmental
Protection and the State Committee on Forestry , has been taking a more stringent approach in
punishing oil companies for violating environmental terms of their field license agreements.

Water pollution

Water pollution is a serious problem in Russia, and 75% of surface water and 50% of
all wate r in Russia is now polluted. This has caused health issues in many cities as well as in
the countryside, as only 8% of wastewater is fully treated prior to being returned to
waterways. Obsolete and inefficient water treatment facilities, as well as a lack of funding,
have caused heavy pollution, and has also resulted in waterborne disease spread, such as an
outbreak of cholera spread by the Moskva River in 1995. Industrial and chemical waste is
often dumped into waterways, including hydrogen sulf ide, which has been linked to the large –
scale death of fish in the Black and Caspian seas. Lake Baikal was previously a target of
environmental pollution from paper plants, but cleanup efforts since then have greatly reduced
the ecological strain on the la ke.
Land and water resources experienced severe degradation during the Soviet period.
Some areas, such as the Kuznetsk Basin on the Tom‘ River in southern Siberia, the indust rial
belt along the southern portion of the Ural Mountains, and the lower Volga River, were
degraded beyond repairs .
Chemical fertilizers and airborne pollutants have contaminated some agricultural
areas. Soil resources have also been adversely affected by mismanagement. Broad areas of
land in southern Russia suffer from erosion. Wind erosion has affected the more arid parts of
the North Caucasus, lower Volga River basin, and western Siberia. Pollutants released into

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rivers have accumulated in lakes and sea s with limited water exchange, including the Caspian
Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the Black Sea. A toxic layer of hydrogen sulfide covers the Black
Sea, due in part to organic compounds from agricultural byproducts and untreated sewage.
Many Russian cities ar e not equipped with adequate sewage treatment plants. Inadequate or
nonexistent wastewater treatment contributes to the degradation of rivers and lakes .
Many hydroelectric dams were built during Soviet times on Russia‘s major rivers. A
series of dams on t he Volga River has significantly slowed the river and decreased the volume
of water it can carry; the decline in the flow of the Kuban‘ and Don rivers has been even
greater. The rivers therefore retain even more of the pollutants that are discharged into t heir
waters. In addition, many of the dams do not have properly functioning fish ladders, so many
fish do not make it past the dams to their spawning grounds. As a result, the numbers of
sturgeon and other fish have been greatly reduced.
Air pollution

Russia's air is among the most pollute d in the world, although its quality has been
improving since the 1990s. 43.8 million tons of pollutants were released into open air in 1993,
of which 24.8 million came from industr y and 19 million came from vehicles. Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Volgograd, as well as other major industrial and population
centers, are the highest conc entrations of air pollution. Overall, over 200 cities in Russia
exceed pollution limits, and this is increasing as more v ehicles appear on the roads. Before the
1990s, most air pollution came from industries. When industrial production declined,
emissions of air pollutants from those sources also declined, although the amount of motor
vehicles on the roads skyrocketed. Currently, vehicle emissions exceed industry emissi ons in
most Russian cities. Air pollution is attributed to 17% of childhood and 10% of adult diseases,
as well as 41% of respiratory and 16% of endocrine diseases.

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Soil erosion

Snow run -off has caused substantial erosion in pastures and croplands in northern
Russia, particularly near the Ural Mountains. In parts of southern Russia, overgrazing and
deforestation has resulted in large plots of bare soil which are highly susceptible to wind
erosion.

Energy Consumption

Between 1992 and 2001, Russia's energy consumption declined 19%, falling from 34.9
quadrillion Btu (quads) to 28.2 quads. The country's economic contraction in the early and
mid-1990s, along with the transition from a centrally -planned system to a market -based one,
resulted in lower levels of energy consumption. Still, Russia's energy consumption in 2001
accounted for 7% of the world total, making the country the world's third largest energy
consumer behind the United States (97.1 quads) and China (39.7 quads).
Russia's large industrial sector accounts for over 60% of the country's energy
consumption, with the transportation and residential sectors each making up around one -fifth
of the total, and the nascent commerci al sector accounting for only a small percentage of

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overall consumption. Russia has the world's argest natural gas reserves, so it is not surprising
that natural gas made up more than half (51.5%) of total energy consumption in 2001,
followed by oil (19.1% ) and coal (18.2%). Natural gas is the principal source of fuel for
Russian power plants and domestic Russian natural gas prices are capped by the government
below market rates, providing a disincentive to reduce consumption. Russia's long, cold
winters re quire significant natural gas supplies for heating purposes as well, boosting natural
gas and overall energy consumption.

Per capita energy consumption in Russia was 195.3 million Btu per person in 2001,
the highest in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Among
large energy -consuming countries, Russia's per capita energy consumption in 2001 was higher
than Japan's (172.2) and Germany's (174.3), but lower than in the United States (341.8 million
Btu/person).

Carbon Dioxide Emis sions
The collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia's ensuing economic contraction led to a
dramatic decrease in Russian carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the early – and mid -1990s.
The severe decline of industrial production in the country, highlighted by th e closure of
hundreds of factories, resulted in a huge drop in CO2 emissions.
In 1992, the first full year after the demise of the USSR, Russian carbon dioxide
emissions stood at 573.5 million metric tons, but by 1997, the country's emissions had fallen
to 394.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide – a 31% decline in just five years' time.
Nevertheless, Russia still ranks among the highest CO2 -emitting countries in the world.
Furthermore, since bottoming out in the post -Soviet era in 1997, Russia's carbo n dioxide
emissions have been on the increase, buoyed by the rebound of oil extraction and
industrial production.
In 2001, Russia's energy -related CO2 emissions totaled 440.3 million metric tons, an
11.6% increase from 1997. In comparison, the United St ates emitted 1,565 million metric tons

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of carbon dioxide in 2001, while and China emitted 832 million metric tons of CO2. The
world's next highest carbon dioxide emitters – Japan (316 million metric tons), India (251
million metric tons), and Germany (223 million metric tons) – trailed far behind. Russia's per
capita CO2 emissions in 2001, at 3.05 metric tons per person, were higher than Germany
(2.71 metric tons per person), Japan (2.48), China (0.65), and India (0.25), but still far lower
than that of the United States (5.51).
Russia signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on June
13, 1992, then ratified it on December 28, 1994. Russia signed the Kyoto Protocol, which
mandates specific commitments by countries to reduce their emis sions of greenhouse gases
(GHG) by an average of 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012 period, on March 11, 1999.
Under the terms of the climate change agreement, Russia is not required to cut its emissions;
since it was classified as a country in transit ion, Russia merely must maintain its CO2 and
GHG emissions in the 2008 -2012 timetable at the same level as 1990. Owing to the
significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in the immediate post -Soviet era, Russia
should have little problem in fulfillin g its commitments under th e Kyoto Protocol. Moreover,
the country would stand to benefit from an emissions trading scheme under the Protocol, as
Russia appears to have excess emissions credits – so-called 'hot air' – to sell to other countries.
As of May 2004, Russia had not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which has in large
part kept the Protocol from coming into force.
Although Kyoto has secured enough ratifying parties to bring it into effect, the treaty
also requires countries accounting for 55% of emissions to sign on. The Russian government
has been discussing possible ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which would allow the
country to benefit from technology transfers and bring the international agreement into effect.
Energy and Carbon Intensity

Russia's energy intensity (energy consumption per dollar of GDP) in Russia has
decreased only slightly since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The strongest export sectors in the Russian economy tend to be energy -intensive,
resource -intensive, and pollu tion-intensive industries, such as oil, natural gas, timber and
metals. Russia also continues to use its abundance of energy resources inefficiently.

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A somewhat more rational use of energy (leading to lower levels of consumption), as
well as strong economi c growth since 1999, means that Russia's energy intensity in 2001
stood at 76,852 Btu per $1995 (purchasing
power parity, PPP), down from a post -Soviet high of 85,681 Btu per $1995 (PPP) in 1996 and
lower than the 1992 level of 78,959 Btu per $1995 (PPP). Although continued economic
growth likely will bolster energy consumption, improved environmental awareness, energy
efficiency improvements, and marked -based price reforms consequently should lead to a
lower energy intensity in Russia in the long -term.
Russia's carbon intensity (carbon emissions per dollar of GDP) stood at 1.2 metric tons
of carbon per thousand $1995 (PPP) in 2001. Although nuclear energy (which emits no
carbon) plays a major role in the Russian energy balance, the country's carbon intensi ty
remains high (relative to other industrialized nations) due to a continued reliance on coal and
other fossil fuels. Nevertheless, Russia has become less carbon intensive since
1992, when its carbon intensity was 1.3 metric tons of carbon per thousand $ 1995 (PPP).
Russia's rapidly rising in GDP has more than offset the country's growth in carbon dioxide
emissions since 1999, resulting in the
decreased level of carbon intensity.
However, the country's continued dependence on oil, natural gas, and coal p roduction
likely will mean that the country's carbon intensity level will remain relatively high.

Renewable Energy
With the exception of hydropower, Russia's utilization of renewable energy sources
remains low relative to its consumption of fossil fuels . Of the country's 205.6 gigawatts (GW)
in installed power -generating capacity, hydropower accounts for 21.7% of the total, with 44.7
GW of installed capacity.
Russian hydropower plants generated 173.5 billion kilowatt -hours (Bkwh) of electricity in
2001, accounting for 20.5% of Russia's total power output (846.5 Bkwh) for the year.
Almost 75% of Russia's hydroelectric capacity is located at 11 power stations with
more than 1,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity each, including the 6,400 -MW Sayano –
Shushenskaya facility in the Krasnoyarsk province, the country's largest power plant. Russia's
Unified Energy Systems (UES) is building a number of mega -hydropower projects in the Far
East as well, including the 3,000 -MW Boguchansk in Krasnoyarsk and the 2,000 -MW Burey a
hydropower plant.
Russia's use of other renewable energy resources is quite small. The Kamchatka
Peninsula in the Far East has rich geothermal resources, and an estimated 380 MW to 550
MW of potential geothermal capacity potentially could be exploited t here. The first phase of
the 200 -MW Mutnovskaya geothermal power plant on the Kamchatka Peninsula was put into
service in 2002, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ( EBRD)
providing approximately $100 million in financing for the proje ct.
ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Changes in the state of the natural environment and how environmental protection is
practiced in Russia are closely related to the deep eco nomic recession that occurred after the
collapse of the Communist s ystem, by some estimates a drop of 40% in gross domestic
product (GDP),and the country‘s subsequent efforts to generate economic growth.
Unfortunately, scholars in different subfie lds often do not have the exper tise to bring tog ether

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scientific analysis of environmental quality with possible explanatory variables from the
economic sphere.
Oldfield‘s book Russian N ature: Exploring the Environmental Consequences of
Societal Change is one of the few works that combines research on changi ng environmental
quali ty with an overview of Russia‘s economic and legal transformation.
Oldfield suggest s that the study of Russia‘s en vironment in the post -Soviet period has been
overly influenced by alternative understandings of the Russi an environment as a disaster as an
element of the transition to democracy and a market economy, the former overly pessimistic
and the latter overly linear and limited in its vision of Russia‘s potential future paths.

Determining causal links between economic decline and environmental quality in the
1990s is difficult, however, as both levels of economic activity and environmental pollution
tend to be under reported in government statistics. The overall emission of air and water
pollutants appears to have declined owing to severe economic rece ssion, yet did not fall as
much as may have been expected given the decline in industrial production. Lower levels of
some pollutants also did not always result in great improvements in air and water quality, as
discussed below.
Crotty argues that Russia n government reports suggest that ―economic transition has a
pollution intensifying effect‖ —even as overall pollution decreased, pollution per unit
of economic output increased.
There is general agreement that President Putin‘s administration has prioriti zed
economic concerns over environmental protection and that the economy is increasingly
dependent on the export of natural resources. Bradshaw amasses a compelling body of
statistics to show how reliant economically Russia has become on natural resources, including
an Organisation for Economic Co -operation and Development analysis suggestion that 4% of
Russia‘s annual 7% economic growth rate in the recent past is accounted for by the resource
sector.
Oil and gas exports have been the backbone of Russia‘s e conomic recovery. These
exports have largely been drawn from ―the most easily exploitable reservoirs and at the
expense of balanced drilling on new sites‖ and thus are not sustainable without further
exploration and investments (28). Because oil exploratio n and extraction are currently a major
cause of wilderness fragmentation, the rate of fragmentation can b e expected to increase as
exploi tation of new reserves becomes necessary to maintain supply.
Other environmental pressures accompany the development o f the petroleum sector.
For example, by some estimates there are as many as two major oil and gas pipeline spills
a day .
Russian industries also use more energy than their counterparts in the West; in 2000
and 2001, Russia‘s GDP energy intensity measure w as more than twice that of the United
States. In part resulting from low -energy efficiency, Russia also emitted 3.8 times more
greenhouse gases than the leading European countries per dollar of GDP .
Some analysts predict that Russia is beginning to suffer from a ―resource curse,‖ risking its
economic development by relying on volatile commodities prices and its political stability
by encouraging rent -seeking behavior by state officials.
In addition, there is the question of whether resource revenue has be en used effec –
tively to diversify the economy or to support the manufacturing sector. Fears about the lack of
sustainability of and environmental damage done by the current economic devel –
opment model have led Russian environmental policy experts outside the government ―to
encourage the adoption of high and increasing values of natural resources and services‖.
The Russian economy also is shifting from one in which consumer demand played
only a superficial role as an economic driver to an increasingly cons umption -based system.

18
Rising income from oil exports has prompted a burst of consumer spending in Russia .
Studies of new environmental threats related to the transition to a consumer society are a vital
area for new research. For example, private car own ership more than doubled in the 1990s,
and more than 50% of the atmospheric discharges in some of Russia‘s large cities now are
caused by automobile exhaust . Household waste also has increased significantly, evidenced
by the number of informal garbage dum ps around cities and towns. Statistics show that
municipal waste per capita in Russia more than doubled between 1980 and the late 1990s
(although municipal waste remains less than half that of the United States on a per capita
basis) .

THE STATE OF RUSSIA’ S ENVIRONMENT

This section reviews scientific findings on Russian environmental quality in five
indicator issue areas: water quality, the state of forests,effects of climate change, air quality,
and radiation. A survey of available research reveals signif icant logistical and political
constraints to both the pursuit of such research and its broad dissemination. The result is a
body of knowledge with irregular coverage, uneven depth,and in some cases questionable
data quality.
Producing nationwide environme ntal assess ments for Russia is very difficult because
of the country‘s va st size and highly variable lev els of environmental degradation. As the
largest country in the world with only the seventh largest populat ion, Russia ranks 178th in
popu lation density with just over eight people per square kilometer. However, most people are
concentrated in the urban -industrialized areas of western R ussia where environmental
degra dation tends t o be most severe, leaving exten sive areas of eastern and northern Russia
with relatively little human impact. Owing to this diluting effect, nationwide evaluations tend
to rank Russia in categories of high environmental quality, although it contains some of the
most locally degrad ed zones in the world.
This heterogeneity in popula tion distribution and environmental impact, as well as the
great regional varia tion in ecosystem types, compli cates data integration for countrywide
analysis.
Another common challenge for scholarship on the state of Russia‘s natural
environment is that ind ependently collected data are extremely limited. As a result, much
research is based on government da ta and reports that are not sci entifically reviewed.
Although still valuable, it is important to rec ognize several potential limita tions and
weakn esses in these sources of infor mation. To partly explain why so little has been known
about Russian air quality, Shahgedanova points out that because pollution was por trayed as a
―capitalist evil‖ the Soviet author ities were careful to control any information that might b e
interpreted as a sign of envi ronmental de gradation. Information on sensi tive environmental
subjects, such as air quality,was classified until the late 1980s, and access o academic papers
was restrict ed. Records of fire damage have historically bee n underre -ported for poli tical and
economic reasons, as have radiation releases , and pollution related to military complexes . As
a result, itis essential that more independent and scientif ically reviewe d data are provided and
incorpo rated into future asses sments of environmental
quality.
A few scholars note that access to data from the Ministry of Natural Resources now
may be improving . Although the amount of data may become more readily available, gov –
ernment influence on which data are released may cont inue. For example, Moiseenko et al.
points ou t that dissemination of informa tion may still be limited to avoid local emigra –
tion from polluted zones where manpower is needed. The quality and consistency of data
from the gove rnment also vary over time. Old field (24) suggests that information from gov –

19
ernment repo rts might reflect changes in ac counting procedures, which are susceptible to
economic and political in fluence. Past limita tions on the circulation of academic work have
also created bar riers that a re only slowly erod ing. Older research is virtually impossible to ac –
quire, a tremendous drawback for longitudinal studies, and only the most recent domestic re –
search is being broadly disseminated.

Water Quality
As is the case with many natural resourc es in Russia, the st ate of water quality largely
depends upon local conditions. In zones of heavy human impact, particular causes of poor wa –
ter quality vary but are generally the result of overuse of water resources, inadequate water
distribution and wat er treatment infrastructure,and proximity of polluting industry.
Russia has inherited a water system largely developed during the Soviet period, which
favored extremely large water projects ,resulting in significant alterations in water
regimes and wate r quality. In many cases, reser voirs are simultaneously used for municipal
and industrial consumption, and both treated and untreated water are released back
with little concern for downstream use.
In heavy -use zones in the 1990s, estimates of the ratio of n atural flow discharge to
returned water were as low as 2:1 in some cases, levels gen erally inadequate for the
maintenance of water quality.
The econ omic downturn and associated re duced demand after the collapse of the
Soviet Union had a temporarily amelior ating influence on the volume of pollution discharge
across the country. In a review of Russia‘s water resources,Oldfield pointed ou t that during
the eco nomic downturn of the 1990s water demand dropped by approximately 27%, and
polluted drainage discharge dropped by approximately 32%.
However, government reports indicate water quality di d not substantially improve,
remaining below ―accepted sanitary norms‖ in many areas in the late 1990s and early
2000s .Although there have been some instances of localized impr ovement , the lack of a
positive trend in wat er quality is supported by inde pendent studies. Sources o f water pol lution
are shifting, however. Reductions in both demand and polluted discharge were primarily the
result of reduced industrial and agricultur al needs; municipally polluted discharge remained
relatively constant, resulting in its increased sig nificance and currently accounting for almost
two-third s of the nation‘s total in 2005.
Municipal water treatment facilities are limited in extent, outdate d, underfunded, and
in a state of disrepair. Thus, there is no reason to expect improvements in the treatment of
municipal water without m ajor structural investments. Indepe dent studies of municipal waste
have been rare and limited in scope. High levels of Giardia cysts, lik ely from untreated human
and an imal waste runoff, have been locally detected in surface waters . Water treatment plants
in the Moscow region are periodically contam inated with Giardia ,and in cities, such as
Saint Petersburg, residents comm only boil tap water before consumption. Serving as a strong
bioindicator o f the presence of parasitic con taminants, immunodeficient patients have been
detected with high frequencies of the intesti nal disease cryptosporidiosis in southern Russia .
Despite t he increased significance of mu nicipal wastewater, it is important to not
underestimate the potential impacts of industrial pollution. Severa l studies record significant
industrial releases of polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs) heavy metals, and Radionuclides. In
some cases, emissions are det ctable hundreds of kilometers from the source or are so large that
the af fected water system has been described as ―a severely poll uted dead tributary‖ .

20
Studies have fou nd water pollution caused by at mospheric depositions to be relatively
small in size and somewhat localized, although these studies tend to be limited in sample size
and temporal scope primarily be cause of pr oblems with accessing remote water bodies
throughout the year. Atmospheric sources of water pollution c an accumulate in water system s
and have been detected in sig nificant conc entrations at downstream depositional and mixing
zones.
The Volga River, the longest river and one of the most polluted in Europe, is a good
exam – ple of the cumulative effects of ove ruse, poor wastewater t reatment, and industrial
proxim ity. Chuico et al. describe industrial zones along the Volga where spills of pollutants,
such as sulfuric acid, have overwhelmed the limited treatment facilities in place, resulting in
ecolog ical damage with pollutants currently detected in wastewater, s ediments, and fish.
Nadim et al point t o the downstream impacts of pol luted water from the Volga River in the
ecological collap se of the Caspian Sea, which re ceives more than 85% of its freshwater from
the Volga River . In addition to pollution, man made barriers on the Volga, such as dams,
block or limit fish migration and alter the habitat of nearly 70 native fis h, as well as
significantly in fluencing downstream water regimes and hy drographic patterns. Wh en
compounded by lo cal contributions from oil pollution, the effects are severe.
For example, human populations are being exposed to serious health risks. Also,
pollution -weakened immune systems have re sulted in the death of thousands of Caspian
seals sin ce 2000, and a combination of pollution and poaching has led to the near extinction of
sturgeon.
The Effects of Climate Change
Owing to its northern latitude, global climate change appears to be having an
exaggerated ef fect in Russia , but specific effects and rep resentation o n the ground are not
well under stood . In a survey of the past 69 years,Groisman et al. found that northern Eurasia
―was the region wi th the largest and steadiest in crease of surfac e air temperature‖ . In
montane southern Siberia, summe r avera ge temper atures increased as much as 0.5
As a result, the duration of unfrozen ground has increas ed up to nine days, and the
number of days with snow cover has decreased in he last 50 years . In other manifestations
of creeping cl imate change, snow lines are mi grating northward , glaciers are retreating, ice
duration is decreasing, precipitation is increasing, and the period of water body sum –
mer stratification has increased . Changes in the timing and patterns of snow melt can alter
local hydrolog y , as well as have cumu lative effects on t he salinity levels, sea ice for mation,
global ocean circulation, and climate in the Arctic ocean, which receives 45% of it freshw ater
discharge from Siberia .
Observed b iological impacts of warming in clude broad s hifts in vegetation, such as
upper treeline s hifts into adjacent montane tun dra ; expansion of deciduous forests ;
and tundra conversion to forests and wetlands .Huttich et al. confirm that ―changes in
phenological dynamics between 1998 and 2005 caused by t emperature anomalies are apparent
for the whole boreal biome‖ . Examples of this change include earlier bud burst, extended
growing season of up to three weeks, increased evaporative st ress, increased ring growth,
reduction in pine seed crop , changes in insect -plant dynamics, and changes in diatom
community structure . One of the most significant effects of surface warming has been a
change in fire regime. Historically, eastern Russian forest has predominantly experienced
surface fires, but from 1998 to 20 02, high -severit y crown fires were dominant , and seven of
the last nine years have been extreme fire years in Siberia . The area burned in the 1990s was
29% greater than that in 1980s and 19% great er than the 47 -year average .
The limnological characteri stics of lakes in central Yakutia offer an example of the
broad influences that climate change is having on the ground. Kumke et al. point out that the

21
effects of warming include the following: Increa sed water temperature and evapo ration ––
a)Increased length of ice -free season
b)Stability of water stratification
c)Aquatic organism and catchment vegetation changes
d)Increased fire frequency
e)Increased depth of active layer above permafrost affecting drainage regime and in –
f)creasing volume of surface water
g)Decreasing lake water levels
Limnilogical data for this vast region is limited,but with such broad impacts there is an urgent
need for mo re research on lake physicochem ical properties and biota across eastern Russia .

ST. PETERSBURG – Environmenta l activists from across Russia surrounding
pollution in their respective regions and what needs to be done in order to normalize the
environmental situation in Russia. They also discussed ways to improve legal mechanisms of
environmental protection and imp roving the protection of citizens‘ rights to a healthy
environment.
Environmental activists gathered in the St. Petersburg suburb of Pushkin to discuss
ways of forcing businesses to lower the amount of pollution they generate and decrease the
associated r isks for human health and negative impacts on the environment.
This year‘s all -Russian conference entitled ―The Ecology of Russia: Right to Life‖
started with a meeting on industrial pollution, which asserted at the outset that, ―70 percent of
air polluti on comes from industrial enterprises.‖ The Environmental Rights Center (ERC)
Bellona organizes the conference on annually.
The ‘Moonscapes’ of the Murmansk Region
Anna Kireeva, who represented Bellona‘s Murmansk office at the conference,
presented a repor t on industrial pollution in the Murmansk region. According to Kireeva, the
activities of industrial giant Norilsk Nickel are creating an environmental disaster in the
Russia‘s Northwest. Specifically, she said, the Kola Mining and Metallurgy Company
(KMMC ) – which runs industrial enterprises out of the Kola Peninsula towns of Nikel,

22
Pechenga, and Monchegorsk –is poisoning the region with sulfur dioxide.

A view from inside the town of Nikel. (Source: Thomas Nilsen)
―In the Murmansk region, scorched hills – referred to as ‗lunar landscapes‘ by locals –
are characteristic visual displays of sulfur dioxide‘s harmful effects,‖ Kireeva told those
gathered.
For years, environmental activists have tried to force the KMMC to comply with
environmental protection r egulations and install equipment at their facilities that adhere to
modern safety standards. ―We demand that this company, which is one of the wealthiest in the
world, clean up its act and decrease its sulfur dioxide emissions,‖ Kireyeva said.
However, en vironmental protectionists lack leverage over the KMMC, as it is one of
the largest taxpaying entities in the Murmansk region and, according to Kireeva, ―feels that it
is lord of the land.‖ The company typically reacts to its environmental critics by sayin g it will
haul its operations to a different tax region, which would cost the industrial towns thousands
of jobs, and a prospect that makes bring real influence to bear difficult.
Kireyeva is convinced the company‘s environmental policies essentially act as
camouflage; their environmental initiatives ―boil down to the planting of moss, lichen and
grass.‖ Yet, if those actions are not accompanied by a decrease in emissions, then they are
useless, Kireeva says.
Far East Russian industrial pollution
Vladivos tok‘s Anton Tugushyov, last year‘s laureate of Bellona‘s annual Eco-
Jurrist (in Russian) prize, reported on industrial pollution problems in the Far East Russian
Primorye region.
He said that despite the regions rich diversity of rare and protected species , authorities
pay little attention to environmental problems, and ecological defense has become a hot issue.

23
He reeled off several industrial scale projects threatening the Primorye regions
environment, chief among them the construction of a radioactive w aste and spent nuclear fuel
storage facility in the city of Fokino. The prospect of the waste project has galvanized the
protests of local environmentalists, and signatures are being collected to petition to stop the
construction.
Another ecologically pro blematic issue is the Zveda nuclear naval base at Bolshoy
Kamen, where nuclear submarines are decommissioned and dismantled. Pollutants from
Zveda threaten to poison sea waters and are threatening local populations of fiddler crabs.
But Tugushyov said the biggest environmental problem facing his region is the coal
loading and handling that takes place in Vladivostok Harbor. He said its volume is only
increasing, creating coal dust that poses a danger to the region‘s entire population. Tugushyov
and Vladivo stok residents have appealed to the local Department of Nature Use, and
complained to local prosecutors and regional parliamentarians with the demand for legislation
that would forbid open loading and handling of coal in the harbor. But no changes for the
better have been, or are, on the way, Tugushyov told the conference.

Success Hinges on Fully Developed legislation and regulations
Conference participants repeatedly stated that the underdeveloped nature of
environmental regulations in combatting industri al pollution is one of the main causes for its
spiking levels.
Yelena Vasiliyeva, Director of Volgograd Ecopress, told participants about the most
pressing problems in environmental regulations aimed at industrial emissions.
First and foremost, Vasiliyev a said that current laws almost completely lack any
division between the authority of monitoring and oversight agencies. ―Some of these powers
are handed out at the behest of local political and business interests,‖ said Vasiliyeva.
She also opined that r egulations governing methods for environmental impact
assessments are severely underdeveloped. ―The municipalities administer environmental
impact assessments, and a lot depends on which document they approve,‖ Vasiliyeva stated.
Industrial safety assessm ents are not without their own faults, from Vasiliyeva‘s point
of view, because the law does not require an environmental impact assessment or any public
hearings if a building project for a potentially dangerous site does not include major
construction wo rk.
The system for authorizing such projects must also be improved upon, according to
Vasiliyeva. ―One little item has been removed from Rosprirodnadzor‘s [the Russia‘s Federal
Agency for the Oversight of Natural Resource Usage‘s] regulations, which said that the
decision to issue a permit for allowable discharges could be based on the inaccuracy of the
submitted information,‖ said Vailiyeva. ―As a result, companies have started ‗cleaning up‘ the

24
information they provide on the volume and toxicity levels o f waste they produce – they have
been able to do so without consequence, and cases of canceled permits are rare.
Vasiliyeva also pointed out that companies are often unable to formulate systematic
environmental protection policies because of a lack of the necessary legal mechanisms, such
as environmental insurance and environmental audits.
Moderator Larisa Bronder, Bellona’s expert on industrial pollution, comments

The Fourth Annual ―The Ecology of Russia: Right to Life‖ conference, arranged by
the Bell ona Foundation. Here Larisa Bronder, Bellona‘s expert on Russian industrial
pollution, speaks to those gathered. (Photo: Alexander Sigayev)
This conference marks the first time that a working session devoted to industrial
pollution was held at the nationa l level, and Bronder led the session. During the course of a
conference survey, participants expressed the importance of the problem of industrial
pollution and the necessity of devoting more attention to it.
More than 50 percent of respondents stated tha t industrial pollution is a severe
problem in their region of Russia.
In addition, all of the participants pointed at the disengagement of authorities from the
issue and their ineffective policies aimed at decreasing the anthropogenic impacts of heavy
industry.
At the same time, regional populations do not express any particular concern about
industrial emissions or the dumping of industrial waste, regardless of the serious nature of the
problem. The main reason for this disparity is the lack of available information on pollution
and difficulties in obtaining objective date about it.
Taking the developing situation into account, Bellona calls on civil society to work
more actively toward solving problems of industrial pollution. Specifically, Bellona prop osed
founding a working group formed of representatives from regions where industrial emissions
pose a serious threat to the environment and human health.

25
Guilty industry
In Russia, the biggest polluters are, like in most countries, the industry. They dis regard
most of the legislative demands and harm both the environment and the people in the affected
areas. The residents are often not aware of the danger of toxic substances in the air and the
water. Last year, the NGO Gree Patrol found out that the alumi num plant of the company
RusAl is blowing cancer -causing substances in the air in Krasnoyarsk, far above all limits.
Chemical waste is directed into the Yennissei , one of the longest rivers in Russia.
Another popular example is Lake Baikal with its local cellulose plant . It is an old plant
built in the 1960s. Here, toxic substances are getting into the lake through a leaking collecting
tank, threatening the whole ecosystem. In 2010, the plant was allowed to become operational
again contrary to all protests of environmental activists. The plant‘s role as the single
employer and generator of electricity and heat for the city Baikalsk presented a problem for
the opponents. The 10,000 inhabitants of the city, which was founded in Soviet times, are
dependent on the plant. In this case it was not the usual conflict between environmental
protection and the economic efficiency of a company, but rather environmental protection as a
supposed threat to the social existence of a whole city.
Natural disasters accumulate
The topic of global warming is not on the top of the agenda in Russia. The effects of
the climate change, however, are already noticeable today. The 2010 forest fires were not only
covered by Russian media, but also worldwide. Moscow lay under a thick, ba rely breathable
smog blanket. 1.2 Million hectares of forest burned, but as not all fires were reported, the
Russian authorities assume that much more areas were damaged.

The increasing temperatures are causing additional problems like the melting of th e
permafrost . The softening base will damage houses, buildings, streets, pipelines and many
more facilities. The infrastructure will need billions of dollars of investment to counteract the
effects in the coming decades. Damaged pipelines especially present a danger for the
environment. The Russian pipeline network already needs refurbishment because natural
disasters are added to by old, bursting pipelines The softening soil could make it worse and
contaminate many regions with oil and natural gas. Are adde d to by old, bursting pipelines

Inefficient state and economy
In principle, Russia's environmental problems are solvable. As always the country
does not lack laws but, rather, enforcement. Often implementation fails because of the lack of
financial resou rces for projects and adequate subsidies for ―green‖ technologies. Corruption
poses one of the most serious hindrances because most of the environmental problems are
violating established Russian law. Corrupt authorities and a corrupt justice system make i t
easy for companies to disregard them.

26

Many environmental problems result from a lack of investment in new, modern
production complexes. Saving energy and more efficient industrial complexes which would
produce less waste are necessary in most branch es.
Money both from the owners and foreign investors who push for a modernization of
the Russian economy is important in this area. This would not only be an economically smart
investment, but also ecologically valuable.

Is it getting better?
However, no t everything goes badly in Russia. Positive developements are already
taking place even though they are only a beginning. The Russian state has laid some
important foundations despite the corruption, poorly conceived instruments and a complicated
implement ation. With both the climate doctrine and the energy law from 2009 , the negative
effects of the climate change are no longer ignored. Additionally, the energy law is intended
to end the waste of energy; the goal is to waste 40 percent less energy until 202 0. The first
regulations have been formulated, but their implementation remains to be seen.

Russia's accession to the WTO promises some support. The Russian market will open
slowly in the coming seven years until 2019, but the pressure is already increas ing. The
economy needs to modernize and end inefficiencies, especially in the area of power
consumption, in order to be competitive. Modernization therefore becomes a question of
economic survival. But the pressure increases also from society. Increasingly , environmental
movements like NGOs are founded in Russia. Signs exist for a positive ecological change, but
require further support.
Conservation
Russia currently has a total of over 33.5 million hectares dedicated to natural parks
that are protected. Ho wever, Animals such as the polar bear, Amur tiger and Caucasian

27
leopard are in danger of extinction. The Russian government is attempting to help revive
those animal populations that are being threatened to the edge of extinction by deforestation
and poach ers.

Logging
According to the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, 16 million hectares of
forest are destroyed each year to issues such as logging, fires and pollution. Roughly 1 billion
dollars is lost each year to illegal logging. It is also esti mated that 40% of harvested trees
never get used do to ineffective clear -cutting strategies.

Energy
Russia also suffers from irresponsible energy usage and is dependent on the use of
fossil fuels. Russia is a huge producer of fossil fuels and 68% of th e energy in Russia comes
from polluting fossil fuels.
Modern Russia began in the late 17th century after the country‘s iconic ruler Peter the
Great returned from his military campaigns in Europe. Peter had conquered and established a
largely landlocked e mpire that stretched from the Pacific Ocean all the way to the Baltic Sea.

28
Imperial rule of Russia ended in 1917 when the Bolshevik Revolution forced Tsar
Nicholas II from the throne. The Bolsheviks set up a communist government and established
the Soviet Union in the process.
The Soviet Union was marked by limited personal freedoms, lack of personal
property, the massive displacement of ethnic peoples and military might. After World War II,
the Soviet Union used political influence, backed by its militar y, to impose its will over much
of Eastern Europe.
In the 1980s, sweeping reforms passed by Mikhail Gorbachev led to the opening up of
the Soviet Union and a failed military coup d‘état in 1991 led to the country‘s collapse. The
former Soviet Union is now Russia and 14 other republics.
One of the biggest environmental issues facing Russia is deforestation, which has run
rampart due to heavy illegal logging in accessible woodland regions. According to the World
Wildlife Fund, the rates of illegal logging i n northwest Russia and in the country‘s Far East
are at extremely high levels. Heavy logging leads to high levels of erosion and greater carbon
dioxide levels.
The WWF noted that illegal logging also negatively impacts numerous species in the
boreal fores ts. Between Russia‘s historical nuclear weapons program and nuclear energy
sector, nuclear contamination of the countryside is another major environmental concern for
the countr y.

Cooling towers cogeneration – Khabarovsk, Russia
Image credit: ANNI -SANNI / Shutterstock.com
Many of Russia‘s first generation nuclear reactors are at the end of their life span and
continued operation only means greater risks for disaster. Also, the country‘s nuclear weapons
program has resulted in permanent damage in souther n Siberia, and near Chelyabinsk in the
Ural Mountains.

29
Significant neglect during the Soviet Union area has also led to degradation in the
quality of Russian land and water. In particular, lands in the industrial belt along the southern
section of the Ura l Mountains have been degraded beyond repair. Hydroelectric dams on the
Volga River have decreased the river‘s volume of water, causing it and other rivers to retain
even more of the pollutants than they normally would have.
Environmental Policies of Russi a
Russian environmental policy has evolved significantly since the neglectful days of
the Soviet Union. However, critics have pointed out that the enforcement of these laws is
somewhat lax.
Critics of Russian environmental policy also point to a dismantl ing of the country‘s
environmental agencies. For example, the State Committee for ecological matters
(Goskomekologiya ) was eliminated in 2000 and its duties were transferred to the Ministry of
Natural Resources, an agency focused on developing natural reso urces.

Coal burning power plant with smoke stacks, Moscow, Russia
Image credit: VLADJ55 / Shutterstock.com
In addition to an apparent decline in governmental policy, conservation organizations
like WWF Russia and Greenpeace Russia have noted that they f eel they have a lack of
support from the Kremlin. Some domestic conservation organizations have a closer
relationship with the government and as a result, critics say, these groups tend to be less
critical of Russian policy. These organizations tend to foc us on small regional issues.

30
Recently, the Russian government has been signaling that it will be updating its
environmental policy for the 21st century. In November 2013, Russian President Vladimir
Putin said environmental conditions in 15 percent of the country is unsatisfactory and added
that Russia must change its environmental policies or else be ―left with nothing‖ despite
having vast territories and quantities of resources.
Clean Technology in Russia
In 2012, Russia was ranked dead last out of 38 de veloped countries by the Global
Cleantech Innovatio Index for clean tech start -up companies. The ranking was based on
factors such as business culture and government support.
Being among the top fossil fuel producers in the world, Russia hasn‘t had much
incentive to adopt clean technology. However, the country has started to make incremental,
yet substantial investments.
In 2013, the Russian republic of Tatarstan announced the development of a €100
million fund to invest in biofuels and electric car batteries. The fund is said to mete out funds
in increments of €5 to €25 million for various clean technology projects.
Radi oactive Contamination
Beginning with glasnost in the mid -1980s and continuing with the establishment of an
independent Russia in 1991, much disturbing information has become available about Soviet
and Russian nuclear practices and mishaps. These disclosur es have included deadly accidents
on land and aboard naval vessels, a network of secret cities designed specifically for nuclear
weapons production and material processing, detonation of nuclear blasts for "peaceful"
purposes, and the dumping of nuclear wa ste at sea and its injection into subterranean cavities.
More than any other event, the Chernobyl' disaster prompted greater scrutiny and
candor about Soviet nuclear programs. Although much of the contamination from Chernobyl'
occurred in the now -independ ent countries of Ukraine and Belarus, the present -day Russian
Federation also received significant fallout from the accident. Approximately 50,000 square
kilometers of the then Russian Republic, particularly the oblasts of Bryansk, Orel, Kaluga,
and Tula, were contaminated with cesium -137 (see table 3, Appendix). The total population
of the nineteen oblasts and republics receiving fallout from Chernobyl' was 37 million in
1993.
The Soviet, now Russian, navy's disposal and accidental venting of radioactive
materials pose particular problems. Beginning in 1965, twenty nuclear reactors, most with
their fuel rods still inside, were dumped from nuclear submarines and an icebreaker into the
Arctic Ocean north of Russia. In 1994 the Oslo -based Bellona Foundation e stimated that
radioactive dumping in the Kara Sea north of western Siberia and adjacent waters constituted
two-thirds of all the radioactive materials that ever have entered the world's oceans. In 1996
Bellona identified fifty -two decommissioned Russian nu clear submarines that were scheduled
for scrapping but were still afloat near Murmansk with nuclear fuel on board; a timetable for
dismantling them has fallen far behind.
Japan has been engaged in a long struggle to stop Russia's Pacific Fleet from dumpin g
radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan (see Japan, ch. 8). In 1994 Russia complied with

31
Japan's demand to cease dumping entirely; after a long series of negotiations, in January 1996
Russia and Japan agreed on construction of a floating nuclear waste re cycling plant and
expansion of an existing facility to process nuclear waste generated by the Pacific Fleet. The
United States and Japan are to fund the first project, and the United States and Norway the
second. In the mid -1990s, Russia still was seeking methods of storing and disposing of first –
generation radioactive waste in many regions, including the European Arctic. Under these
conditions, experts predict that the country will be hard -pressed to comply with the
requirements of the arms reduction agree ments for disposal of waste from thousands of
nuclear weapons scheduled for destruction later in the 1990s (see Nuclear Arms Issues, ch. 9).
On the eve of the Group of Seven (G -7; see Glossary) nuclear safety summit meeting in
Moscow in April 1996, Aleksey Yablokov and the Bellona Foundation complained that
continued operation of Chernobyl' -type reactors presented an unacceptable risk to the Russian
public. The Western leaders at the G -7 meeting generally muted their criticism on the issue to
avoid embarras sing President Boris N. Yeltsin during his presidential campaign. Yablokov
announced the formation of a new lobby of Russian nongovernmental organizations for
greater government disclosure on the issue.
Each of Russia's natural zones has suffered degradat ion of specific kinds. In the
tundra, the greatest damage stems from extraction and transportation of mineral resources by
crude techniques. In delicate tundra habitats, oil spills, leaks in natural gas pipelines, and the
flaring of natural gas destroy nor thern marshland ecosystems, which take many years to
purify naturally. Also endangered are reindeer grazing lands, upon which indigenous peoples
traditionally have depended for their livelihood. In the permafrost zones that constitute about
40 percent of R ussia's territory, lower air, water, and ground temperatures slow natural self –
cleansing processes that mitigate contamination in warmer regions, magnifying the impact of
every spill and leak.
In the taiga, or forest, zone, the overcutting of trees poses the greatest threat,
particularly in northern European Russia, the Urals, and the Angara Basin in south -central
Siberia. Uncontrolled mining operations constitute the second major source of damage in the
taiga. In the broad -leafed forest zone, irrational l and use has caused soil erosion on a huge
scale. Urbanization and air and water pollution also are problems.
The forest -steppe and steppe regions are subjected to soil exhaustion, loss of humus,
soil compacting, and erosion, creating an extremely serious ecological situation. The soil
fertility of Russia's celebrated black -earth (chernozem –see Glossary) region has deteriorated
significantly in the postwar period. Overgrazing is the main problem in the pasturage regions
of the Russian steppe and has severe ly affected the Republic of Kalmykia in southwestern
Russia and the region east of Lake Baikal. In Russia's limited semiarid and arid territories,
poorly designed irrigation and drainage systems have caused salinization, pollution, and
contamination of sur face and underground water, but not to the degree that these problems
exist in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakstan.
In recent years, officials have identified many of Russia's rivers as carriers of
waterborne diseases, epidemics of which were especial ly frequent in 1995. In July 1995,
Moscow city health officials reported an outbreak of cholera -causing bacteria in the Moscow
River. Officials have warned of increasing outbreaks of sewage -related diseases –including
cholera, salmonella, typhoid fever, dy sentery, and viral hepatitis –in many other Russian
rivers. Citizens have been instructed to boil all water before use. In some areas, clean water is
so scarce that water is imported from other regions. The highest consumption of imported

32
water is in the r epublics of Sakha (Yakutia) and Kalmykia, Kamchatka and Magadan oblasts
in the Far East, and Stavropol' Territory.
Among the chemicals and contaminants dumped frequently and indiscriminately have
been compounds containing heavy metals, phenols, pesticides , and pathogenic bacteria.
Chemical pollution was dramatized when fires ignited spontaneously on the Iset' River in
Sverdlovsk (present -day Yekaterinburg) in 1965 and on the Volga River in 1970. Russian
agriculture, like industry subject to centralized con trol and quota fulfillment in the Soviet era,
continues to cause severe water pollution by overuse and improper handling and storage of
toxic chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. During the Soviet era, dioxin, a
carcinogen, was used routinely as an agricultural insecticide, and it heavily tainted rural wells.
In 1990 Soviet authorities declared that dioxin, which enters the body through
drinking water, was the most serious health threat from pollution.
In 1992 the Russian Federation's Committ ee on Fishing reported 994 cases in which
bodies of water were "completely contaminated" by agricultural runoff. Runoff from fields
results in fish kills and groundwater contamination. Among the largest river systems in
European Russia, the Volga and Dnepr rivers suffer from acute eutrophication –depletion of
dissolved oxygen by overnutrition of aquatic plant life –which distorts natural life cycles.
Large -scale fish kills have occurred in the Kama, Kuban', North Dvina, Oka, and Ural rivers.
Pollution in t he Gulf of Finland, the easternmost extension of the Baltic Sea, includes
untreated sewage from St. Petersburg, where heavy metals and other chemical substances are
not properly removed prior to dumping. In late 1995, St. Petersburg city officials signed a n
agreement with a French water purification company to process the city's drinking water; the
Finns hope that such a move also will improve the overall quality of the city's effluent water.
Water quality in Lake Ladoga, Europe's largest freshwater lake, came to the attention
of government authorities in the mid -1990s. Factories on the lake, which is just east of St.
Petersburg, have discharged tons of heavy metals and other toxic substances into local rivers.
The shores of Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega to it s east have been storage sites for fertilizers,
livestock waste, and chemicals as well as for radioactive military waste. When local rivers
emanating from the lakes reach the Gulf of Finland, their chemical burden changes the
oxygen balance in the gulf. Si milar situations affect the Arctic Ocean, into which Siberian
rivers flow after passing through numerous industrial and power -generating centers, and the
Baltic Sea, into which large amounts of military waste and chemical weapons were discarded
from Poland and the Baltic republics during the Soviet era.
Marine biologists report that only five species of fish remain in the Black Sea, which
once was a highly diverse marine ecosystem with twenty -six species. Between 1985 and
1994, the total fish catch in the Black Sea dropped from 675,000 to 45,000 kilograms.
According to environmentalists, the entire sea is in danger of "dying" because only about 10
percent of its near -surface volume contains enough oxygen to support life. Deoxygenation is
caused primarily by large -scale infusions of hydrogen sulfide, which comes mainly from the
Danube, Don, South Bug, and Dnepr rivers that flow into the sea from the north and the west.
Large amounts of mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and oil have been identified as well. In
1992 t he littoral states of Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine signed an
agreement to take specific measures against pollution of the Black Sea and the tributary rivers
that flow through their territory. Conflicting goals and positions among the states involved,
however, have hindered environmental cooperation.

33
The Caspian Sea is also beset with chemical pollution and the loss of indigenous
species, and it now faces the danger that 1 million hectares of its coastline, including Russia's
Volg a River delta, will be flooded. According to a 1996 report, 300,000 hectares in Dagestan
already had been inundated. By 1993 the average water level of the sea had risen by more
than two meters. Scientists blame the rise on the 1977 Soviet damming of the G arabogaz Gulf
on the Caspian coast of Turkmenistan. Previously, the waters of the gulf intermixed with
those of the Caspian, acting as the main thermal regulator and volume stabilizer of the larger
body. In 1996 the Russian government allocated US$38 milli on for Caspian Sea conservation,
to be matched by US$34 million from local budgets.
Water quality problems are most severe in European Russia, especially in the Volga
Basin, where about 60 million people live. Of all water withdrawn from natural sources i n
Russia, 33 percent comes from the Volga. About half of that water returns to the Volga as
polluted discharge, accounting for 37 percent of the total volume of such material generated in
Russia. The Volga's water does not meet the norms for drinking water and is unsuitable for
fish farming or irrigation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, numerous government
committees were formed to clean up the Volga. Few of the resulting restorative programs
have been implemented, however, and the Volga remains under ec ological stress.
Lake Baikal, a water resource of world importance located in south -central Siberia,
long was the focal point of Soviet environmental efforts to end the pollution that the pulp and
paper plants caused in the lake's watershed. A series of c omprehensive Soviet and post -Soviet
plans yielded limited success in protecting the lake's water and shoreline, which gradually
have succumbed to chemical stresses. In 1995 the World Bank (see Glossary) and the
European Union (EU –see Glossary) granted fun ds for cleaning up Lake Baikal, and in 1996
the Gore -Chernomyrdin Commission announced United States plans to aid Russia in
overhauling paper plants in the Baikal region.
Soil and Forests

Russia devotes about 10 percent of its land to agriculture, but lan d quality is declining.
Erosion carries away as much as 1.5 billion tons of topsoil every year (see Agriculture, ch. 6).

34
In the past twenty -five years, Russia's arable land area has decreased by an estimated 33
million hectares, with much of that loss attr ibutable to poor land management. Experts fear
that agricultural land management may deteriorate further under Russia's new land
privatization as individual farmers try to squeeze short -term profit from their new property. In
the early 1990s, an estimated 50 percent of arable land needed remediation and improved
management for agricultural productivity to improve. Russia's southern regions, especially the
Republic of Kalmykia, are losing about 6,400 hectares of agricultural land yearly to
desertification. T o the east, desiccation of the Aral Sea and expansion of the Qizilqum Desert
in Kazakstan have a climatic drying effect that exacerbates desertification in Russia to the
north and west.
In Russia an estimated 74 million hectares of agricultural land have been contaminated
by industrial toxic agents, pesticides, and agricultural chemicals. Considerable land also is lost
in the extraction of mineral resources. Unauthorized dumping of hazardous industrial,
chemical, and household waste takes land out of produ ction. Flooding is a problem near the
Caspian Sea and in Stavropol' Territory, where the construction of reservoirs has removed
land from use.
In 1994 about 22 percent of the world's forests and 50 percent of its coniferous forests
were in Russia, coverin g an area larger than the continental United States. Of the 764 million
hectares of forested area, 78 percent was in Siberia and the Far East. At that time, vast stands
of Siberian forest remained untouched. Such broad expanses have an important role in th e
global carbon cycle and in biodiversity. In the 1990s, the atmosphere of economic stress and
political decentralization has the potential to accelerate drastically Russia's rate of
deforestation and land degradation, especially in remote areas. Environme ntalists fear that
timber sales will be used as a short -term stimulus to regional economies; already, Chinese,
Mongolian, and North and South Korean companies have taken advantage of looser
restrictions and the critical need for hard currency (see Glossary ) to begin clear -cutting
Siberian forests. Timber harvesting by Russian firms decreased dramatically in the 1990s,
from 375 million cubic meters in 1989 to 110 million cubic meters in 1996.
Aleksey Yablokov, head of the nongovernmental Center for Russian Environmental
Policy, has estimated that Siberia is losing 16 million hectares of forest annually to cutting,
pollution, and fires –an amount six times the official government estimate and higher than the
rate of loss in the Amazon rain forests. Fires, whi ch normally improve biodiversity and long –
term stability, cause excessive damage because of poor fire control measures. Large tracts of
Russian forest, most notably 136,000 hectares in the vicinity of Chernobyl', have suffered
radioactive contamination, wh ich also increases the likelihood of forest fires. Because forests
cannot be decontaminated, the distribution of radioactive particles in the trees remains
constant over many years.
Inefficient lumbering procedures cause unnecessary loss of timber; as muc h as 40
percent of Russia's harvested trees never go to the mill, and unsystematic clear -cutting
prevents productive regrowth. Forest management has improved gradually in the post -Soviet
era. In 1993 the Supreme Soviet, then the lower house of Russia's par liament, passed the
Principles of the Forest, national laws that include guidelines for management and protection.
Because implementation of these laws has been quite slow, many regional jurisdictions have
adopted their own management standards.

35
Acid rain from European and Siberian industrial centers and from power generation
plants has reduced the Siberian forests by an estimated 730,000 hectares. Hydroelectric dams
on Siberian rivers raise significantly the temperature of air and water, destabilizing the
growing conditions of adjacent forests. Because of the enormous oxygen production and
carbon dioxide absorption of the Russian forests (a capacity estimated to be second only to
that of the Amazon rain forest), removal of large sections of those forests w ould have a drastic
effect on the quality of land in Russia and the quality of air over the entire world.
Animal Conservation

There are a variety of animals living in Russia that are on the list of globally
endangered species, or at serious risk. These in clude animals like the Siberian Tiger, Polar
Bear, and Caucasian Leopard.
Russia has a proud tradition of hunting, and such animals were once prized for their
high-quality, dense pelts. Some of these traditions survive today in Russia, despite laws
makin g hunting for such animals illegal. There are many creatures still at risk in the country.
Despite this, many nature preserves have been established around the country, and recent
conferences hope to spread awareness of the risk these animals face.
Russia 's greatest surviving problem from its days as part of the Soviet Union is
outdated nuclear facilities and waste storage techniques. Many plants surviving from the Cold
War era are today outdated and unsafe. Such plants have higher accident risks, and coul d
cause serious problems if allowed to operate at current rates in the near future.

Perhaps the larger issue, however, is nuclear waste disposal. Russia's nuclear program
does not have the funding required to construct sufficient nuclear waste disposal g rounds, and
this often results in unsafe procedures. The country dumped nuclear waste into the sea of
Japan until 1994. Thankfully, such practices have largely stopped, and Russia continues to
make great efforts to improve their nuclear program with the re sources they have.
Contamination of Land and Soil

36

The dumping of waste and contamination of soil and vegetation is a universal
phenomenon in Russia. The majority of Russia‘s industrial and agricultural land was initially
environmentally damaged between 1950 and 1970. Since then, the process of environmental
degradation has further accelerated. The decline in the fertility of land has accelerated as a result
of soil erosion, disruption in land -use, reduction in the amount of natural/organic fertilizer s and
increasing chemical and ra dioactive contamination. At the present time, approximately 40% of the
country‘s agricultural land is subject to wind erosion and 18% to water erosion.
Federal monitoring of land quality is carried out in only a small part of the Russian
Federation. Yet, even this limited data shows that contamination of land is occurring in some
areas on a massive -scale. On average, 11% of Russia‘s residential areas are contaminated by
dangerous metals . In some administrative units, such contam inated land comprises half of the
inhabited areas .
This amount of san itarily and hygienically (micro biological, parasites) contaminated land
is unacceptable for a developed country. The level of contamination is a consequence of the state
authorities‘ neg lect of the need for sanitary removal of industrial and commercial waste from
inhabited areas (including the appearance of illegal dumps), the absence of centralized sewage
systems in some areas and the poor conditions of sewage systems in others.
In all territories that produce oil, the extraction, refining and transportation process has led
to significant contamination of soil by petroleum products. According to expert estimates, 1.5% of
Russia‘s soil is contaminated by oil products, and about 0.3% is c ontaminated by
heavy metals.
The bottom of the Volga reservoirs and other such reservoirs have accumulated tens of
millions of salts from heavy metals and other dangerous chemicals, which have turned these
bodies of water into disorganized and uncontrolle d depositories of toxic waste.
A major ecological problem remains the storage and reuse of solid industrial and home
waste, the amount of which is growing. Presently, there exists hundreds of thousands of
unsanctioned dumping sites, which have a negative impact both on air quality and the quality
of groundwater.

Radiation and Chemical Contamination
Many areas in the Altai Krai, Altai Republic, the oblasts Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk,
Tomsk, Orenburg, Sverdlovsk and Irkutsk, and the Autonomous Okrugs of Ya malo -Nenets and
Khanty -Mansiysk remain (and will be for the long term) contaminated by radioactive fall out

37
from the production and testing of nuclear weapons. The real time -bombs are 85 underground
nuclear explosions carried out ―in the interest of the na tional economy‖ in Sakha (Yakutia)
Republic, Astrakhan, Perm, Orenburg, Arkhangelsk oblasts and some other areas of Russia
between 1964 –1988. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 has created dangerous levels
of radioactively contami nation in Bryansk , Tula, Kaluga and Orel oblasts. Dozens of radioisotope
thermoelectric generators, which were used in the 1990‘s at meteorological stations and
lighthouses, have been abandoned or lost and are now the source of dangerous radioactive
contamination along th e coasts of the Baltic, Barents, Arctic and Far Eastern seas. In addition, in
medical procedures, too high a level of radiation is used.

Public Health and the Environment

The poor condition of the atmosphere, water and soil in Russia impacts on public health.
Environmental pollution, past and present, is an important factor in the high mortality rate in
Russia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that illnesses related to poor environmental
conditions touch the majority of the Russian population. H alf the number of people dying from
environmental causes is preventable. As a result, 2.5 –3 million lives could have been saved
between 1995 and 2009 had it not been for dire environmental conditions.

38

Russia is a major exporter of crude oil, petro leum products, and natural gas. Sales of
these fuels accounted for 68% of Russia's total export revenues in 2013, based on data from
Russia's Federal Customs Service. Russia received almost four times as much revenue from
exports of crude oil and petroleum products as from natural gas. Crude oil exports alone were
greater in value than the value of all non -oil and natural gas exports.
Europe, including Turkey, receives most of Russia's exports of crude oil and products,
as well as virtually all exports of natural gas. Asia (especially China) receives substantial
volumes of crude oil and some liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia. Recently, Russia
finalized a 30 -year, $400 billion deal to supply China with natural gas from fields in Eastern
Siberia, which will further increase Russian export revenues. North America imports some
Russian petroleum products, particularly unfinished oils used in refineries.
Although Russia exports less crude oil and less natural gas than it consumes
domestically, domestic sal es of crude oil and natural gas are much lower in value than exports
because of vertical integration of the oil and natural gas industry and subsidized domestic
prices.
Many Russian oil firms are vertically integrated, owning both the oil fields and
refin eries that process crude oil. These firms can sell crude oil directly to their own refineries
at low prices. Domestic natural gas prices are also subsidized, forcing Russian companies like
Gazprom to use export revenue to fund investment in new infrastruct ure and projects. EIA
estimates that Russian domestic sales of natural gas and crude oil were about $20 billion in
2013, based on data from IHS Energy.
Although revenue from domestic sales of crude oil and natural gas in 2013 was
significantly lower than revenue from exports, Russian domestic sales of petroleum products,
particularly motor gasoline and distillate fuel oil, were approximately $102 billion, similar to
revenue from product exports.

39
Oil and natural gas activities make up a large portion of R ussia's federal budget.
According to the Ministry of Finance, 50% of Russia's federal budget revenue in 2013 came
from mineral extraction taxes and export customs duties on oil and natural gas.

‖Last year, there was a freight train accident near the Russian town of Tver in the
Volga area. 22 tons of oil poured from tankers into the river Vazusa, causing an oil
concentration in the soil that was one hundred and forty times higher than the defin ed limit.
The authorities spoke of an 'ecological catastrophe of national dimensions'.
The accident, the helplessness of the authorities, and also the lack
of interest in such incidents illustrate the situation in Russia. It is true th
at the European p ress and television keep reporting with optimism about the country in the
East, its high economic growth and increasing quality of
life, but reality is different: The alleged economic growth is underpinned by only a few
sectors, and it is almost exclusive ly confined to large cities. In rural areas, the people still live
in abject poverty.
When it comes to supplying the population with drinking water, the situation is
particularly depressing. Inadequate sewage -treatment facilities significantly reduce the quality
of the water, constituting a serious threat to the people. The main reason for this is the fact
that many cities take their drinking water from rivers that already carry untreated waste water
from upstream cities. For there are practically no sew age plants anywhere in Russia. Of
course, the authorities know about the problem. They know that only one percent of the tap
water meets international standards. Russian water pipes and wells are hopelessly outdated;
more than 60 percent need to be moderni sed. Yet no funds are provided for this. And the
industry prefers to drain its sewage into surface water. This is the cheapest way, and
ecological consequences are of no interest.
During the Communist era, hardly any importance was attached to replacement investments
and plant maintenance. Funds were spent on purely quantitative growth and on the country's
armament. However, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, little has changed, so that
there are enormous ecological disasters such as the one in S t. Petersburg, where 20 percent of
the waste water are still
'disposed of' in the Neva, or in the region of Moscow, where the existing sewage -treatment
plants are inadequate, and the drinking water ranks among the worst in the whole country.

40
Large and sm all rivers are equally affec ted by poisoning. The Amur, for example, is
seriously sick; according to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, it suffers from 'chronic contamination
mainly with phenol compounds and heavy metals'. Chemical companies, cities, and
agricultural en terprises drain their waste water untreated into the tributaries of the Amur. In
addition to thirty lakes, there are one hundred rivers that exceed the contamination limit set by
the state, among them, next to the Amur, rivers such as the Argun and the Uss uri. The local
authorities' appeal to put things right goes unheeded in Moscow. The Volga,
the Don, the Kuban, the Lena, the Ob, and the Pechora – practically all the
large streams in Russia – rank among the most severely contaminated rivers.
The resul t of this undesirable development that went on for decades are epidemics of
all kinds. In Nizhni Novgorod, more than 1,200 people contract
ed hepatitis in September 2005. Even more frequently, whole village populations come down
with dysentery and cholera due to contaminated tap water.
What comes next to water contamination in Russia is the problem of air pollution.
Currently, 64 million people live in cities where the air is extremely polluted. According to
the ministry of health, 44 percent of all the d ise
ases in the country result from high air -pollution levels. Cancer, skin diseases, and
tuberculosis as well as deaths caused by environmental pollution have
meanwhile moved to the top of the statistics. Whatis alarming in this context is that morbidity
and mortality rates in children are increasing. The most evident causes of the high morbidity
rates of man and nature in Russia are water
and air contamination.
Given the Communists' maxim of making nature their subject and stepping up the
country's in dustrialisation, this does not come as a surprise. Black smoke rising fromfactory
chimneys and workers striding proudly
along were propaganda symbols of socialist success, leaving hardly any space for an
ecological conscience to develop.
Particularly the inherited waste of the Sovie t regime, whose elimination the current
government does not consider an urgent matter at all, will result in long -term effects of a
special kind. First and foremost, these include the desolate crude -oil and natural -gas pipeline
system that is to blame for many ecological disasters and has ruined both the Tundra soil and
large parts of the Caspian Sea permanently. Capital for renewing pipes is theoretically
available but is released only sporadically or not at all. According to Ru ssian sources,
repairing or replacing defective pipes might cost up to 185 million dollars.
The construction of an infrastructure for the extraction plants also entailed enormous
environmental damage with lasting ecological consequences. And it must be e xpected that the
planned exploitation of the east Siberian natural -gas and oil fields will constitute another step
in this sad development.
What should also be mentioned is the use of nuclear energy for civilian
and military purposes; it meant and still means a special kind of danger to
humans. The best example of the unreliability of Russian nuclear plants is Chernobyl.
Some of the 31 reactor blocks that are still operated by Russia belong to the first
generation and are considered extremely dangerou s. Since maintenance is conducted only
irregularly, the newer reactors are probably unsafe as well. In this context, the secret produc
tion of plutonium and/or reprocessing of radioactive material in 'closed cities' such as
Chelyabinsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoya rsk is worth mentioning as well. The radiation that has so
far been released in these cities exceeds the radiation at Chernobyl by far.
Even water courses, lakes, and soils are affected; due to improper and sometimes
unprotected storage, they show a high degree of radioactive contamination.

41
The decommissioned nuclear submarines in the region of Murmansk constitute a risk
of their own; they present a radioactive threat to the entire Kola Peninsula and the Barents
Sea. Next to more than one hundred submar ines, there are large numbers of spent fuel rods,
nuclear -powered icebreakers, and floating nuclear waste. Only a small part of the Russian
population isaware of the dangers the current ecological situation of their country entails . The
government informs the peo ple either incompletely or not at all about the actual state of
affairs.
Environmental awareness is not a matter the nation talks about; if anything, it is a
subject discussed in small intellectual circles. So far, no change in the status can be observed.
In the future, people in Russia will probably go on suffering from the consequences that arise
from carelessly dealing with nature, and meet their death – in increasing numbers. As far as
natural resources were concerned, there had been a tendenc y to exploit the more accessible
reserves first. Cost of extraction and transportation therefore rose as production (of oil and gas
in particular) was forced to shift from Europe and Central Asia to harsher and more remote
regions in Siberia and the Far Ea st. At the same time, the incentives for enterprise managers
to innovate, increase efficiency or improve the quality of their output were inadequate or even
perverse. The planning system motivated higher production primarily by imposing
increasingly ambiti ous targets since it could not afford to allow temporarily lower output from
one enterprise to jeopardize the input s to others. Thus the infrastructure and environment
were further causalities of the preoccupation with growth and meeting the yearly plan
objectives. Risks of environmental damage were not allowed to obstruct the resource
requirements of rapid industrialization, and would eventually impose enormous costs on the
Soviet economy.
The extent of pollution and ecological collapse in Russia is due to decades of ill –
considered military and industrial development undertaken in virtual secrecy and with scant
concern for the environmental and health consequences. In the Soviet Union, environmental
officials were always kept subservient to the agencies that ran the military, utilities, mines,
chemical industries and metal -works. Consequently, the purity and integrity of the
environment were seriously compromised. Experts maintain that over a hundred big cities in
Russia are now beleaguered by stiff envir onmental predicaments. As a result, pollution in
Russia now threatens the health of millions of citizens and the safety of crops, water and air.
All of these problems are the result of "economics without limits" –a "perversion of the
system of values."
Russian industry has never taken proper and reasonable ecological standards and
requirements, lacking anything like resource -saving waste -free technologies and efficient
purification facilities. There are 28,000 enterprises, among them 428 iron -and- steel w orks,
625 chemical and petrochemical operations, and 5,429 engineering plants churning out
pollutants baneful to both the people and their environment.
Leninsk -Kuznetski, home to 160,000 people. From the center of town, an hour and a
half to the south of Kemerovo, smokestacks tower in every direction, and the streets are
covered with coal dust and ash. Like most of the factories, the largest of the city's nine mines
are downtown. Residents take their drinking water in pails from the Inya, the local river.
Because it contains more chemical waste than water, it flows even when winter temperatures
drop far below freezing.
In Novokuznetsk, the air grows even worse. During the spring thaw, the city's
mammoth metalworks mock environmental laws, releasing into the sky three or four times the
maximum legal level of heavy metals. In winter and summer, the climate conspires to trap

42
poisonous air above the city for weeks at a time. A report by the regional Health and
Epidemiology Survey indicates that sulfur levels near an agglomeration plant run as high as
312 times the acceptable level. Near a 5.4 million -square -foot pharmaceutical plant, fluoride
is 300 times the norm.
Two-thirds of the city's air pollution comes not from its monster factories but from the
low s tacks of its centralized, and massively inefficient, coal -burning utility plants. According
to municipal authorities in Novokuznetsk, the city's air averages 10 times the legal level of
benzopyrene, a carcinogen found in coal. One industrial district is bu rdened with 48 times the
legal level. On bad days, the authorities say, nitrous oxide runs 15 times the norm, ammonium
10 times and soot 7 times. Studies around the world have implicated these pollutants in a
variety of human ailments, some fatal, ranging from asthma and sore throats to cancer. By
winter's end, according to a local chemist, snow on the city's streets contains 200 times the
level of pollutants that the law allows.
While the decline in industrial production has reduced emissions of air poll utants from
stationary sources, this has been more than made up by increased motor vehicles and
industrial accidents. In 150 cities, including Moscow, Tomsk, Krasnodar, Rostov -on-Don and
Yekaterinburg, vehicular emissions now exceed those from industry. Of ten concentrations of
harmful substances from automobile exhausts exceed maximum allowable concentrations 10 –
20 times. Air pollution is responsible for 41 percent of respiratory diseases and 16 percent of
endocrine diseases.

Environmentalists estimate a t least 1 percent of Russia‘s annual oil production, or 5
million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon -scale leak
about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell
disaster in the worl d‘s largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output.
Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil, kills
all plants that grow on it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds. Half a million tons
every year get into rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, the government says, upsetting the
delicate environmental balance in those waters.
It‘s part of a legacy of environmental tragedy that has plagued Russia and the
countries of its former Soviet empire for decades, from the nuclear horrors of Chernobyl in
Ukraine to lethal chemical waste in the Russian city of Dzerzhinsk and paper mill pollution
seeping into Siberia‘s Lake Baikal, which holds one -fifth of the world‘s supply of fresh water.
Oil spills in Russia are less dramatic than disasters in the Gulf of Mexico or the North
Sea, more the result of a drip -drip of leaked crude than a sudden explosion. But they‘re more
numerous than in any other oil -producing nation including insurgency -hit Nigeria, and
combined they spill far more than anywhere else in the world, scientists say.

43

In 1994, the republic of Komi, where Usinsk lies 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle,
became the scene of Russia‘s largest oil spill when an estimated 100,000 tons splashed fr om
an aging pipeline.
It killed plants and animals, and polluted up to 25 miles of two local rivers, killing
thousands of fish. In villages most affected, respiratory diseases rose by some 28 percent in
the year following the leak.
Seen from a helicopter , the oil production area is dotted with pitch -black ponds. Fresh
leaks are easy to find once you step into the tundra north of Usinsk. Fir trees with drooping
gray, dry branches look as though scorched by a wildfire. They are growing in soil polluted
by oil.
Russia accounts for around 25 percent of the world's production of oil and natural
gas and possesses large reserves of both fuels. This abundance has made Russia virtually
self-sufficient in energy and a large -scale exporter of fuels.

44

Environmenta l problems are harming both the health of Russia's citizens and the economy:
US, Russian, and World Bank studies link an increase in respiratory and
gastrointestinal illnesses and developmental problems among children in several Russian
cities in part to environmental factors. A 1996 joint US -Russian government study found that
one-quarter of kindergarten pupils in one city had lead concentrations above the threshold at
which intelligence is impaired, while a US government study noted a rise in the inciden ce of
waterborne diseases and environmentally related birth defects. A Russian government report
cited air pollution as a contributing factor to 17 percent of childhood and 10 percent of adult
illnesses.
Pollution is adding to budgetary strains, reducing labor productivity through illness
and absenteeism, and damaging natural resources. It also is deterring some domestic and
foreign investors concerned about cleanup and liability issues. A team of Russian experts has
pegged overall economic losses from en vironmental degradation at 10 to 12 percent of GDP –
roughly similar to estimated losses in East European countries and substantially higher than
estimates of 1 to 2 percent in developed countries.
Russia's environmental problems also pose substantial threa ts to other regions and are likely
to continue to do so during the next decade:
Russia is a polluter of adjacent seas, dumping industrial and municipal wastes,
chemical munitions, and, until the mid -1990s, solid and liquid radioactive wastes.
It is lik ely to continue to be a major producer and exporter of illicit ozone -depleting
substances because of widespread black -market activity and also will remain a major emitter
of carbon dioxide.
Although Russian Government officials decry the economic and soci al costs of
environmental degradation, they lack the commitment, resources, and organizational capacity
to address environmental problems:

45
Policymakers are focusing on stopping Russia's economic deterioration and stabilizing
the country's financial marke ts, not on the environmental impact of their actions. Spending on
the environment was less than 0.5 percent of total federal budget spending, or about $480
million in 1997 –a significant drop from the modest levels of the late Soviet period. Spending
on dr inking water quality, for example, was down 90 percent from levels of the 1980s.
Russia has a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework in the environmental area,
but government institutions responsible for environmental protection lack the authority and
capability to enforce legislation.
A continued Russian tendency to treat certain nuclear waste and chemical weapons
information as a state secret will complicate Western cleanup assistance programs. The
Russian government recently made broad new cate gories of environment -related information
subject to secret classification in response to revelations about environmental problems at
Russian military bases by former military officers.
Environmental activism has been on the wane since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Despite growing concerns about environmentally related health problems, the Russian public
is preoccupied with economic survival and accords much less priority to environmental
issues.
Solid and hazardous wastes present acute threats to the land and are likely to continue to do
so:
Russia's urban and new suburban communities do not have the management expertise
or landfill capacity to cope with solid waste disposal, and the popularity of Western -style
consumer goods and packaging has worsen ed waste disposal problems.
Russians illegally dump about 200 metric tons of the most highly toxic and hazardous
wastes each year in locations that lack any health protections or oversight, according to
Russia's environment agency. Hazardous waste dispos al problems are likely to increase with
the continued illegal dumping of domestic and foreign -origin wastes.
Russia's military facilities remain significant sources of hazardous wastes. Petroleum –
based products have contaminated the ground at many milita ry bases, particularly around
areas used for fuel storage and vehicle maintenance. Radioactive material from Russia's
nuclear weapons complexes at Chelyabinsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk -26 have contaminated
the nearby region for decades. Other sites of concer n are the home ports of the Northern and
Pacific Fleets, where thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel assemblies, solid and liquid
radioactive wastes, and reactor compartments have accumulated, both as a result of regular
naval fleet operations and progra ms to dismantle and scrap some submarines.
Although the Russians established a military ecological service in 1997 to monitor and
clean up contamination caused by military activities, funding shortfalls are likely to limit
government efforts largely to d ocumenting stocks and flows, posting warnings, and fencing
off hazardous areas.
Russian forest losses in the 1990s have been double those of the 1980s because of
limited efforts to prevent fires, pest infestations, and diseases. Depletion of forests is l ikely to

46
increase if the government's ambitious plan to boost logging output by subsidizing production
and attracting foreign investment is implemented.
The Soviet regime for many years pushed farming into fragile and arid pasturelands
and also supplied farmers with agrochemicals at virtually no cost, resulting in excessive levels
of nitrates in up to 10 percent of food samples in Russia. Although subsidies for such
agrochemicals are being reduced, the widespread soil degradation and groundwater
contamina tion will be difficult and costly to remedy.
Russia's pervasive water, air, and land pollution is harming both the health of Russia's
citizens and the economy. Although total costs are difficult to calculate because of inadequate
economic data, the contr ibuting impact of lifestyle factors such as poor diet and smoking, and
poor health delivery systems, a variety of official and private studies indicate environmental
degradation is taking a heavy toll.
Environmentally related health problems in Russia are extensive and growing, adding to adult
and infant mortality rates that have risen substantially over the past decade:
The link between environmental degradation and poor health is amply reflected in a
1994 World Bank report noting documented cases in sev eral Russian cities of developmental
problems among children ingesting lead, of air pollution causing acute and chronic respiratory
problems such as bronchitis and asthma, and of nitrates in drinking water causing
methemoglobinemia among newborns –which pr events blood cells from absorbing oxygen
and leads to slow suffocation.
A 1996 joint study by the Russian Ministry of Health and the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention found that one -quarter of kindergarten pupils in the city of Saratov
had le ad concentrations above the threshold at which intelligence is impaired. A Russian
study of children in St. Petersburg found their mercury levels to be 1.5 to 2 times higher than
is typical of children in London and New York, while another study of childre n in Klin, cited
by Laurie Garrett in a 1997 article for Newsday , found high rates of asthma, chronic digestive
diseases, and endocrine system problems.
Although we are not aware of the methodology employed, the Russian Ministry of
Health estimates that children exposed to higher levels of air pollution generally suffer 70
percent more illnesses than those living in unpolluted areas, and the Russian State Report on
the Environment for 1994 cites air pollution as a contributing factor to 17 percent of
childhood and 10 percent of adult illnesses.
Environment -related health problems also appear to be growing. The Defense
Intelligence Agency's Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (AFMIC) reports that cases
of waterborne diseases –such as dysentery, typhoi d, cholera, and viral hepatitis A and E –have
risen substantially during the past decade. The annual incidence of some, such as dysentery,
has increased as much as 25 percent in some years, and there have been a series of dysentery
and cholera epidemics in cities such as St. Petersburg in recent years. AFMIC also cites a
report by Russian scientists that the number of cases of environmentally related birth defects
also is on the increase.
The Russian public has taken note of the adverse impact of environm ental degradation
on its health. In one public opinion survey, cited in a 1994 study by B. I. Kochurov sponsored

47
by the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, 80 percent of respondents
associated a decline in their health with pollution, a nd 68 percent believed pollution affected
their children's health.
Economic Impact
Environmental pollution has had a substantially negative impact on Russia's economy.
It contributes to health -related budgetary strains, reduces labor productivity, curbs tourism
and investment, and lowers the yield of natural resources. Environmentally linked illnesses
also limit the military manpower pool:
Premature mortality related directly to environmental factors resulted in an estimated
loss of labor potential of some 82,000 person years in 1991, according to a report to Russia's
Security Council. The loss of labor potential because of environment -related illness is far
higher. A Russian newspaper reported in October 1997 that one in three draftees is rejected
for health reasons –up from one in 20 in 1985 and, in some cases, probably environmentally
induced.
Pollution in the Black Sea has cut the fish catch from 1.5 million tons in 1985 to
100,000 tons in 1994, according to a 1995 Twentieth Century Fund Report by Murray
Feshbach, and also has hurt tourism.
Some foreign firms limit or avoid investing in former Communist states such as
Russia, in part because they are concerned they will be responsible for cleaning up past
contamination and because of ambiguities a bout environmental standards, liability rules, and
levels of enforcement.
Russia's environmental problems will continue to pose substantial threats to neighboring
regions and to the world during the next decade:
Russia is a major polluter of the Black a nd Caspian Seas and other waterways in the
region. The cities of St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad are substantial contributors to pollution
problems in the Baltic Sea and have been slow to engage in regional cooperative programs to
reduce water pollution.
Nuclear waste storage and disposal will continue to be a formidable challenge. The
Russian Navy until the mid -1990s released liquid and solid radioactive wastes into the Arctic
Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the Northern Pacific Ocean, causing many countries c onsiderable
concern. Although no widespread radioactive contamination of the Arctic marine environment
has occurred, runoff from onshore associated naval facilities has contaminated sediment along
the shoreline.
Russia has dumped chemical munitions in th e Baltic, White, Barents, and Kara Seas.
According to a study by the MEDEA group, however, contamination from any leaking
munitions probably would be limited to the area of a dumpsite and to heights of a few meters
above the seafloor with little possibilit y that toxic concentrations could be transported to
nearby shores. Nonetheless, direct contact with leaking munitions, particularly in the Baltic
Sea, has harmed and even killed some commercial fishermen.
Russia continues to produce about half the world' s chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) –
linked to depletion of the ozone layer –and ranks third behind the United States and China in

48
carbon dioxide emissions. Russia is likely to remain a significant producer –and exporter –of
illicit ozone -depleting substances for at least the next several years, despite an international
effort under way to convert Russia's CFC production capacity to environmentally safer
products. Most illicit CFCs seized by US Customs in recent years have been produced in
Russia. Even if conversi on occurs, illicit production, use, and export of CFCs and other
ozone -depleting substances is likely to continue, given Russia's thriving black market and
weak law enforcement.
A potentially serious danger emanating from Russia would be radioactive fall out from
an accident in one of Russia's 29 poorly constructed, aging, and often poorly maintained
nuclear power plants, especially those located close to international borders –such as the
plants in St. Petersburg and on the Kola Peninsula. According to on e former senior member of
Russia's State Atomic and Radioactive Oversight Committee, safety norms for Russian
nuclear reactors are greatly outdated.
Russia has an extensive bureaucracy devoted to environmental protection and natural
resources management:
As Russia seeks to strengthen its position on the international stage, it has embraced
the energy sector as the key to its e conomic growth. The nation‘s economy suffered severe
contraction following the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. After an interlude of
relative calm, it again underwent serious meltdown in 1998 as a result of the Asian financial
crisis and dis astrous government policies. Since this time, however, Russia‘s gross domestic
product (GDP) has expanded at a steady rate, averaging 6.4 percent annual growth.
This expansion has been driven by soaring energy exports, bolstered by high resource
prices and a cheap rouble. Russia is home to an estimated 32 percent of the world‘s proven
natural gas deposits —far more than Iran, which boasts the second -largest share at around 15
percent. Russia also has significant oil deposits and is viewed in Western diplomatic circles as
a potential counterweight to OPEC. Its vast Arctic and sub -Arctic wildernesses contain huge
and relatively unexploited reserves of oil, gas, coal, minerals, and other strategic resources.
Extraction of these riches has been the mainstay of the Russian economy since czarist times,
and after the turmoil of the 1990s the sector is again becoming th e main engine of growth.
Yet rising resource extraction and exploration threaten the survival of a different sort
of natural wealth. In addition to being rich in fossil energy sources, Russia is home to 20
percent of the world‘s remaining boreal (sub -Arcti c coniferous) forests as well as the world‘s
largest freshwater lake by volume, Lake Baikal, which contains unique and fragile
ecosystems. The Siberian Far East is the natural habitat of a rare sub -species of tiger and of
the Amur leopard (already on the v erge of extinction), and also harbors other endangered flora
and fauna. The cold waters of the Barents Sea contain valuable fish stocks and the islands off
Siberia‘s Pacific coast are key breeding grounds for salmon.
The calculated destruction of the pris tine habitats of Siberia and the Russian far north
(the area in and around the Arctic Circle) dates to Soviet times, and the country has inherited
a legacy of environmental degradation thanks to Soviet mismanagement. In the past, however,
the high initial investments required in these regions, as well as steep transportation and
maintenance costs, always put a break on full -throttle exploitation. This is now changing, as
billions of dollars in foreign and domestic investment and government subsidies are pou red
into resource development.

49
Russia‘s oil and gas industry is dominated by a handful of state -run monopolies. Flush
with profits from their high -priced energy exports, companies like Gazprom and Transneft are
rushing headlong into new projects. Transneft proposes to build the world‘s longest pipeline
to transport oil from fields in western and central Siberia to the Pacific coast. The proposed
route passes through virgin taiga forests and virtually assures the extinction of the Amur
leopard, of which only some 35 remain. The pipeline is also slated to skirt Lake Baikal, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site, in clear violation of international law.
The Barents Sea, too, has witnessed heightened oil and gas activity in recent years.
Plans are now under w ay to exploit the region‘s significant untapped deposits. According to a
report by the United Nations Environment Programme, developing the reserves on Russia‘s
Arctic shelf will result in a six -fold increase in oil and gas shipping by 2020, with a potential
corresponding rise in oil spills. The effects of such accidents in the region are well
documented: past spills have killed or damaged a wide variety of marine life and poisoned the
delicate Arct ic food chain, which ultimately supports top predators such as polar bears. In
addition, the introduction of alien species in the ballast water of oil tankers is expected to
cause serious disruptions to regional fish stocks.
Today, there is some indi cation that the Russian government is more sensitive to
environmental concerns than in the past. But given the nation‘s declared goal of doubling
GDP by 2010, and the world‘s rapidly rising demand for energy resources, the environment
may end up being side lined. If this happens, the scale of ecological disaster in Russia could be
huge, tragically befitting the vastness of its setting.
The Ministry of Natural Resources (Minresursov) is the key unit of the government
responsible for natural resources management. The Yel'tsin administration formed
Minresursov in 1997 to oversee federal water, geology, forestry, wildlife, and fisheries i ssues.
The Ministry, however, has little incentive to advance environmental protection because its
officials have ties to the industries they are tasked to regulate and because the ministry
benefits materially by promoting resource development through the receipt of various fees
and from sales. The Forestry Service, for example, earns half of its $500 million annual
budget from lumber sales.
The State Committee for Environmental Protection (Goskompriroda) monitors air
and water pollution and biodiversity preservation. The agency, formerly a ministry with wider
powers now held by Minresursov, has focused on developing a "polluter -pays" system of off –
budget ecological funds. Goskompriroda's accomplishments have been modest because of
staff and funding shorta ges, turf conflicts with the federal natural resource agencies, and
several reorganizations. Its "polluter -pays" efforts have shown little result because many firms
either are insolvent or evade collection efforts.
The Commission on Ecological Security, which President Yel'tsin formed in 1994, is
one of 10 offices within the National Security Council. The Ecology Commission until last
year was headed by Professor Aleksey Yablokov, a respected biologist, environmental
activist, and onetime personal adviser to the President. Yablokov used his position on the
Security Council to bring to light many sensitive issues, including the Soviet government's
illegal whaling activities, its illegal dumping of nuclear wastes into oceans, and environmental
problems relat ed to poor chemical weapons management. In response, Yablokov was relieved
of his government duties in 1997, and it is unlikely that environmental issues will soon regain
a prominent status within the National Security Council.

50
The costs of substantially reducing Russia's environmental pollution will be
prohibitively high, given Moscow's chronic fiscal problems. For example:
The cost of cleanin g the coast of Russia's maritime territory in the Russian Far East
would be about $5 billion and take 20 years, according to a group of Russian, US, and
Norwegian experts.
Bringing the quality of Russia's entire drinking water supply up to official stand ards
would require expenditures of about $200 billion, according to a statement attributed to
Viktor Danilov -Danilyan, Chairman of Russia's State Committee for Environmental
Protection, by Murray Feshbach in a 1998 study on environmental and health problem s in the
former Soviet Union.
The cost of raising the nuclear safety levels to official standards for the entire former
Soviet Union, most of which would have to be borne by Russia, would be about $26 billion,
according to Russian estimates.
MEDEA has examined the role of the Russian boreal forestand its relationship to
carbon issues in the context of the Environmental Working Group of the US -Russian Joint
Commission on Economic and Technical Cooperation and the Kyoto Protocol of the UN
Climate Change C onvention. MEDEA's efforts included reviewing the state of knowledge of
the Russian boreal forest region and assessing the uncertainties in estimating the rates of
carbon exchange between terrestrial and atmospheric systems.
The boreal forests of the wor ld are predominantly coniferous woodlands occupying a
continuous zone around the world at northern latitudes just south of the Arctic tundra zone. In
the boreal forest, aboveground vegetation is dominated by species of spruce, fir, pine, and
larch, that ca n withstand cold and harsh conditions most of the year. Much of the forest area is
underlain by permafrost and wetland areas, called peatlands.
Approximately two -thirds of all boreal forests are located in Russia. The Russian
Federal Forest Service (FFS) manages 1,110 million hectares (Mha) of land area, of which
886 Mha is forest land, with 763 Mha actually covered by trees.
Russia's boreal forest region is one of the largest single reservoirs of carbon in the
world, storing more than one -fifth of carb on found in all terrestrial biomes. This carbon pool
is 20 percent larger than that found in temperate and tropical forests combined. The soils and
peat contain about 80 to 90 percent of the carbon.
Russian scientists and foresters claim that the Russian boreal forest can be managed
for the purpose of increasing carbon removal from the atmosphere, arguing that the current
carbon removal rate is well below its potential:
Russian Government studies conclude that the Russian boreal forest is absorbing
atmo spheric carbon at a rate of 160 million tons of carbon per year.
The studies also predict that the Russian forest will continue to represent an important
sink beyond 2040.