In his address to the conference, the Minister said that new nature conservation policies will significantly reduce the human impact on the environment and provide a 50% increase in investment in environmental protection by 2020. This will be achieved through a set of measures, including eliminating environmental damage caused in the past, creating industry for waste processing and repulping, and carrying out environmental modernisation programmes at businesses.
Sergei Donskoi said that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is currently finalising and coordinating a federal targeted programme to eliminate accumulated environmental damage for 2014-2025. “Thanks to this programme, by 2020 the share of processed and detoxified industrial and household waste will grow from 11% to 80% by 2020,” the Minister explained.
He added that conservation and restoration of flora and fauna diversity is a major area of the Ministry’s work. In the past few years, three national parks – Leopard Land in the Primorye Territory, Beringia in the Chukotka Autonomous Area, and Onezhskoye Pomorye in the Arkhangelsk Region, and two federal reserves have been established in Russia. By 2020, eleven more reserves and 17 national parks will be opened.
“Measures to improve the nature conservation law, their implementation as part of specific projects, as well as efforts to create a culture of environmentalism and improve environmental education will strengthen the role of Russia as a leader in the global environmental movement,” the Minister concluded.
