Nature minister opposes turning Russia into a dumpsite

“Russia is not only a dump but also an ecological outpost of Europe and Asia, it receives twice as much dirt from Western Europe as it exports there,” Russia’s Nature Minister Boris Yatskevich told journalists following today’s meeting of the government. He pointed to a necessity to strictly divide obligations in the sphere of environmental protection between federal and local authorities. The minister mentioned that the environmental protection was in the jurisdiction of municipal authorities in the whole world. In Russia, 90 per cent of money allotted for these purposes is at the disposal of local authorities, nevertheless, the environmental protection is mostly carried out by the federal centre. The minister thinks it necessary to introduce market mechanisms in the environmental protection, because the existing system is sooner a fiscal one: having paid a penalty, plants and factories continue to pollute the environment. According to the minister it is necessary to introduce ecological insurance, and to use activities of environmental protection societies on a broader scale. Mr. Yatskevich suggests creating “an objective image of Russia,” RBC reports.