MOSCOW, Russia -- In a move to restructure the federal government's executive branch, President Vladimir Putin has eliminated the state committee for environmental protection along with several others.
They were the state committees for forestry, northern regions, land policy, cinematography, and youth policy. The committee for environmental protection was the main government body responsible for monitoring and analyzing all environmental sectors except those related to nuclear issues.
The decree was made public over the weekend and triggered immediate criticism from leading environmentalists. The environmental and forestry functions were transferred to the Ministry on Natural Resources, which licenses development of Russia's oil, natural gas and other mineral deposits.
Indicating that he will be subordinating environmental concerns to the development of natural resources, President Putin Saturday completed his new Cabinet by appointing as energy minister a relative unknown, Alexander Gavrin, who has close ties to the country's biggest oil producer, LUKoil.
In an interview with the "Moscow Times" Monday, former committee head Viktor Danilov-Danilyan called Putin's decree "absurd." He called for continued independent monitoring and testing of the environmental effects of natural resource development.
But Putin's order does not transfer the environmental experts from the former state committee to the Ministry on Natural Resources and how the monitoring will be conducted is still unclear.
In a statement issued last week, Greenpeace Russia called the elimination of the environmental protection committee "a step away from the civilized world."
"Even the presence of a shabby State Committee for the Environment is better than no environmental monitoring body whatsoever," said Greenpeace Russia spokesman Alexander Shuvalov.
Vladimir Slivyak, coordinator of nuclear programs for the Moscow-based organization Ecodefense called the move a step toward "de-environmentalization of the state."
Working with environmental issues is not an easy task in Russia. President Putin was director of the Russian Security Police, or FSB, in 1998 and 1999. He is known to share their belief that environmentalists may be working against the best interests of Russia.
Many Russian groups and individuals were accused of espionage for their work against radioactive contamination and for nuclear safety in 1999 and 2000.
In arresting environmentalists and others, the Russian police have made wide use of the practice of planting drugs on them, human rights activists have said.
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2000.
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