«CURRENT EVENTS»

RUSSIAN NATIONAL PROPERTY EXCLUDED FROM THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM

On September 9, 2004 a press conference was held in the Independent Press Center in Moscow, focused on a dangerous situation evolving in Russia in the field of natural reserves and national parks’ federal system state management.

The officials of public environmental organizations in Russia addressed a statement to RF President V.V. Putin concerning the improvement of state management of the federal system of specially protected natural areas (SPNAs). In this statement they proposed to establish a Federal Agency on Specially Protected Natural Areas which would be responsible for all state reserves and national parks, as well as federal reservations and other SPNAs of federal significance. This new Agency would report directly to the RF Government. This proposal received whole-hearted support from the leading domestic experts in the field of nature protection and nature conservation.

“Any reserve or natural park represents an integral entity with a diversity of mutually supportive and complementary functions, including protective, scientific, educational etc. These entities should be managed from a single hub authorized to address all such issues. This conclusion is confirmed by many years of experience in natural reserves management accumulated in many countries with a well-developed SPNA system”, believes Alexey Zimenko, Biodiversity Conservation Center.

The RF legislation provides that SPNAs have a status of federal state institutions that implement activities in field of nature protection, scientific research and ecological education. However, the issue of establishing a state management structure in this field remains unsettled. According to Resolution No. 400 of the Russian Government of July 30, 2004, “pending the adoption of a relevant legal act by the Government of the Russian Federation state management in the field of organization and functioning of specially protected natural areas of federal significance shall be entrusted to the Federal Service of Nature Use Oversight”. As a result a diversified system of Russian SPNAs, which has a vital role to play in the provision of national ecological safety, has been in fact left in abeyance.

“What we are witnessing today is a bleak image of a real SPNA management system… We consider it necessary to establish a specialized Federal Agency under direct control of the RF Government as soon as possible”, says Vsevolod Stepanitsky, an honored ecologist of the Russian Federation.

As a result of administrative reform a number of functions related to state property management and state services provision in the field of environment conservation were not entrusted to any single ministry or agency. First and foremost, these functions include implementation of environment improvement programs. Management of specially protected natural areas was instead included in mandates of different ministries, and this move is contrary to the very concept of the current administrative reform whose managerial and legal aspects are prescribed in the decrees of the RF President.

Participants of press conference:

Sviatoslav Zabelin – Co-Chairman of the Social and Ecological Union International, member of the Presidential Council of Civil Society Development and Human Rights Promotion

Evgeny Shvartz – Director on conservation policy of WWF Russia

Ivan Blokov – Campaign coordinator of Greenpeace, Russia

Ivan Novitsky – Deputy of the Moscow city Duma

Natalia Danilina – Director of the Ecological and Educational Center “Natural Reserves”

Alexey Zimenko – Director-General of the Biodiversity Conservation Center

Vsevolod Stepanitsky – winner of Fred Packard award of the World Commission on Protected Natural Areas, honored ecologist of the Russian Federation

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