| An official of the Ministry of Natural Resources almost began the liquidation of nature reserves A technical glitch in the work of the Ministry of Natural Resources almost turned into a new attack by the environmental community on the ministry. The “greens,” who cannot forgive the authorities for the liquidation of the State Committee for Ecology and believe that the current environmental ministry is not coping with the tasks of environmental protection, made a fuss on Sunday about a new unprecedented initiative of this department. Statements sent to the editorial offices of the capital's newspapers stated that the Ministry of Natural Resources intends to liquidate all game reserves and nature reserves.
A telegram from Moscow signed by Deputy Minister Valery Pavlov, demanding that all Russian nature reserves calculate the costs of their maintenance, was indeed sent to the regions. In this document, the Ministry of Natural Resources invited the directors of nature reserves to “justify the need for the further functioning of your organization in modern conditions”, since “the analysis of the activities of the organization you head for the period 2002-2003 carried out by the central office of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia. gives grounds to conclude that its continued existence is inappropriate.” “The letter shows boorish unprofessionalism,” Alexei Zimenko, general director of the Wildlife Conservation Center, told a Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent. — The Ministry of Natural Resources clearly made a mistake by sending it out to everyone. This was a particular surprise for those reserves that had recently undergone an inspection, and they passed this inspection, and their managers were awarded based on its results. And suddenly such telegrams! But even if there are intentions to liquidate someone, there must be a different procedure, and not demands for some pieces of paper. Nature reserves are organized by government regulations and are liquidated by them.”
Yesterday, however, this telegram was also renounced by the leaders of the Ministry of Natural Resources, who recognized its text as erroneous. On Monday another telegram was sent to the reserves. “There can be no talk of any change in the status of specially protected areas,” the Ministry of Natural Resources emphasized. Deputy Head of the Department of Specially Protected Natural Areas, Facilities and Biodiversity Conservation Valery Fedorov, in an interview with a correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper, explained that this was a “technical error by the performer” and “unsuccessful wording.” “Now the ministry is identifying the culprit, and he will definitely be punished,” he said. - The reserve case is supervised by a completely different deputy minister - Kirill Yankov, but he did not sign anything like that. We have 100 specially protected areas in Russia, 95 of them are under our control. And our position is to strengthen and strengthen these territories. For example, documents have now been prepared for four new reserves, and they will be organized in the near future.” Irina BELASHEVA |
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