Vladislav Larin - Review of the System of Environmental Monitoring in the Russian Federation and Former Soviet Union and Related Environmental Policy Issues. Thesis for MSc Degree, MCMXCVII

For evaluation of undesirable impact of space rockets on the environment, Russian Space Agency (RKA) had established the System of Environmental Monitoring for Cosmodromes and Rockets Launches (SEMK).

In 1995 the first demonstration variant of SEMK was prepared. The main activities of SEMK included:

– display of different levels of geographical information about the state of environment in the routes of the rockets launches and location of places where of rocket falling parts is possible;

– creation of digital geographical maps and determination of subjects’ location on the surface;

– comparable evaluation of the environmental safety of rockets launches for different routes; evaluation of sizes of the areas which should be closed for other activities (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

Among all the areas of environmental monitoring the most complicated and less developed both one in Russia and other countries is the monitoring of biota. Though a lot of publications exist devoted to the monitoring of different species and problems of bioindication in general, it is difficult to apply most of them in EGSEM because of the lack of unified methods.

At present in the frame of GosComEcologii elaboration of the system for monitoring of biota for the purposes of EGSEM has begun. This system includes three main elements:

– monitoring of flora;

– monitoring of fauna;

– monitoring of biota in protected areas.

The primary aim of this research identifies the more important indicators for each block of monitoring on federal and regional levels (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

1.3.5. International obligations of the Russian Federation in the field of environmental monitoring

Activities in the Russian Federations related to international obligation in the field of environmental monitoring:

– development of the project «Global Environmental Monitoring for Natural Disasters»;

– development of the project «Arctic Monitoring»;

– integration into the international systems for environmental monitoring GSMOS/UNEP and GRID/UNEP;

– creation of International System of Environmental Monitoring of the states-members of CIS (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

1.3.6. Main directions of increasing efficiency of actions for the creation of EGSEM

In accordance with the decisions of the Interagency Commission on Ecological Security of the National Security Council of the Russian Federation, adopted on 19 December 1995 (O povishenii effektivnosti…, 1995), the main directions of increasing efficiency of the actions for creation of EGSEM are:

– actions for faster adoption of the Federal Programme for Creation of EGSEM; adoption of Regulations on Federal Sub-Systems of EGSEM;

– actions of Ministries for the application of a systems for environmental monitoring of antropogenic influences of industrial and agricultural enterprises;

– actions of regional branches of GosComEcologii for control of observance of permissible norms of emissions of pollutants into the environment;

– actions for creation of regional sub-systems of EGSEM;

– adoption of the documents for regulation at activities of EGSEM and GSN;

– improvement of the existing system of environmental monitoring;

– improvement of the financial support for EGSEM programs from Federal authorities and regional environmental Funds (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

The creation of EGSEM will allow to unify data collected on the basis of common standards. Moreover, environmental information will be more accessible by different groups of users.

At present on the territory of the former Soviet Union there is no common center for collection of environmental information. Besides there is no single library with books or databases about environmental problems of Newly Independent States.

1.4. Problem of secrecy and difficulty in accessing environmental information

1.4.1. Information «for official use only» («DSP»)

All information about the state of the environment in the USSR had different grades of secrecy. It was inaccessible for independent researchers, for the press and for the public. There was strict internal control in all State’s organisations which were collecting or analysing data about the state of environment. This was done in order to prevent passing data of environmental monitoring or of analysis of this data to the public (Larin, 1997).

Widely spread was the stamp «for official use only» («DSP»). Publications devoted to the pollution of environment in the former Soviet Union had this stamp. Even in the case when independent researchers had access to publications of GosComStat or GosComGidromet, reference to that information was prohibited by State political censorship. No publisher could publish material with data from issues with the stamp «DSP» or data on environmental pollution without reference to sources of information. Foreign sources of information on pollution of the environment in the USSR also were unavailable to the public.

1.4.2. First open publications of environmental data

The first official edition published in the press in 1987 named «Natural resources and protection of the environment» was the Jubilee statistical annual report of GosComStat USSR entitled «National Economics of the USSR for the 70 years» (Narodnoye choziaystvo SSSR za 70 let, 1987). This part of 766-pages volume contained 12 pages with very general figures, mainly devoted to utilisation of natural resources. This statistical annual report was published in 25.000 copes and in accordance with opinion of Head of Department of the Environmental Statistics of the GosComStat believes that it was an enormous success for that time (Dumnov, pers.comm.).

After the appearance of the Jubilee statistical annual report of GosComStat USSR periodical publications with more or less complete collections of data devoted to the problems of environmental pollution and natural disasters began. This was a remarkable point in the real beginning of the «perestroyka» in the USSR, which several years had been under the «green» slogans.

Around this time stamps «DSP» were cancelled from publications of GosComGidromet devoted to the monitoring of air and water pollution, background monitoring of environment, nuclear contamination, etc. It was possible to use data from those annual reports without fear, but they did not become more accessible. Political censorship was replaced by commercial censorship. The holders of primary data on the state of the environment for several decades now understood that this information is expensive and it should be sold, but there was no department responsible for trading of information. As a result the situation of independent researchers looking for reliable environmental information in the CIS today is not much better than in the times of the USSR.

1.4.3. Appearance of the «commercial censorship»

The problem is even more complicated because most of publications and data collections were published in only 40—200 copies and are very rare. To publish extra copies governmental organisations have no money, meanwhile the commercial organisations are not interested in selling environmental information on a wide scale. Moreover, the problem of trading information collected on the money from budget is unclear. This information should be spread free of charge or for modest payment because collection and processing of this information was already paid for from the budget i.e. taxpayer’s money.

Only several segments of data on the state of the environment in the Russian Federation, which is the successor state of the USSR ias concerns environmental information is still confidential; e.g. data on the state of nuclear navy and contamination of the environment linked to recycling of nuclear wastes. It is still difficult to obtain important non-confidential information for research because it is kept in different organisations in the different cities of Russia.