Regional Environmental Policy: Tomsk Experience

    The environmental policy of the Tomsk Oblast administration is aimed, on the one hand, at toughening measures against nature users that violate environmental laws and, on the other hand, at creating a favorable environment for the promotion of the economic sphere. The principal efforts are now targeted at searching solutions to harmonize the state’s economic and environmental interests, establishing interdepartmental cooperation, and building a single policy to create favorable living conditions for the present and future generations.
    Tomsk Oblast has prepared concrete proposals on issues related to the optimization of the management system. These include regulatory systems designed for waste handling, pollutant emissions into the atmospheric air, and standards for effluents containing substances and microorganisms discharged into water bodies. The regulatory systems would considerably decrease nature users’ time spending and financial expenses. Putting them into life necessitates amending federal legislation.
    The proposed system of state administration in the sphere of environmental protection and nature management will allow one to

• minimize  management  and  oversight  personnel and to eliminate authority overlapping;
• simplify a number of systems in environmental regulation and resources management and to cut economic expenditure and time spending associated with the obtaining of licensing documents;
  
• exercise the rights of the population and economic actors (fishing, hunting, using subsurface and forest resources, regulation) in the territory of their jurisdiction in the best way and bear responsibility for the final result of their activity.
  

    A.M. Adam
    M.R. Tsibulnikova
    Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of Tomsk oblast
    N.I. Laptev
    Western Siberian Environmental Center