Kemerovo, Russian Federation
In the context of the Year of Ecology in Russia, much attention has been drawn to the significant extent to the implementation of the state environmental policy related to the problems of the country’s environmental development as a whole, as well as to ensuring environmental safety and conservation of biological diversity, both in the country and in the regions. The authors use official assessments of the environmental situation in the Kemerovoregion, which is characterized by a high level of anthropogenic impact on the natural environment, the social sphere, the public health and the significant environmental consequences of economic activity.
Therefore, the paper features the implementation of environmental law in an industrialized region. It analyses a number of violations caused by the economic activity in the region. First of all, they are related to the current growth rates of coal mining in Kuzbass, as well as with the predominance of open coal mining, which leads to intensive development of the poor ecological situation in the region.
The authors consider examples of legal regulation of relations caused by the formation of mechanisms for the application of environmental policy, in the process of exercising the competence of controlling and law enforcement bodies in their protection of mineral wealth, land, water, air and forest in the region.
The article also discusses the «non-exhaustive» use of natural resources as one of the strategic directions of state environmental policy: as a legal concept, as a legal principle, as an obligation of the authorities, and as the right and duty of rightholders (users) of natural resources.
The article ends with the following statement: in Russian version, the content of environmental policy is distributed among a number of legal acts, which is why it is often difficult to determine and complicated in application.
A possible solution for the ecological situation in the region should be based on the objectives of environmental policy, determined for different periods (long, medium and short-term). The joint efforts of economic entities and supervisory bodies should be aimed at a radical change in the fight against destruction and contamination with environmental wastes, contaminated wastewater, as well as the elimination of the accumulated environmental damage in general. Finally, there is a need to strengthen the planning in the implementation of environmental policy in order to achieve the volume of production and consumption of both mineral and biological resources of the region that would be adequate to the natural environment. These measures should be equally extended to the activities of industrial facilities and the population in all territories of the region.
state environmental policy, norms of environmental law, environmental legislation, natural resources, offenses in the sphere of nature management, environmental safety
