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Ecology and Subsidiarity: The Emerging Role of Russia's Regions in Environmental Protection
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Vladimir Kotov (Russian Academy of Transport, Moscow),
Stephan Kux (Europainstitut, Basel),
Elena Nikitina (IMeMO, Moscow)
International Studies Association
Paper presented to the 39th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association
Minneapolis, 17-21 March 1998
With privatisation and decentralisation, the political, institutional and economic framework for Russia's environmental policy is undergoing fundamental change. The study presents a comparative view of the emerging role of Russia's regions in formulating and implementing environmental measures. It is based on interviews, documents, statistics and other data collected in the field research at the regional level - in Moscow (city), Murmansk (oblast), Novgorod (oblast), Sakha (republic), as well as at the federal level - in the federal ministries and state committees.
Main emphasis is on the political, legal and economic analysis of nascent regional environmental policies, on the conflict between center and the regions, on interaction of economic and ecological interests, on the emerging institutionalization of regional politics. The study elaborates policy recommendations regarding the design, regional institution-building and federalization of the political, legal and economic system in Russia.
Abbreviations
CFCs: Chlorofluorcarbons
CITES: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
CO2: Carbon dioxide
EPA: Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.A.)
EU: European Union
GATT: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
IRO: Inter-regional organization
LRTAP: Long-range trans-boundary air pollution
NCG: non-central government
NGO: non-governmental organization
NOx: Nitrogen oxides
SO2: Sulfur dioxide
UNECE: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
UNEP: United Nations Environment Program
VOCs: Volatile organic compounds
I. Synopsis
1. Currently, regions are playing a very important role in Russia's environmental policy. The situation was quite different not so long ago: the role of the regions in environmental policy during the Soviet period was around zero.
A set of questions emerges in this respect:
2. During the Soviet period the regions (territory of some of them is comparable with the territory of the entire Western Europe) did not have, and were not able to implement their own environmental policies. Their environmental interests had been subdued. There were two major reasons. Firstly, the system of command economy which had been in existence in the USSR during 70 years was orginised on a sectoral principle, but not on a regional one. Secondly, federalism in the USSR had a declarative character. In fact, unitarism prevailed. As a result no institutions existed within the Soviet system which might adequately represent the environmental interests of the regions. Regional environmental policy simply did not fit into the Soviet system.
3. Regions of Russia desperately need to implement their own environmental policies. This need is defined by differences in ecological problems of various regions. Russia is a country with the largest territory in the world: it is three times as bigger as the territory of Europe (without Russia). Differences in natural conditions, in ecological problems, in local environmental interests serve as a 'natural' basis for implementation of regional environmental policies.
4. Changes in the role of the regions in environmental policy became possible only as a result of general changes in economic and political systems in Russia. Among main results of our study is a conclusion about deep integration of environmental policy into system mechanisms, about its dependence upon the character and the main features of economic and political systems.
The new role of the regions in environmental policy is a result of:
5. What institutions in Russia perform environmental functions at the regional level?
First of all these are regional branches of the federal Ministry of Environment (it was transformed into a state committee in August, 1996). At first glance it seems that this system replicates to a certain extent an American system where territorial organs of federal environmental protection agency represent an important instrument in environmental policy. However, it is quite far from it, since territorial organs in Russia have important territorial peculiarities. Creation of the environmental ministry (1991) was an important achievement of the democratic movement in the country. There was no institution of this kind in the USSR, and environmental function had not been represented by a specialised agency. This function had been dissolved in activities of a great deal of organs, especially - industrial ministries. Environmental protection for them was in conflict with the major goals of their activities. It had the most negative consequences in terms of environmental policy implementation and, especially, for nature. Newly created ministry established its territorial organs in the regions. Now they interact directly with enterprises. The number of personnel in the central body of environmental ministry accounts for 550, and in its territorial organs - 944. However, territorial environmental organs are in a dual subordination - from the federal ministry, and from the regional authorities. Unfortunately, such peculiarity of institutional framework of environmental protection, can be evaluated as a negative one. Control rights of the federation and the regions over territorial environmental organs overlap. Dualism emerges in this respect, and it results in escape from responsibility, in vagueness both in the rights and in obligations of territorial environmental organs, as well as in complication in decision-making process. However, in practice territorial organs are oriented to a high extent at regional authority, at its interests, although, at the same time, they get their salaries from the federal budget.
6. According to the national 1991 Law on Environmental Protection the joint competence of the federation and the regions involve:
This project analyses four regions of Russia (Moscow city, Murmansk oblast, Novgorod oblast, Sakha republic). The main factors that define the environmental policy of the regions include:
7. Each region now has its regional environmental fund. Ninety percent of financial resources collected from payments for pollution is transferred into it. Despite expectations, in practice the level of financial resources accumulated in these funds appeared to be not high - this level might be much higher, since the amount of environmental violations today in Russia is considerable. However, quite often environmental organs pretend not to notice them, and do not impose fines on violators. The reason is that environmental organs act in this case according to instructions of regional authorities. Currently Russian industry appeared to be in extremely difficult situation, the level of unemployment is high, and regional authorities are not interested in finishing off regional enterprises with environmental fines. There is a widespread perception in Russia that if domestic industry functions in accordance with environmental legislation, then the major part of enterprises would be closed.
8. The democratic movement in Russia based its serious expectations on decentralisation of environmental policy and transfer of competence from the center to the regions. This was supposed to improve radically the environmental situation in the regions. But not all democratic hopes became true, some approaches appeared to be unrealistic and need reconsideration.
Struggle on the issue of division of competence between the center and the regions had been initiated in the 1980s, and it still proceeds today. However its accents had shifted. The major current target of this struggle are control rights over natural resources, with essential item in it: who would control these resources - elites (authorities) in the center or elites (authorities) in the regions. The red thread is not the rational use of natural resources and their environmentally benign exploitation, but the issue of who would benefit from their use. Problems of environmental protection policy in the regions rich in natural resources appeared to be intertwined with the resource-use problems. Quite often environmental policy serves as an instrument in regulation of access of undesirable competitors to natural resources. Thus emerging of new actors and new interests in this sphere resulted in shaping of new conflicts and unresolved problems.
Abolishment of the environmental ministry in the structure of the new government created after the presidential elections in Russia is among the displays of the struggle between those who long for unrestricted use of natural resources and those who aim to protect them. The ministry was turned into a state committee, and its head does not have a ministerial status and, thus, is not a member of the cabinet. This means that important decisions regarding the use of natural resources might be undertaken at the federal level without taking into consideration the opinion of environmental protection agency.
9. The new system of environmental protection with developed regional structures has been functioning in Russia only during several years. During this period territorial organs had become important institutions which interact tightly with enterprises in a course of implementing the environmental protection policies. At the same time it was indicated that functioning of this new system is associated with several serious problems.
Firstly, this is dualism. As mentioned earlier, according to definition of the dualism the status of territorial organs of the environmental agency is in a double subordination - to the federal committee and to regional authorities simultaneously. This practice is used by the Russia bureaucracy in order to muddle a business to its own benefit, and then to try to escape from its own responsibilities.
Secondly, in fact territorial environmental organs of environmental agency appeared to be under control of the regional administration. Regional authorities, for example, often demonstrate this dependence by withdrawal of resources from the regional environmental funds not for environmental purposes.
Thirdly, currently in political life of Russia some processes are developing at the regional level that might have serious negative consequences for environmental protection activities. The tendency emerges when directors of enterprises get the majority of seats in legislative regional organs with the help of resources of enterprises they use to finance their own electoral campaigns. As a result a danger exists to repeat in a new form the unfavorable situation created under a command economy when the environmental function was concentrated in the hands of environmental polluters. In case directors of enterprises manage to nominate their own people to territorial environmental organs and to provide a political cover for them, then environmental efforts at the regional level are doomed to failure.
Fourthly, corruption is widely spread in the governmental institutions of Russia. According to major analysts the regional and local levels of the state authority are affected by the most severe forms of corruption. Getting licenses for activities damaging the environment, violation of environmental norms by enterprises, allocation of development cites within special nature protection zones - all these issues are often resolved with the help of bribes, particularly, at the regional level.
10. All these important specific features make it necessary to turn territorial organs of the federal environmental agency into more independent institutions from the regional authority and from those groups which realise their interests with the help of the regional authority. It does not mean at all to give up the territorial principle of environmental management, or to substitute it with something else; it means that it is necessary to erect a barrier to decomposing impact of corruption and to lobbying groups of interests. Simultaneously this would allow to abolish dualism and to establish institutional structure for environmental management with a better defined system of subordination without overlap of competencies. Especially it might be reasonable not to allot regional authorities with formal rights for execution of their own policy in terms of personnel within the territorial organs of the federal environmental agency. It is necessary also for territorial organs to have a single chain of subordination, but not two of them.
A question emerge in this respect: is it possible to realise this model in current political conditions in Russia? There are several factors which define the possibility that currently changes in environmental policy at the regional level might be blocked by such resistance of the regions which the federation would not be able to overcome. Moreover, the federation seems even not to try to do so in the nearest future. Environmental policy is gradually receding from the political avant-scene toward a periphery of political interests and policy-making. Use of natural resources becomes a priority item on the economic and political agenda. This approach resulted recently in diminishing of the status of institution responsible for implementation of nature protection function.
11. To solve the problem, although partially, is possible by addressing other institutions which are more independent from regional authorities. Such institutions might be (however, to a certain extent only, since there are limits to possibilities of enforcement in environmental sphere) the judicial organs - for example, ecological public prosecution organs at the regional level.
12. What is the significance of regionalisation of Russian environmental policy for the West? Increase in the role of the regions means that environmental policy is made today not only in Moscow. It is made to a high extent in the regions, and today the used-to-be practice of the eighties when all the deals of the western partners had been accomplished in Moscow, is not enough or adequate to the current reality. It is necessary to develop cooperation with the regions, it is necessary to analyse and to be aware of their interests, approaches, and possibilities. Without this precondition activities on joint implementation and Russia's adherence within this framework to provisions of international environmental agreements are slightly possible and realistic.
II. Environment and Subsidiarity
II. 1. Localizing Environmental Policies
The effectiveness of international environmental agreements (IEA) and national protection programs is often decided at the local and regional level. 1 The UNECE Protocol on Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), for instance, requires appropriate legislation in the regions of Hessen, Lombardia, or Murmansk, the cities of Frankfurt, Moscow, or Zurich. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) depends on the effective cooperation of local gamekeepers in Bangladesh or Kenya. The Food and Agriculture Organization«s (FAO) integrated pesticide management program attempts to change the behavior of rural communities and farms. And the success of the international clean water agreements of the Lake of Constance can be attributed to the construction of sewage plants by the lakeshore communities. International and national environmental policies thus combine a top down and a bottom-up approach. This is expressed in the slogan "thinking globally - acting locally".
There is a growing interest in these mesolevels of international environmental policies. This corresponds to a broader trend in political science. While Evan Luard has declared the ultimate globalization of human activities 2 , recent works pay more attention to the role of regions in international cooperation. James Rosenau, for instance, refers to the simultaneous, dialectically linked globalization and localization in world politics. 3 In his work, Brian Hocking has demonstrated the importance of "localizing foreign policy". 4 The multilayered character of much contemporary public policy requires multilevel analysis.
International environmental agreements are a good illustration for the problematique. The signatory states first translate treaty obligations into national framework programs and pass on responsibilities for implementation to the regional and local levels. Regional and local governments develop their own programs in order to fulfill the national standards and targets. The doctrine of partial preemption envisages that central governments set minimal environmental objectives and standards, non-central governments are given the latitude to design and implement their own legislation. Implementation is thus shared. International and national environmental policies are nested in many ways. 5 This process of policy diffusion can be compared to a Russian matryoshka doll. The international environmental agreement (IEA) forms the outer, national legislation the intermediate, and regional and local programs the inner shells. This process of policy nesting or stratification can be described as "subsidiarity". It is often possible only ex-post, if at all, to decide whether a particular environmental protection objective can be better achieved at the regional, national or international level. In most cases complex forms of cooperation between all three levels are required. Even in centralized countries such as France or Sweden, the national authorities depend on the cooperation of regional and local administrations.
Most analyses of the effectiveness of IEA only look at performances at the national level, but neglect policy decisions and behavior at subnational levels. 6 Yet even in "progressive" countries such as Canada, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, or the United States, major variations in the quality of the environment and environmental policies across the different regions, states, provinces, cantons or LŠnder can be observed. There are "pushers" and "laggards" not only in negotiating, but also in implementing IEAs. The failure or success of IEAs can thus only be explained by denesting or delinking the various levels and by comparing the programs and policies in the different regions and communities. 7
II. 2. The Case of Clean Air Policy
In federalist systems such as Austria, Germany or Switzerland, clean air policy is highly decentralized. Subsidiarity plays an important role. At the beginning, when there was no proper clean air policy at the national level, cantons, LŠnder and cities such as Basel, Frankfurt or Tirolia set the pace. In the 1960s and 1970s, except the traditional tasks in health policy, the regions had not yet to implement clean air measures of the national government. Cities and densly populated regions were increasingly confronted with air pollution problems and started to pass their own clean air legislation within their competencies. Before the national clean air legislation was put into force, some regions created their own legal basis, some put non-binding national guidelines into binding regional or local laws. Air quality standards were thus first introduced at the local and regional level. Thus some regions and cities played a pace-setting role regarding environmental protection. They pursued an independent and innovative clean air policy from an early stage on.
Only in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the regional regulations entered into national laws. With the increasing activity of the central authorities and the signing of IEAs on clean air policy, the regions« freedom to act has gradually decreased. In legal, financial and administrative terms, they were subjected to national policy. While they welcomed the newly created legal basis, they complained that the national government simply passed obligations and competencies to the regions, without taking responsibilities itself nor consulting them. Thus national and regional authorities started to block each other.
After 1985, the regions' main task has become the implementation of national norms which were defined independently or in fulfillment of IEAs. A central task is the elaboration of regional action plans. In most cases, the action plans apply to an entire canton or Land. In some cases, cities are required to elaborate their own partial action plan. National law does not define the quantity or quality of measures in the clean air action plan as long as the reduction targets are observed. Within the national framework programs, the regions and communities are relatively free to chose the appropriate instruments to achieve the set air quality standards. More stringent air quality standards are possible. 8 These post-ratification activities can be described as the "internalization" of IEA.
The LRTAP Protocols focus on pollutants - SO2, NOx, and VOCs - with different characteristics and thus allow a comparative analysis of the spatial dimension of environmental protection. Acidification (SO2) affects forests, lakes, streams, and soils which are often managed at the regional or local level. 9 Smog and tropospheric ozon (NOx, VOCs) are problems which mainly affect large agglomerations and require solutions at the city, county, or state level. Clean air policy also affects many policy areas such as energy, industry, transportation, and health. In some countries, these policies fall not only in the realm of the central governments, but in that of regional and local authorities. The targets of the Sulfur Protocol are the energy industry, large combustion plants and home furnaces. In most countries, energy industry is organized at the national level and is often state-run. The polluter group is thus highly concentrated and operating under national regulations. Therefore a national policy is required to regulate SO2 emissions.
The targets of the Nitrogen Oxides Protocol, among them energy and waste combustion plants, utility boilers, cars and trucks, are more heterogenous. Tailor-made measures are required at the national, regional and local levels. While technical standards for motor vehicles are defined by the central government or the European Union, cities can pass local speed limits and other anti-smog measures. The Volatile Organic Compounds Protocol targets the most pluralistic target group. The sources of VOCs include unburned hydrocarbons from automobile fuel tanks, chemicals from a wide variety of commercial establishments and factories, and consumer products like aerosols, dusting aids, fabric protectants, paint, household adhesives, and insecticides. Again, this requires regulations at the national, regional and local level.
In compliance with the IEAs, the national governments ask the regional and local governments to elaborate action plans. They are a bundle of specific measures, which fall into the competencies of the national, regional and/or communal authorities. The quality of this process of policy diffusion, i.e. the trickle-down effect, of an international environmental agreement at the regional and local level, decides over its effectiveness. As a rule, regional and local governments can implement almost all measures on stationary sources. In regard to mobile sources, the political and geographic compentencies of the regional governments are easily transgressed. In most countries, the regulation of traffic, speed limits, standards for motor vehicles, fuel taxes etc., fall in the realm of the central authorities. Local and regional measures also tend to focus on deposition targets, while national measures rather address emission. Often times, large pollution areas such as acidification stretch over several cantons or LŠnder and require inter-regional action plans. The cantons and LŠnder fear however a restriction of their autonomy and successfully oppose the definition of larger "pollution areas" or the transfer of more competencies to the national level. 10 In the case of most regional and local governments interviewed in the course of the projects, the regional and local authorities were not aware that the measures the national government asked them to take were in compliance with international environmental agreements. The general assumption was that the national government had taken the action out of its own will and not in cooperation with the neighboring states. The political horizon of regional and local authorities thus reaches only one level up. The international dimension of clean air policy is almost completely faded out. Thus it may be that the neighboring regions of Alsace and Baden-Wźrttemberg, or the twin cities of Constance and Kreuzlingen take measures to abate VOC pollution on both sides of the border in fulfilling the same IEA without knowing it and without coordinating their actions. In few cases, regions have attempted to instrumentalize international agreements. The Canton of Uri, for instance, a region heavily affected by Alpine transit traffic, is refering to international definitions of critical loads to push the Swiss federal government to take more stringent measures against road traffic. There is thus a growing "internationalization" of regional environmental strategies.
II. 3. Negotiation-Implementation-Cycles
The involvement of the regions in international environmental protection cannot be limited to the implementation of IEAs, i.e. executive federalism, only. First, in the case of IEAs, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between the stages of national policy formulation defining the positions and strategies of national delegations in international conferences (stage I), international negotiation (stage II) and national implementation (stage III). The Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) agreements, for instance, are the products of a permanent, over-lapping process. Policy formulation and pre-negotiation on the Nitrogen Oxides Protocol (1988) started before the Sulfur Protocol was concluded in 1985, entered into force in 1987 or reached the implementation deadline by 1993. The negotiations on the VOC Protocol (1991) also started, before the Nitrogen Oxides Protocol entered into force in 1991 or will be implemented by 1998. Negotiations on a follow-up Sulfur Protocol started in 1993 at about the same time, when enough countries have ratified the VOC Protocol in order to enter into force. The LRTAP protocols also overlap with other international clean air activities such as the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) or the Climate Convention.
Thus national policy formulation and international negotiation of a new clean air agreement will be heavily influenced by the experiences and conditions of the previous protocol. A similar group of actors - representatives of government agencies, organized interest groups and environmental organizations - is involved. A roll-over, an iterative, flexible process of adaptation can be observed. Nested negotiation-implementation cycles are the result. The formal and substantial borderlines between stage I, II and III are blurred. This is particularly true, since in many cases member states start to implement IEAs before they sign them, or - in more rare cases - have already fulfilled the reduction targets before they ratify international treaties.
For the regions - as well as for the organized interest groups and environmental organizations - stage I is the crucial phase to participate in and shape policy-decisions. In stage II, the regions are usually not involved. And in stage III, they only can influence environmental agreements through innovative implementation or non-implementation/obstruction. Yet they cannot change the content or modify the rules of IEA at that stage.
II. 4. Advantages of Early Involvement
Non-central governments should thus be included from an early stage on in the decision-shaping, negotiation and implementation of IEAs. In a more cooperative form of federalism, participation can take the form of consultation in the pre-negotiation stage, i.e. the formulation of national positions. (see Table 1) Or, in cases where regional interests are directly concerned, NCG representatives can be included in the national delegations to IEA negotiations. This was, for instance, the case in the negotiations on the Alpine Convention, where Austrian and German BundeslŠnder were directly sitting at the negotiation table. When Austria negotiated EU membership conditions, the BundeslŠnder were represented in the various working groups including that on environment and transit traffic. The Austrians deliberately pursued a strategy of "large delegations" in order to assure regional support for joining the EU. In the national referendum, all the BundeslŠnder, including the Alpine region of Tyrolia, which has to bear the ecological costs of increased transit traffic, voted overwhelmingly in favor of membership. In the EU, the Austrian, Belgian and German regions have a permanent seat in the Council of Environmental Ministers, i.e. participate directly in the decision-making process. There is thus a growing tendency towards the internationalization of federalism, towards cooperative federalism, especially in the context of European integration. In Europe, a general trend toward decentralization and regionalization can be observed. In the 1980s and early 1990s, previously centralized countries such as France or Spain have upgraded the status of their provinces and regions and passed down more competencies and resources. The post-Cold War period is characterized by a process of devolution and regional emancipation. Changing internal structures of national political systems start to influence international politics. 11
For the following reasons, the involvement of the regions in the pre-negotiating and/or negotiation stage is likely to have positive effects on the effectiveness of IEAs:
First, even if their influence is limited, the regions feel that they are an integral part of the process. Political symbolism is more important than substance. Especially given the fact that most regional authorities are not aware of the fact that their environmental protection activities are in compliance with IEAs and form part of a broad cooperative effort, early involvement is essential in order to mobilize, or "internationalize", the regions.
Second, regions are an important intermediate deck of national and international cooperation. They represent diverse economic and social currents. They serve as channels for articulating and aggregating interests. They mediate between the local, national and international level and bring international environmental activities closer to the population and microscopic, pluralistic polluter groups. They form the link between micro- and macro-policy. Often times, the relevant political sensitivity and the bureaucratic expertise resides at the regional and local, not the central, level. As Andrew Morris notes, where federal governments are confronted by international conflicts which arouse powerful domestic sensibilities, they will be unable or unwilling to act given political constraints. However, "involving the subfederal actors in the policy process restricts the actors« freedom to raise the political stakes with rhetoric from outside the policy process, and forces them to address the problem from a policy perspective rather than from the perspective of attempting short-term political gain." 12 While central governments are key actors in international environmental cooperation, it is at the regional and local level, that the charges that the utilities levy on their customers are regulated, the politicies of energy generation are controlled, and a variety of environmental protection measures to promote the conservation of resources and the reduction of pollution are adopted. Early involvement of the regions will increase the acceptance and legitimacy of inter-governmental policies and thus facilitate implementation.
Third, involvement of the regions in the policy-formulation stage also facilitates policy diffusion. The regional authorities have early access to information and thus can prepare or even pre-empt implementation. This is especially important, since the reduction targets of most IEAs become more ambitious and the time-windows for implementation narrower. Thus there is less time to achieve more stringent reduction targets. The average time span between the signing of an IEA and the beginning of implementation activities at the regional and local level in Austria, Germany, or Switzerland is 5 to 6 years. In Italy, Poland and other "slow" countries, this can be as much as 10 years. Early involvement of the regions may cut reaction time down to a few years or several months.
Fourth, early participation in the policy formulation process can also influence the behavior or help to solve problems of regional authorities. The emerging environmental regime may alter the benefits or costs regional actors associate with the options available to them and thus serve as utility-modifiers. The policy formulation and negotiation process may also generate and disseminate new ideas and promote a learning process. As discussed, innovative solutions often flow from the bottom to the top, i.e. from the communities and regions to the national and international authorities. The two Cantons of Basel were the first region to introduce marketable emission permits in Europe. Now the idea is discussed at the national and international level. The City of Irvine or the State of California are other examples for highly innovative, pace-setting local and regional "pushers". IEAs may also serve as agents of internal realignments. Non-central governments are the representatives of diverse economic interests. They constitute a channel through which those interests are articulated and aggregated. Often times, the real conflicts between authorities, polluters and protectors occur not at the national, but at the regional and local level. The policy formulation and negotiation process may influence regional politics, promote new coalitions and facilitate transnational alliances. As numerous examples show, however, the opposite can happen as well. IEAs may also increase local and regional opposition to environmental measures. Given local conflicts and limited administrative capacities, many regions also are "draggers". Regions are thus important arenas of conflict.
Fifth, after all, given the participation of the directly involved actors - regional authorities, polluters and environmental grassroots organizations - the design of an IEA can be improved. Among others, McGinnis and Ostrom provide the following set of "design principles" for IEAs:
In order to optimize the design of an agreement, early involvement of the regions is thus required in order to meet principles 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8. The lack of adequacy and acceptance of IEAs often times impedes implementation. And most IEAs face a serious implementation deficit. The demand for more democracy and legitimacy requires more decentralized decision-shaping and -making. Early involvement of the regions can contribute to the democratization and federalization of IEAs and thus increase their effectiveness.
II. 5. The Joint-Decision Trap
There are, of course, also certain disadvantages to subsidiarity. First, the scope of environmental problems is much larger than the average region and requires coordination at a higher level. In Europe, where free trade, the single market and competition are affected, large-scale action by the Commission of the European Union is required. The laws of politics and economies of scale apply.
Second, as Fritz Scharpf explains, there is the danger of the joint-decision trap. Cooperation and coordination at multiple, nested layers consumates enormous resources and time and results in non- or lowest-denominator action. 13 Interest aggregation and conflict resolution at an early stage, however, helps to improve the legitimacy of environmental measures and facilitates their implementation. Effectiveness has not only to address the factors of time and resources spent, but also the degree of acceptance achieved and behavioral change generated.
Third, the non-central governments are not equally able to muster the necessary resources. Some NCG are larger in size and feel they can have direct relations with other regions or nation states especially if these are smaller or younger. Many of the regions lack, however, the political status, the finances, institutional capacities and/or expertise to take on responsibilities in formulating and/or implementing IEAs. These smaller and weaker NCG do not have the strength, the will and the capacities to follow lines of subsidiarity which are determined by the larger LŠnder and regions. Insufficient problem-solving capacity at the regional and local level is the main factor that international and national policies cannot be implemented effectively. Indeed, there is a debate, whether the regions are bastions of resistance or innovative actors in environmental policy. On the one side, the argument is that because of paltry resources or lack of political will, the regions are principal impediments to effective government. On the other side, the regions are considered as the more responsive, innovative and effective level of government, closer to the problems, and better able to fashion appropriate responses. Hence, subsidiarity in environmental protection requires regional empowerment, i.e. the strengthening of the political status, resources, and institutional capacities, of regional and local authorities. A redistribution or equalization of costs and benefits between rich and poor regions, between polluting and polluted areas is also needed. The regions have to consider means and ways to pool their resources and to divide their international labor effectively. The German BundeslŠnder have developped such a system. The Bundesrat assigns the various tasks at the European level to specific LŠnder governments. It thereby takes into account the government's political colour and the resources of each region.
II. 6. Conclusions and Outlook
Environmental policies exemplify the emerging importance of subnational actors in international relations. Several factors contribute to the multilevel character of environmental politics and form a decisive dimension of international environmental cooperation:
First, environmental issues, by their very nature, defy the logic of accepted political and territorial divisions both within and between national communities. Global environmental degradation poses a threat to all levels of society, for the individual, local communities, central governments and international organizations. Ecological processes, and their interactions with economies, societies and polities, cannot be contained neatly within the territorial boundaries of states. They are quintessentially interregional or international. 14
Second, in particular in federal states, but also in centralistic systems such as France, non-central governments are endowed with powers over their natural resources and responsibilities for their economic development which makes them important players in environmental policy processes. Boardman refers to a "jurisdictional overlap" between central and non-central governments in resource and environmental areas. 15
Third, the fight against global warming or depletion of stratospheric ozone requires international cooperative action. Local and regional environmental policies are increasingly internationalized. In recent years, there is a proliferation of activities and agreements at the international level. Globalization also means centralization. IEAs generate pressures for centralization. International obligations may serve as a pretext to expand powers into areas of traditional regional responsibilities. This was the case with international measures to reduce ozon depletion. With reference to the magnitude of the task and the time factor, central governments took measures without consulting the regions. Degradation of a state«s environment is increasingly perceived as a threat to its economic well-being, its power as an international actor and, ultimately, its very existence. Ecological issues are becoming an integral part of national security strategies, traditionally a highly hierarchical, centralized policy area. In some countries, central authorities even suggest that the fight against global warming and other urgent environmental problems is a matter of national security and thus requires the transfer of powers from the local and regional to the central level. Growing international political, economic and ecological interdependence affects NCG in a direct way. As new international layers of decision-making emerge, subnational actors are loosing part of their traditional influence within the national balance of power. They try to make up for that by improving cooperation with other regions and enhancing their activities at the international level. Thus NCG try to respond directly. Modern communication technologies and new political platforms enable direct participation on a low cost/high gain basis. In general, IEAs tend to strengthen the regions.
Fourth, the proliferation of IEAs reinforces the image of progress in environmental cooperation residing outside the confines of regional or national boundaries. The burden of environmental adjustment is thus "externalized", i.e. shifted on to the "international community". This image is wrong. Most IEAs face serious implementation deficits which are likely to multiply given the increasing time pressure, the shrinking periods of implementation, and the more stringent thresholds envisaged in the Montreal Protocol, the Climate Convention the Nitrogen Oxides Protocol or other recent agreements. The growing number of and the increasing difficulties of implementing multilateral solutions to environmental problems lead to growing degrees of mediation of subnational interests. More emphasis has to be put on national and regional implementation programs and policies, i.e. on the "internalization" of IEAs. National and regional policy arenas have become more significant. Even where central governments possess the necessary powers to act alone, political prudence demands that they do not ignore subnational or sectoral interests. Increasingly sensitive political choices implicit in environmental issues are becoming part of the domestic political debate. In the complex multilevel politics which characterizes the environmental agenda, non-central governments assume a variety of roles within an international milieu, which is still dominated by national governments. Involvement of NCGs helps to determine the central government«s capacity to pursue environmental policies at the international level. Thus national governments and international institutions face a challenge to manage the non-central governments whose powers in the environmental field have made them essential actors in international cooperation.
Environmental protection has thus an important spatial dimension. 16 This dimension varies substantially dependent on the pollutant involved, the objectives set, the target groups addressed and the instruments applied. As demonstrated, the Sulfur Protocol and the VOC Protocol opperate in quite different arenas which are populated by different actors which require different strategies. Certain instruments require coordination at the national, others at the regional and local level. In general, it can be observed that technical measures such as the regulation of motor vehicle emissions tend to be taken at the national level only, while measures focusing behavioral change require fine-tuning at the regional and local level to improve acceptance and facilitate implementation. Also, national programs tend to focus on emissions, while regional and local programs rather address deposition. Certain instruments require extensive coordination between the national and regional level. Regional authorities, for instance, can only issue marketable emission permits, when there is a differential between national and regional air quality standards, since the permits reward the overfulfilment of the lower regional standard. Thus the degree of subsidiarity required depends on the pollutant addressed, the actors involved and the strategies applied.
The comparison of various countries also suggests that subsidiarity is a possible, not a necessary or sufficient condition for the effectiveness of IEAs. In the U.S., for instance, international and national environmental policies are implemented quite successfully. In most cases, not the local authorities, but local federal authorities develop and implement environmental programs. Thus the policy formulation and implementation structure is highly centralized. 17 In Finland or Sweden, regional and local authorities play a rather subordinated role. The national governments develop and implement their policies in close cooperation with the polluters, other organized interests and environmental organizations. This neo-corporatist approach is a successful substitute for decentralized solutions. In other countries, environmental policy is privatized, i.e. self-regulation by the polluters takes precedence over state regulation. Subsidiarity can thus be achieved either by democratization, devolution, or privatization.
Thus characteristics of political systems per se only to a limited degree explain the variations in states« propensity to act. In particular, the hypothesis that federal systems are politically more effective in environmental protection than centralized ones, cannot be maintained. Other factors such as political culture and style, the population of actors involved, the adequacy of measures taken and the resources available at the different levels seem to be more important.
A more rigorous testing of these propositions is required. Important determinants of compliance, such as institutional, structural, contextual, and procedural factors have to be analyzed. A systematic comparison of centralized versus decentralized policy formulation and implementation in the context of IEAs is needed. Students of the effectiveness of international environmental agreements have to take a closer look at lower levels of policy formulation and implementation. Especially in the case of non-compliance or ineffectiveness, the explanation can often be found at the regional and local level. After all, environmental policy - and its study - requires both, a top down and a bottom up approach. The question remains: when, why and under what circumstances regions matter in international environmental policies. At issue is not only a more comprehensive study of the effectiveness of international environmental agreements. At stake is the future architecture of the entire discipline. The analysis of the transnational role of non-central governments requires a combination of paradigms and approaches from international relation theory and comparative politics. Both approaches have so far neglected the importance of subnational actors. 18
A systematic comparison of centralized versus decentralized policy formulation and implementation in the context of IEAs is needed. Students of the effectiveness of international environmental agreements have to take a closer look at lower levels of policy formulation and implementation. Especially in the case of non-compliance or ineffectiveness, the explanation can often be found at the regional and local level. After all, environmental policy - and its study - requires both, a top down and a bottom up approach. The question remains: when, why and under what circumstances regions matter in environmental policies.
III. The New Role of Regions in Russia's Environmental Policy
III.1. General Framework
Since recently regions have been playing an increasing role in the environmental policy of Russia. This is a new phenomenon for the national political and economic scene. During the Soviet period the regions did not have any actual authority. It happened that the center utilised regional resources in its own interests, getting enormous benefits, including those in hard currency, while in return regions had the polluted air, poisoned water and wastes.
The democratic public in Russia, including the green movement, expected a lot from recent decentralisation of environmental policy in Russia, from the transfer of environmental functions from the center towards the regions. Shift in the control rights in resource utilisation and in environmental protection to the regions was considered (and the major part of democrats supported this notion) to provide for considerable amelioration of the environmental situation there.
Finally the time when regions acquired extensive powers, including the environmental sphere, had come. 19 The situation had changed as a result of regions turning into independent subjects in environmental policy: new institutions emerged, new interactions and new balance of actors had formed, and their interests differentiated according to the regional principles were ready to be realised. But with emerging of a new set of interests new contradictions evolved, as well as new serious problems. Not all democratic hopes became true - some approaches appeared to be unrealistic and need to be analysed and reconsidered today.
International environmental community preoccupied with environmental problems in Russia have to be aware about the scales and mechanisms in formation of these problems, including their regional aspects, in order to have a possibility to influence their solving. To analyse the potential for problem solving via interactions with the regional environmental policy is quite important. Today only traditional forms of interactions with the center, with Moscow, as it was in the practice of the West during the 1970-80s, appear not to be enough. Currently environmental policy is not made only by Moscow: policy formation, and especially its implementation, are highly dependent on the regions. It is necessary to find ways and methods of impact on regional environmental policies.
Increase in the role of regions in the environmental policy of Russia is unavoidable, and it should happened much earlier. But the command-based economy and highly centralised political system of the former Soviet Union appeared to be an obstacle for this process. New role of the regions which was not possible previously is a result of reorganisation in the institutional framework of the Russian environmental policy. It is also a result of recent important changes in economic and political systems in Russia. The changes in the role of regions occurred together with other domestic processes and, especially they are attributed to new patterns of distribution of power within political and economic systems, within the entire environmental protection sphere. It is a consequence of serious changes in the management of economy and in the governance of the state. That is why to observe the changes which defined the new role of the regions is possible only in a broader context beyond the scope of Russian environmental policy.
III.2. Necessity of Regional Environmental Policy for Russia
Necessity of regional environmental policy for Russia is defined by the natural conditions of the country with its huge territories and variety of its nature. It occupies 17.1 million sq. km, it is situated on two continents - in Europe and in Asia, and has an outlet to three oceans. It is one of the largest countries in the world, and its territory is about 3.5 times bigger than of Europe (without the CIS states) occupying a territory of 5 million sq. km 20 , of Europe where each of its four dozens states has its own ecological problems and realise its own environmental policies. Natural conditions in Russia are diversified: it occupies several climatic zones - from the Arctic to subtropical belt (permafrost, for example, accounts for 11 million sq. km or 65% of the domestic territory). Precipitation level differs considerably across natural zones (from 150 to 1000 millimeters per year), as well as types of soils and vegetation.
The environmental situation in Russia is characterised by regional contrasts. From the one hand, there are vast territories unaffected by any economic activities. According to the Ministry of the Environment, the area of these so-called "islands of wild nature" comprise about 8 million sq. km, or about one-third of the "wild natural areas" of the world (without Antarctica). 21 From the other hand, vast Russian territory is experiencing the negative consequences of environmental pollution from the anthropogenic activities, of depletion in its natural resources, and of the distortion in the balance of ecosystems functioning. Although regions have a lot of similar environmental problems, each of them has its own ecological peculiarities and its own environmental profile. It is formed under the impact of the specifics in combination of ecological problems of concrete territories, and is defined by the possibilities of concrete region to solve its environmental problems (defined by availability of financial and material resources, of specialists, of infrastructures, by the status of the region, by the character of interactions with the federal level, etc.).
Especially sharp is the problem of air pollution and air quality. The number of population living in the areas where the level of air pollution exceeds by five-fold the allowable limits is about 55-60 million, by ten-fold - 40-50 million. Atmosphere pollution is uneven across the country: the highest density of emissions from stationary sources per unit of territory is noted, for example, for sulfur dioxide in the Urals, for nitrous oxide - in the center of the European part of Russia. The highest level of emissions from cars are indicated in the Krasnodar and Altay kray, in Sverdlovsk and Rostov oblasts, in Moscow and St.-Petersburg. Deposition of sulfur achieves maximum levels in many regions in the west of the European part of Russia, in Urals, and in Kuzbass, of nitrogen - in the southern Urals, Kuzbass, Karelia and in the center of the European part. High acidification of precipitation in winter is characteristic for the Kola peninsula, the North of the European part, eastern slopes of the Urals, the western Taimyr, the Baikal lake area. Certainly the air pollution is not the only one environmental problem in Russia: the problems of radioactive contamination, of drinking water, of wastes disposal are equally serious.
Difference in the character and in the level of pollution of concrete regions define the variation in their interests and approaches within the environmental policy. This differentiation serves as a natural basis for performance of regional environmental policies.
III. 3. Subdued Environmental Interests of the Regions
Despite that the necessity for implementation of environmental policy at the regional level existed in Russia since long ago, it had not been realised in the USSR. In the Soviet system there was no institutional mechanism to represent adequately and in full scale the environmental interests of the regions. On the contrary the environmental interests of the regions had been suppressed. Regional environmental interests had been suppressed due to three main reasons. F i r s t, was that environmental concerns in general were not among major priorities of the state policy at that time. S e c o n d, the system of environmental protection was oriented towards the sectoral principle of management. Sectoral institutions had pushed regional ones to the background. T h i r d, in the Soviet state system, despite the principle of federalism fixed in the Constitution, it was functioning only on paper and was of a declarative character. In reality unitarizm was in action. Regional environmental problems appeared to be at the disadvantageous crossroads - of neglect of environmental problems as such, of regions carrying low political weight under the Soviet pseudo-federalism, as well as of the emphasis on the sectoral institutions to the detriment of regional ones under the command-based system.
It is worthwhile to mention an important factor (which usually is not widely taken into consideration in the West): environmental protection activities within command-based economy were subordinated to the fulfillment of a p l a n (not only economic production), and it served as a major instrument for their implementation. Every type of environmental protection activities was to be included into a plan - a plan of an enterprise, of a ministry, into a national economic plan (annual or a five-year plan). Without that environmental protection remained beyond legitimacy, and was doomed to failure. Putting into operation the purification facilities (timetables and objects), their financing, support with materials and equipment - all these should be an integral component of a plan.
Institutional structure of environmental protection reflected this situation. In the sectoral industrial ministries the environmental departments had been established to elaborate the ecological plans of their ministries, as well as to provide a guidance over environmental activities of enterprises subordinated to the ministry. From the beginning a deep and insurmountable contradiction was a peculiarity of environmental activities of the sectoral ministries, which however suited them perfectly well: they damaged the environment in a course of their economic activities, and simultaneously had to control themselves in their clean-up actions. Naturally no positive outcomes in environmental problem solving could be expected from such mechanisms and organisation of nature protection in the USSR. This was an impediment of the Soviet system in the environmental sphere.
III.4. Environmental Protection as a Sphere of Joint Competence of Federation and Regions
The new role of the regions in environmental protection would not be possible without substantial changes in political and economic systems which took place during recent years in Russia. Especially this refers to modifications in the system of the state authority, and to shifts from an unitary state to a real federalism. The changes in the role of the regions in the environmental protection took place at this particular political background.
According to the Russian Constitution adopted as a result of 1993 referendum environmental protection is in a joint jurisdiction of the federation and its subjects. Its art.72, "D" refers to joint jurisdiction "utilisation of natural resources, environmental protection, special protected areas, provision of the environmental security". Besides that, according to the Constitution adoption of environmental legislation is within a joint jurisdiction of the federation and its subjects (art.72,"k"). This provision lays a basis for realisation by the regions of their own environmental policies.
Today a set of laws on environmental and natural resources protection had been adopted in Russia. The major among them is the national law "On Environmental Protection" adopted 19 December, 1991. This law defines the competence in the sphere of environmental protection of (1) legislative organs, (2) Russian government, (3) special environmental organs, (4) republics, autonomous oblasts and autonomous okruigs, (5) krays and oblasts, (6) organs of local self-governance.
According to this environmental law the competence of republics, autonomous oblasts and autonomous okruigs in the sphere of environmental protection includes (art.8):
A separate article of the law "On Environmental Protection" defines a competence of krays and oblasts in environmental protection. The major items of this article repeat the items of the article on the competence of republics, autonomous oblasts and autonomous okruigs (sometimes in the modified version, however). There are several considerable exceptions in the competence of oblasts, in comparison with the scope of competence of republics, autonomous oblasts and autonomous okruigs.
III.5. Environmental Reform and Regional Environmental Institutions
The major among institutional changes which led to increase in the role of the regions in environmental policy is in appointing by the end of 1980s an environmental protection function to a specialised independent institution. In 1988 the State environmental committee was established, and then in 1991 it was turned into the Ministry of the Environment. Before then there was no domestic specialised agency dealing with environmental protection. Environmental protection function was disseminated among sectoral ministries.
The collapse of the old economic and political systems at the beginning of 1990s signified the formation of new systemic rules, procedures and mechanisms for execution of an environmental function. A lot of sectoral ministries were abolished at the very beginning of the domestic reforms initiated by Gaidar. The problem of interactions between enterprises polluters and institutions with environmental protection functions, which was of utmost importance for success or failure of environmental reforms, has aggravated under new conditions. Within the new system industrial ministries had lost their power over producers, which are being privatised and are withdrawing from subordination to the former ones. Thus, at a certain stage in the sphere of environmental protection quite a dangerous vacuum, a deficit in environmental authority emerged.
In a course of economic and political reforms strong shifts in distribution of environmental protection function between separate institutions occurred. Considerable modifications that should be expected to happen took place: general changes in economic and political systems pulled the changes in institutional framework of environmental protection. From the one hand, in a market economy a sharp redistribution of rights and resources from the center towards enterprises took place. From the other hand, the Ministry of the Environment is a functional, but not a sectoral body, it has no industrial property. It happened not to be able to control industrial enterprises-polluters directly from Moscow. Thus, these developments resulted in formation in the regions of rather authoritative territorial organs of the environmental ministry. The process of increase in the powers of regional institutions in Russia in general, and of environmental among them in particular, was supported by the reform in domestic political system.
Together with that an economic mechanism in environmental policy was introduced for the first time in Russia. It supplemented the former one, built mainly on administrative principles and regulating the interactions between enterprises and nature. Charges for resource use and for environmental pollution started to be realised. Functioning of the economic mechanisms was based particularly on activities of regional environmental institutions. Regional and local environmental organs control the process of environmental payments from enterprises, and they directly collect the fees which are deposited at the regional environmental funds. Ninety percent of payments remains at the regional level, and ten percent is transferred to the federal level.
Today regional environmental organs are allocated with the major control and regulation functions. They issue permits for emissions for each enterprise within their area, fix the norms and levels of discharges for them, establish the rate of payments for emissions and control the process of payments, compile the inventory of discharges. They are able to impose sanctions on violators, and initiate a closure of an enterprise according to environmental considerations. In short, exactly regional environmental organs actively interact with enterprises-polluters in practical implementation of environmental policies. The central government apparatus of the Ministry of the Environment remained with the major functions of environmental protection, but it is not working directly with enterprises as it was before within the sectoral ministries in the USSR. The regional environmental organs now do that instead.
III.6. Regional Organs and 'Trade' with Natural Resources Environmental protection is not the only field of interaction between man and nature: not less important is consumption of natural resources. In the second half of 1980s during Gorbachev's perestroika the public awareness regarding environmental protection increased tremendously. Powerful impetus to that was given by the Chernobyl catastrophe; and democratisation process in the society opened an outlet to public concerns. During that period the regions had been struggling for their independent policies especially in this sphere, for realisation of the regional interests in the environmental policies. Since then the accents in the interactions between the regions and the center had shifted. Another set of interests and problems has become of a prior importance, and today regions are putting an emphasis not on independent policy in environmental protection, but on independency in utilisation of their natural resources.
In conditions when natural resources are becoming the major source of survival for certain strata of the society in Russia, and of enrichment for the others, the regions initiated the stubborn struggle with the center for the control rights over natural resources. Sharp differentiation in the interests and approaches of the regions towards this issue took place. Geographical variation in reserves of natural resources is considerable across regions in Russia. Today particularly such mineral resources which are of a high demand at the world market make the regions rich. This especially refers to deposits of oil, gas, non-ferrous and rare metals, gold and diamonds. Among the regions that possess such resources are primarily some of those in the North of Russia, in Siberia, in the Urals - Tuimen oblast, Krasnoyarsky kray, republics of Komy and Sakha, and several others. In a group of 89 subjects of the Russian Federation the number of regions possessing vast reserves of export-oriented mineral wealth is not very high. This serves as a particular basis for differentiation in the regional interests in the environmental and natural resources policies.
Regional authorities in their fight with the center are using widely the specifics of the local public consciousness associated with the consumers psychology. The major emphasis is made upon the regional independence from the center in dealing and disposition with natural resources. The principle item is not to share regional resources with the center - then the region would not only survive, but become rich as well. The red thread in this struggle is who would control these natural resources, but not their rational and thrifty use, and provision of environmentally sustainable regional development balancing current and future interests.
The issues of environmental policy in the 'wealthy' regions often are connected with their natural resources policy. The former ones are being recalled about especially when it is necessary to use them in their struggle for disposition of natural resources. In this case the environmental policy is being used as an instrument to limit an access to one or another party of a conflict, to one or another producer. It would be a mistake to assume that this is the situation everywhere, in all regions. Environmental policy appeared to be subordinated to the policy of distribution of natural resources especially in the regions with abundant natural resources. And this fact demonstrates once more the regional differentiation in the interests in the environmental sphere.
Regretfully regional authorities had not become the protectors of natural resources from plundering, as it was expected by the democrats at the beginning of perestroika. Regional authorities are turning into 'traders' with natural resources and land. More and more often they are undertaking the illegal decisions on forest cuttings, on allocation of lands in natural reserves and special protected areas for construction. With this purpose the forest lands are being transferred from one category to another, and finally are being used for building sites. Regional environmental organs under the pressure from the regional administration have to put their signatures under these decisions.
Sometimes regional environmental organs are turning just into collectors of payments for pollution. Once in a while these financial resources, which according to environmental legislation are to be forwarded to environmental protection purposes, are happened to be used not for environmental protection at all - for instance, for purchasing of cars, for construction of apartments, etc.
The practice when environmental violations of enterprises remain without sanctions from the regional environmental authorities is spreading more widely today. Distortions in statistical data and reporting which were very popular among governmental bureaucracies during the Soviet period take place today as well. For example, one of the regional (oblast) environmental committee indicated in its annual report that it has brought 1243 suits for environmental violations into the court, which might characterise its active involvement in performing its control functions. However prosecution organs in attempt to verify this data have found out that in reality there were only three of them. 22
The farther the environmental organs are from the process of partition of natural resources the 'cleaner' they are. A great deal of honest and unselfish people work in the regional environmental organs, and they are working today for very low salaries fulfilling their duty in environmental protection. We were convinced in that personally during our trips all-over Russia making our interviews in the regional and local environmental committees. One should take into consideration that usually scandalous stories appear in the press, and conscientious efforts on nature protection is a routine which does not attract a lot of its attention.
III.7. Financial Problems of Regional Institutions
The important item of regional environmental policy is its financial aspects. In the USSR about 2 billion rubles had been spent on environmental protection from the centralised transfers. This is quite a modest level of financing. Today the situation is even worse. Regions do not have money for environmental protection, and the federal level as well.
Recently a mechanism for formation of regional environmental funds has been created in Russia which accumulate 90% of payments collected for environmental pollution. The amount of financial resources in the funds is rather low: each month from these funds only about $0,5 million was spent all-over huge territory of Russia. Certainly with such level of resources one cannot think about substantial financial support for environmental policy implementation. Rather critical estimates of activities of the regional environmental funds appeared recently in the literature: "Environmental funds in the cities, regions, oblasts, republics and in the center created from payments of enterprises for pollution had not justified their value, and had even become objects of abuse of local executive and representative organs. 23
During a long period of time there was a struggle going on between the Ministry of the Environment and regions, from the one hand, and the Ministry of Finance and federal organs, from the other hand, on the issue of incorporation of financial resources of the environmental funds into the state budget. The environmental ministry and regions were against this. The conflict was solved not by the representative authorities, not by the parliament, but by the president. According to the presidential decree (22.12.1993) the financial resources of environmental funds are consolidated within the federal budget.
One should take into consideration that not always at all the negative features in the approaches of environmental organs are the result of a bargain between the heads of an enterprise and corrupted authorities. The major reason for a passive position of regional environmental organs more likely is quite different. Since regional environmental committees are in a double subordination - not only to the federal environmental ministry, but to regional authorities as well - they have to act very cautiously. Today the industry in Russia is in extremely difficult situation, the mass unemployment is growing, a lot of enterprises are experiencing financial problems. Thus, regional environmental organs are not interested at all in dealing the final blow to the regional industries with the help of environmental charges. It is often mentioned in Russia now that if the industry was functioning here according to environmental legislation, the major part of industrial enterprises should be closed long ago. The consequence is in the pressures from the regional authorities on environmental institutions and demands to take into consideration not only environmental concerns, but more broader regional interests.
One of the interesting projects in Russia introduced in the course of reforms in domestic financial system envisaged radical changes in the principles of taxation. The idea to shift an emphasis from income tax, value-added tax and revenue tax towards the taxes on the use of natural resources and real estate taxes. Proponents of this idea consider these changes to result in considerable economising in the use of natural resources, and in increase in 'collectability' of taxes. This project has a lot of supporters, and opponents as well. Ecological movement supports such proposals. However the Ministry of Finance is against these plans, since it apprehends the possibility of further demolishing of the rather weakened system of collecting taxes. The opponents to this idea consider it to bring considerable benefits to the regions within taxation system, and especially to those which possess vast natural resources. According to them this might result in differentiation among regions and in sharp increase of the danger of separatism.
III.8. Regional Environmental Organs
Environmental organs in Russia of mid-1990s differ considerably from those functioning at the end of 1980s. Within the system of federal executive authority about two dozens of so-called specially authorised institutions with a competence in environmental protection and regulation of natural resource use are acting today in Russia (state committees of Forestry, of Water resources, of the Earth interior, of land use, Hydrometeorological service, etc.). Each of these federal bodies besides its central apparatus has a territorial one in the regions (in republics, krays, and oblasts). Part of these institutions is represented at a lower, municipal level as well - in regions, cities, towns. The stuff of their territorial apparatus is rather numerous, and its number exceed by several fold the number of the personnel in the central apparatus. For example, in the Ministry of the Environment the number of the personnel at the beginning of 1994 was about 550, i.e. by about 17 times lower than in its territorial organs (9443). Taking into account the number of the stuff of the operational monitoring services and of national reserves the latter figure would account for about 10 thousand people. The stuff of territorial organs of other federal institutions is also quite numerous and exceeds the quantity of the central apparatus in Moscow.
A question might be posed - what interests represents this apparatus within the new system, since the personnel of regional environmental committees is numerous. Formally regional bodies of federal institutions with a special competence in environmental protection and natural resource use are territorial branches of the latter ones in the subjects of the federation. And at the first glance they seem to represent a common apparatus of the federal governmental organs. The personnel of the territorial organs is in a governmental service of federal institutions, and they get their salaries from the state budget.
III.9. Peculiarities of Territorial Organs: Dualism
There is one remarkable peculiarity of territorial bodies of federal environmental institutions. According to the Constitution of RF, environmental protection and natural resource use are in a joint competence of the federation and regions. This affects the functioning of territorial environmental committees. It is obvious from the specifics of a status of oblast committee on environmental protection:
This is a construction for distribution of competence and power of the territorial environmental organs. Its major feature is dualism. The control rights of the federation and of the region over activities of this regional institutional body overlap to a high extent.
III.10. Non-Formal Orientation of Regional Organs
One item is clear: who is paying and who covers the salaries of the personnel of the regional environmental committees. The federal Ministry of the Environment does that from the federal resources. But that does not mean, that the federal ministry and the federation 'order the music', this rule is not applied directly. Firstly, the salary for governmental bureaucracy in the contemporary Russia does not play a decisive role. Particularly this refers to governmental institutions dealing with the distribution of natural resources. Secondly, the career considerations are of a prior importance for their heads. For officials with the leading positions in the regions the prospects are not connected with career in the central apparatus, but to a higher extent - with the future of their regions. Moreover, according to the status of the regional environmental committee it is not possible to get an important seat in a territorial environmental organ without a consent from the head of oblast's administration, but to loose it on the initiative from the administration is possible. This defines the approaches of a head of a territorial environmental organ - he is oriented towards the high officials in the oblast's administration, with preserving certain respect towards the federal authorities. Definitely the dualism in control right is a negative feature, and it prolongs the process of decision-making.
III.11. Organs of Local Self-Governance and Environmental Protection In the political life of Russia in the system of management another important actor - organs of the local self-governance - are emerging. They are not the items of the system of the state authority. According to domestic legislation they are to be the bodies of self-governance. They are subordinated neither to the federal, nor to regional authority. This is a major item for objections of the regional authorities who would like to control these institutions within their territory.
According to legislation participation in the environmental protection on the territory of the municipal unit is in the competence of a local self-governance. 24 It is peculiar that the law mentions only about 'participation' in environmental protection, but it is not surprising since according to the Russian Constitution environmental protection and regulation of the natural resource use is in the joint competence of the federation and its subjects. Another interpretation of the law would contradict directly to the Constitution. But what environmental functions in reality have managed to acquire the organs of local self-governance? Actually not so few, and among them are regulation and control of: municipal sanitary institutions, local construction and planning, use of the water bodies, water supply and sewerage, household wastes, use of land, widely spread natural resources (sand, lime, stone, etc.).
IV. Regions In Russia: Environmental Problems and Environmental Regulatory Institutions
IV.1. Moscow (city)
Moscow (city) is an independent subject of Russian Federation (there are 89 of them). The territory of the city is 1007 square kilometers, the number of population within its administrative borders in the beginning of 1990s accounted for 9 million inhabitants. Areas with the number of population of about 2-3 million surround Moscow, and they comprise another administrative unit - the Moscow oblast. Moscow and Moscow oblast together form on a relatively small territory the urban agglomeration with the population of 12 million.
The National Report "On the Environmental Situation in Russian Federation in 1991" evaluates the ecological situation in Moscow as a crisis one (similar estimate is given in it for other 12 regions in Russia). It means that deterioration of the environment has reached the level which is threatening to human health. Environmental situation in the city on about half (47%) of its territory is evaluated as unfavorable, or extremely unfavorable, and only 6% of the area is evaluated as relatively favorable. 25
Air pollution ranks first among the environmental problems of Moscow. Others are: wastes disposal, quality of drinking water, unfavorable location of settlement areas versus industrial districts. The major sources of air pollution in Moscow are stationary sources and automobiles. They contribute annually to 1.184 thousand tons of pollutants discharges, i.e. to more than 1.2 kilotons per square meter, or 132 kilograms per capita. About 1200 substances are emitted into atmosphere from 178 000 stationary sources. The level of air pollution at monitoring cites is higher than established sanitary standards - maximum allowable concentrations: for NO2 - by 2.0 times, for phenol - 2.3 times, for hydrocarbons - 4.7 times, for ammonia - 2.8 times, bensol - 2.3 times. 26
Certain reduction in air emissions from stationary sources had been indicated starting from 1992. However it cannot be considered as a reason for optimism: the decrease in emissions is attributed to curtailing in industrial production as a result of deep economic crisis in Russia, but not to environmental protection measures. Level of equipment with air purification facilities is quite low - about 21%. 27 Among 10.388 dust absorbing facilities inspected in 1992 about 8.2% (848) appeared to be out of order or ineffective. Thus, not only inadequate level of installation of absorption facilities is common in Moscow - it is supplemented by their low effectiveness, low technical level, and aging of purification equipment.
Transport in Moscow is responsible for the major portion of air pollution (77%). The number of cars is increasing very rapidly during recent years, and a lot of second-hand cars of older models imported from the West appeared on the streets. As to domestic producers, they do not implement measures to reduce the toxicity of discharges - they lack adequate financial resources; moreover they intend to increase prices for cars even more (it has already grown considerably during last years), fearing at the same time to be completely pushed out from the domestic market. Quite interesting are the results of monitoring over the seasonal dynamics of NOx concentrations in Moscow: its maximum coincides with the period of decrease in CO concentration. This is a result of police inspection control of CO emissions only, and reductions of the latter one are achieved very simply - by regulation of carburetor; however, this method of emissions reduction results simultaneously in increase of NOx emissions.
State Inspection on Air Protection within Moskompriroda (State committee on environmental protection of Moscow) controls emissions of air pollutants. Moskompriroda has also inspections on water resources, soils, vegetation, radiation, as well as departments on inventory of enterprises, on economic methods of environmental regulations. The number of its personnel is 424. 28
Among the functions of Moskompriroda are:
Inspection on Air Protection had made a survey of 893 enterprises in 1992. Only 92.8% of enterprises had compiled inventory of emissions; norms of maximum allowable emissions were elaborated only for 73% of them (652 enterprises); only 233 enterprises adhere to these norms, i.e. only 35.7%(!) having these norms; 38.3%(!) of enterprises checked function without having any permit for discharges, i.e. in direct violation of the environmental law; 39% (348) - do not plan any activities on reduction and control over air emissions; 20.8% - have sanitary zones that do not correspond to the established environmental requirements. For 419 enterprises the so-called provisionally coordinated norms are established, which means that they have outdated technologies not allowing hem to achieve the allowable norms of emissions. 29 Thus, officially they are allowed to have emissions exceeding the norms of allowable emissions. This statistical data shows that among enterprises the number of those that do not pay any attention to environmental legislation, and behave as if it does not exist, is high. This might be either a gesture of despair, when they do not have resources both for installation of purification facilities, and for covering of environmental fees and fines, or a result of calculations and demonstration of their confidence that environmental organs would not be able to do anything with them anyway. In this respect the overall statistics of Moskompriroda (but not only of its air protection inspection) is also interesting: on 5.408 enterprises inspected 12.000 violations of environmental legislation were indicated, and activities of only 79 shops or enterprises were brought to a halt after environmental inspection. 30
Monitoring of air quality in Moscow is provided by a special service - the Moscow Center of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring which is in a framework of the State Committee of Hydrometeorology (Hydromet), but not the environmental agency. Moscow Center is a territorial branch of this state committee, and it is financed both from the federal and the municipal budgets. The program of environmental monitoring in Moscow is being elaborated by the Hydromet. Observations are held by 50 stations located in Moscow and in 17 settlements in Moscow oblast. Moscow center includes 15 meteorological stations, 3 agrometeorological stations, 2 hydrological stations, 8 laboratories. Total number of its personnel accounts for 500. It collects and processes the data on pollution content in atmosphere, in precipitation, in snow cover, soils, surface waters. The samples are being taken regularly - about 2-4 times a day, and then they are being analysed in laboratories. Four basic ingredients are controlled: dust, CO, NOx, SO2. Starting from 1986 mobile laboratories are providing samples of air quality 'at the stack'. The major problem of this service today is the lack of financial resources. The program of financing is constantly violated as a result of financial and budget crisis in the country, and recently several times in Hydromet the electricity and telephone lines had been switched off because it is not able to cover its bills properly.
Moscow, as it is known, does not possess either oil or gold deposits. However the municipal authorities control such natural resource which is also of a high economic value and is an object of expansion of powerful commercial structures. This resource is the Moscow land. Moskompriroda's State inspection on land-use had indicated a number of violations of environmental legislation. The most frequent among them are:
Quite symptomatic was the scandal which burst out just recently a conflict burst out in Moscow where a part of the historical park area was allocated to a building company. Local authorities of Moscow have undertaken this decision, and Moskompriroda, has signed the final document on the environmental impact assessment of this project permitting to start construction in this park. The paradox of the current Russian reality is that not the regional environmental authorities came out against this bargain, but local population of the nearby houses and Moscow prosecutor who brought in an action against Moskompriroda in illegality of environmental impact assessment act. The head of Moskompriroda and the head of Moscow expertise department were called into court. The developers without paying any attention to the fact that the case is still in court and is not closed have erected a huge concrete fence around the site and are cutting trees at the moment. 32 This example indicates clearly that as soon as the natural resource (land - in this particular case) acquires commercial value it appears that in contemporary Russia there is a lack of instruments to bring a procedure of its use into accord with the norms that provide environmental quality.
IV.2. Murmansk Oblast
In Murmansk region mining and processing of natural resources (ferrous and non-ferrous ores, raw materials for fertilisers, etc.) is developed. Bases for military nuclear vessels and construction and repair docks for merchant marine are located here; the Kola nuclear power station is a major energy supplier of the region. As a result of these activities about 25.000 cubic meters of nuclear wastes are concentrated in this region and create a serious environmental problem.
Murmansk oblast is in the list of Russian regions with unfavorable environmental situation. Technical equipment in mining industry is outmoded and hence serious problems with air pollution and water quality exist. Air emissions from stationary sources and from transport in Murmansk oblast accounted for 679.300 tons in 1993. It occupies the 13-th place among Russian regions in terms of air pollution. In the structure of air emissions sulfur dioxide prevails (456.200 tons), it is followed by carbon oxide (114.900 tons), solid particles (61.800 tons), nitrous oxides (32.300 tons), hydrocarbons (12.100 tons), VOCs (900 tons). 33
Murmansk oblast is leading among other regions of Russia as a source of transboundary air pollution, mainly with sulfur dioxide. Its major sources are non-ferrous facilities of Norilsk Nickel - Pechenga Nickel and Severo Nickel. Over more than a decade the problem of transboundary air pollution originating from these plants is a subject of a discussion between the USSR/Russia and the Scandinavian countries. Russia has complied with the Sulfur protocol to the 1979 Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution convention by reducing its sulfur dioxide emissions in 1993 by 52% from their 1980 level against 30% required by this protocol. However, Murmansk oblast failed to meet national targets of SO2 emissions reductions fixed at a rather high level in accordance with international obligations (according to the bilateral commitments between Finland and Russia sulfur dioxide emissions in the border areas of both countries were to be reduced by 50% by 1995 from their 1980 level). During 1988-1993 air emissions from stationary sources in Murmansk oblast were reduced by 24.5% (175.300 tons). However, the level of reductions during this period was lower than in Russia in general (34.5%). Share of Murmansk oblast in total volume of domestic air emissions has increased from 1.9% to 2.2%.
Equipment of enterprises with purification facilities in Murmansk oblast is not high: about 55% enterprises are equipped with them, and total number of flue gases and dust absorbers is 1.200. However, not all of them function properly: some of them are out of order (11.8%), or ineffective (31.0%). This is explained mainly by the aging of purification equipment which was mainly installed more than 20 years ago. Low level of purification of flue gases is noted, for example, on facilities of Norilsk Nickel and Aluminyi, which are the major sources of air pollution in the region. At the same time the general indicators of flue gases purification in Murmansk oblast in comparison with other areas of Russia are quite high. About 80% (2177.000 tons) of polluters emitted was absorbed here in 1993, the level of utilisation relatively to the total volume of their absorption was 85% (1849.000 tons). The level of purification of flue gases for solid particles and for liquid/gaseous substances differs considerably, comprising 97.7% for solid, and only 27.8% for liquid/gaseous substances.
During recent years a trend toward a decrease in the levels of absorption and utilisation of harmful substances from flue gases is noted. The major efforts of enterprises are aimed today not on expansion of existing purification facilities, or installation of new ones, but on maintaining and repair of already functioning equipment. But allocation of financing even for these purposes is decreasing. Air quality standards are met today only by about one third of enterprises. In addition to this the major problem is that not for all enterprises of Murmansk oblast environmental standards had been elaborated - they are imposed only on about two thirds of them.
Institutional system of environmental management in Murmansk oblast is more or less the same as in other regions of Russia. Two branches of state authority in the environmental sphere is being represented: regional authorities - Commission of ecology and natural resources of the regional parliament, and environmental authorities - Murmansk oblast committee of ecology and natural resources. The latter one is a territorial organ of the federal environmental agency, but it reports about its activities to the regional administration as well. In the structure of the oblast environmental committee local (5) and municipal (7) environmental organs are included. No specialised environmental prosecution organ is established here, as it is in Novgorod oblast, for instance. Verification and control over compliance with the environmental legislation is provided by oblast and municipal prosecution offices.
The number of personnel in Murmansk ecological committee is about 150 (including 30 specialists working in its twelve territorial affiliations). The committee consists from 16 departments, such as on economic regulations, on allocation of permits for pollution and resource-use, on air quality control, on water quality control, on flora and fauna, on radiation, on control over military activities, marine inspection, central laboratory, etc. Highly qualified specialist work in the committee.
Administration of Murmansk oblast is deeply involved in policy-making regarding distribution of resources from the regional environmental fund. They are used sometimes not for environmental purposes only. During recent years, for example, financing was allocated to solve the problems that were of priority for the region from the standpoint of the regional administration - for construction of roads, of a church in Murmansk, etc. The structural organisation and personnel of the environmental committee is coordinated with the regional administration and with the heads of respective local and municipal authorities. the head of the regional administration controls nomination of the heads of oblast and local environmental committees and inspections.
Environmental Program of Murmansk Oblast until the Year 2000 was elaborated in 1991 by the environmental committee and then adopted by the regional parliament. It indicates that general environmental situation in the region is unfavorable, it analyses the reasons for it, and points at major problems and shortcomings in federal and regional environmental policies in Murmansk oblast. It outlines the measures for environmental problem solving, but a lot of them are too ambitious and are not supported adequately by financial resources. Major priorities of the oblast program are water treatment, nuclear wastes disposal, control over the quality of forest fund. Problems of air pollution from facilities of Norilsk Nickel on the Kola peninsula occupy the first place among them. It envisages reductions of air emissions from Pechenga Nickel by 80%, and from Severo Nickel by 50% from the 1980 level. The program also poses a goal to improve air quality through structural changes in the energy sector - by development of centralised heating which would result in a closure by 2000 of about 84 small boilers.
IV.3. Novgorod Oblast
In Novgorod oblast forests occupy about half of its territory, and wood cutting and timber processing play an important role in the economy of the region. In comparison with other regions of Russia environmental situation in this oblast is comparatively favorable. The level of air pollution is moderate. Air emissions from stationary sources in 1993 accounted for 62.500 tons, which is 10.8 times lower than in Murmansk oblast. The major environmental problems of Novgorod oblast are water treatment, preservation of the forest fund, protection of flora and fauna, maintaining of the network of national parks and special natural protected areas.
In the structure of air emissions carbon oxides discharges rank first (16.500 tons), they are followed by volatile organic compounds (700 tons), and hydrocarbons (400 tons). Comparatively high is the share of solid particles emissions (23.000 tons), comprising about 36.8%. Average concentration of dust in the atmosphere of Novgorod oblast is the highest from the areas of north-west Russia. Air pollutants are emitted here from 8.105 stationary sources located on 425 enterprises.
During 1988-1993 air emissions from stationary sources in Novgorod oblast had decreased by about 16%, but the level of reductions was by two-fold lower than average in Russia during this period (35%). To a high extent the decline in emissions is a result of curtailing in industrial production. Air emissions from transport during 1988-1992 had decreased by 26%. This trend is opposite to those in many other regions of Russia where emissions from transport are increasing rapidly. The major reason is in decline in a number of trips of trunks and lorries (as a result of growth of fuel prices); increase in the number of automobiles is lower than in other regions of Russia, since this oblast is comparatively poor.
The level of purification of flue gases in Novgorod oblast is lower than the country's average. About 70% of pollutants emitted was absorbed in 1993. Level of absorption of liquid/gaseous substances is 54.8%, of solid particles - 80.4%. But during recent years there is a tendency toward decline in the level of absorption of pollutants from flue gases, which indicates at alarming developments all-over the country. Effectiveness of purification equipment is low, it is worn-out. For example, on the mineral furtilisers producer Akron which is situated in Novgorod (capital of the oblast) and is the major air polluter in the city (44% of total air emissions) about one third of purification facilities are out of order of ineffective. 34 From 257 purification facilities inspected in 1992 by environmental organs in Borovichy 23 are broken, 39 are ineffective, 2 are simply not used. Level of putting into operation air purification facilities has decreased considerably in 1993 in comparison with the previous year - from 119.800 cubic meters of gas per hour to 180. 35 Similar to other regions of Russia in Novgorod oblast environmental financing on enterprises was allocated mainly to the repair of existing equipment, but not to expanding of its capacity.
Novgorod oblast environmental committee has the Inspection on air protection in its framework. Its three operational laboratories regularly process the data on the air quality of the region; they are equipped with modern facilities imported from Germany. Funds for purchase of this equipment were allocated from the federal environmental ministry and from the federal environmental fund. The number of personnel in the regional environmental committee is about 100; shortages with personnel are indicated in its local branches where only 1-2 environmental inspectors are responsible to cover all directions of activities. The personnel is highly qualified, truly dedicated to environmental protection, and thoroughly familiar with the environmental situation in the areas within their responsibility. One may note that these people are quite far from bureaucratic traditions, they are involved in constant traveling, often by roads in a very poor shape, across their regions inspecting the sites.
Novgorod oblast environmental committee is a territorial organ of the federal environmental agency. According to the interviews with its officials, during recent years it has acquired broader independence from the latter one. At least it is becoming more independent from the center in distribution of environmental financing, particularly, after creation of regional environmental funds.
Environmental policy of the regional committee is defined mainly by the fact that environmental situation in this oblast is relatively favorable. Priority in environmental policy is water protection; air protection ranks second. All air protection measures are being formulated within annual programs on air protection. Annually the environmental committee reports about its activities on implementation of these measures to the federal agency. One of the major tasks in a set of protection measures is the regular control over critical sources of air pollution. During recent years, for example, regular inspections were held on the main paper and pulp producer in the region. Significant role in improvement of air quality was played by transfer of major enterprises to natural gas after laying a main gas pipe-line across the territory of the Novgorod oblast. Currently the environmental committee is involved in activities aimed at a shift of the rest of producers to natural gas.
Novgorod oblast is among 65 oblasts of Russia where specialised environmental regional prosecution organ is established - it realises the state control over adherence to environmental legislation. This is a new phenomenon in Russian environmental policy. In Novgorod oblast due to violation of environmental law 7 enterprises were closed and limitations on activities of 17 enterprises had been imposed in 1993. 36 However, mainly small producers were among them. It is interesting to note that, for example, in Murmansk oblast where the similar specialised institution is absent, no single enterprise was closed due to environmental considerations.
IV.4. Sakha Republic (Yakutya)
In the framework of this study the Republic of Sakha (Yakutya) is of a particular interest. Firstly, it is a region with a vast territory, occupying about a half of the Eastern Siberia. Secondly, it possesses enormous deposits of natural resources of the world importance - gold, diamonds, coal, timber, fish, etc. Its economy and social sphere are dependent mainly upon mining of natural resources. Thirdly, it is situated in extreme climatic conditions with low temperatures, permafrost, tundra, sharply continental climate, and its nature is very fragile. Thus, its economy being oriented toward exploitation of natural resources quite often has a negative impact on the environment. In this situation the effective performance of the environmental function is of utmost importance.
And, last but not least, Sakha has its special status within the Russian Federation. Among RF's 89 subjects only several have a status of a republic. This fact defines special opportunities of regional authorities in regulation of access to natural resources as well as in environmental management. Although the Constitution of Russia declared the equality of the subjects of the federation in their relations with the federal center, the practice until nowadays has been developing along another direction: republics were concluding agreements with the federation which regulate the division of competence between them. The typical agreement does not exist, and each time the contents of such agreements varies. De-facto Russia appeared to be an asymmetrical federation, where regions of the first, second and third rank exist, where the set of rights and responsibilities is different. This refers also to regulations in the environmental sphere - the extent of control of the regions over natural resources, of responsibilities in payment of taxes, etc. varies from one region to another.
National Environmental Program of Sakha (Yakutya) for 1994-2000 is based on the perception that environmental degradation as a result of economic activities poses a threat of loosing traditional occupations and cultures, especially among scanty people of the North. Thus, according to this environmental program, "the environmental protection in the republic has a distinct ethno-social aspect, and republican environmental program should be national in its character". 37 One of its main priorities is to provide favorable natural conditions especially for traditional environmental uses of Sakha people - deer-breeding, hunting, fishing. In this respect the program aims at expansion of ecological limitations of economic activities.
Particularly, it is envisaged to impose limits on economic development that undermines the natural basis for activities of indigenous people. For this purpose, measures to remove mining enterprises from tundra and forest-tundra are envisaged. 38 Regular control over the areas of natural parks is foreseen, and regions with a special regime of environmental uses around settlements and areas of activities of indigenous people are to be created. The territory of special protected areas, according to the environmental program, is to be expanded up to 20% of the whole territory of the republic. Mining industry is not the only reason for deterioration of the environment. Because of excessive pressures on wild fauna, irrational deer pasturing, the program poses the goal "to elaborate a special concept of traditional environmental uses on ethno-ecological territories", to enforce a strict quota system, to improve monitoring over hunting activities, to assign institutionally hunting areas to special hunting centers. A special environmental regime is to be introduced in the areas inhabited by indigenous people. Although the density of population in the republic are among the lowest in Russia, the program poses a question about necessity of regulation of population growth due to existence of certain limits in demographical capacity of the territory. This item of the program aimed, especially, at limiting population growth due to its external flows, has lost its former significance during recent years: mass migration of Russian population from the North, including the Sakha republic, to the central areas of Russia has started. 39
The rest of environmental problems of Sakha do not differ considerably from those of other regions in Russia. They include air pollution in big cities (Yakutsk, for example), pollution of rivers and lakes, increase in the waste disposal, irrational use of natural resources. The reasons are similar to those in other areas: lack of investments into installation of new purification facilities, aging of the existing ones, outmoded technologies of natural resources extraction, etc. The program outlines measures to solve these problems - construction of new purification equipment, energy-saving, use of new mining technologies, etc. Such measures had been already declared for many times both at the federal and regional levels, but they were only declared, and there are few people in Russia today who really believe in the possibility of their implementation (including the authors of the program as well). But there are some new special aspects of this issue. For example, recently in Yakutya a new powerful association of producers and exporters of diamonds Almazy Rossii-Sakha had been created. A significant portion of sales revenues from the export of diamonds remains now with their producers and with the Sakha authorities. It is questionable Whether the nature of the republic benefits from it. This question might be answered as a result of a special analysis of this problem. According to information published in the press, today in some regions the official budget co-exists with unofficial one, and regional nomenclature deals with it. For example, in Sakha together with official rubles budget there is an unofficial hard currency budget, and access to it is opened to a limited circle from the regional authorities. 40 Annual sales of diamonds of Almazy Rossii-Sakha accounts for $1200 million, and about $700 million from this sum are transferred in taxes to the budget of Yakutya. Besides that the republic gets into its disposal one-fifths of the diamonds mined, and after selling it to DeBeers company, Sakha gets additional $150 million of income annually. According to independent experts these financial resources are not transferred to the republican budget, but are spent according to a personal ordnance of the president of Sakha, who proposed recently to extend its presidency not as a result of elections, but in a referendum. 41
V. Conclusions: Problems, Policy Options, Recommendations
New system of environmental management with developed regional structures has been functioning in Russia only for several years. However, despite this relatively short period it is possible to draw several conclusions regarding organisation of this system. Increased role of the regions in environmental policy was an inevitable result of demolishing of the old economic and political systems. Shift from the sectoral principle of economic management, acquiring of independence by enterprises, shift from unitarism to real federalism - all these led to redistribution of environmental protection function from the center to the regions, turned territorial environmental organs into important institutions which by interaction with enterprises provide today environmental protection. At the same time the new system (we analyse the regional aspect of its organisation) has demonstrated that a set of quite serious problems exist.
Firstly, it is dualism. Dualism envisages such status of territorial organs of the environmental agency when they are in a double subordination - to the federal committee and to regional authorities simultaneously. This practice is characteristic for the state authority in Russia, it has old traditions, and is used for a long time by the bureaucracy in order to muddle a business to its own benefit, and then to try to escape from its own responsibilities. Official ideology of this entangled model of management is quite simple: since environmental protection refers to a joint competence of the federation and regions (subjects of the federation), the institution created in this sphere should be of a double subordination. The status of 'a servant of two masters' creates a situation of conflicts, contradictions and ineffectiveness.
Secondly, territorial organs of the environmental agency appeared to be under control of a regional administration. Regional authorities demonstrate this by withdrawal of resources from regional environmental funds for purposes that have nothing to do with environmental protection (construction of apartments, roads, of a church, purchases of cars abroad, etc.). Such facts demonstrate three important circumstances: who in fact controls the territorial environmental organs - federation or regions; what place does environmental protection play among the priorities of a regional administration; how easily it is ready to violate environmental legislation - by supposing in this case that regions are far away from the center, the center is not able to watch and control everything, and inside the region its administration is free to do everything it wishes.
Thirdly, this is supplemented by another important circumstance: in a political life of Russia some processes are underway at the regional level that might have serious negative consequences for environmental protection. Currently the active process of formation of regional elites is developing, and directors of enterprises are playing an increasing role in it. This process has been intensified particularly when elections into regional parliaments started to take place in the regions. Unexpectedly the tendency emerged when directors of enterprises get the majority of seats in legislative regional organs with the help of resources of their enterprises they use to finance their electoral campaigns. Since property rights in Russia had not been finally regulated, the directors of enterprises appeared to be beyond control of their owners and are able to use financial resources of their companies for purposes which were even not dreamt about by the directors in the West. As a result a danger exists to repeat in Russia in a new form the unfavorable situation created under the Soviet command economy when the environmental function was concentrated in the hands of environmental polluters. Directors of enterprises, i.e. representatives of polluters, are able to lobby their interests at that level of governmental management where environmental protection counteracts to pollution - at the level of regions. In case directors of enterprises manage to nominate their own people to territorial environmental organs and to provide a political cover for them, then environmental efforts at the regional level are doomed to failure, it would be simple blocked.
Fourthly, corruption is widely spread in the governmental institutions in Russia. This decease embraces all levels of governmental management. According to major analysts the regional and local levels of the state authority are affected by the most severe forms of corruption. Getting licenses for activities damaging the environment, violation of environmental norms by enterprises, allocation of development cites within nature protection zones - all these issues are often resolved with the help of bribes, especially at the regional level.
All these important specific features make it necessary to turn territorial organs of the federal environmental agency into more independent institutions from the regional authority and from those groups which realise their interests with the help of the regional authority. It does not mean at all to give up the territorial principle of environmental management, or to substitute it with something else. It means that it is necessary to erect a barrier to decomposing impact of corruption and to lobbying groups of interests. Simultaneously this would allow to abolish dualism and to establish institutional structure for environmental protection with a better defined system of subordination without overlap of competencies. Especially it might be reasonable not to allot regional authorities with formal rights for execution of their own policy in terms of personnel within the territorial organs of the federal environmental agency. It is necessary also for territorial environmental organs to have a single chain of subordination, but not two of them.
A question emerge in this respect: is it possible to realise this model in current political conditions in Russia? Does this task is realistic? There Rae several factors which define the possibility that currently changes in environmental policy at the regional level might blocked by such resistance of the regions which the federation would not be able to overcome. Moreover, the federation seems even not to try to do so in the nearest future. It seems that especially difficult it would be to undertake such steps regarding the regions of Russia with the status of republics. Although "Major items of regional policy of Russian Federation" (approved by the RF government 26 March, 1996) envisage 'strict definition of competence of the federal organs of the state authority', at the same time it requires 'decentralisation of power by allocation of as much as possible authorities to subjects of the federation in the spheres of joint competence'. 42 Coming elections in the regions, development of situation in Chechnya and a lot of other processes make the federation extremely cautious in these matters. The federation is preoccupied today, first of all, by the fact that it manages to collect only about 60% of taxes envisaged to be received by the federal budget. One of the reasons is that fiscal territorial organs function according to similar system of subordination as environmental ones. The federation is desperately seeking for solutions for this problem - the army has not been getting salaries for several months, and resentment there is close to its limits. As afar as environmental policy, it gradually recedes from the political anvant-scene toward a periphery of political interests and policy-making. It is done with consciousness - for it not to prevent the realisation of other important interests, especially in the sphere of natural resource use. This issue, in particular, has become the focal point of economic and political life in Russia. 43 This approach resulted recently in diminishing of the status of domestic institution responsible in Russia for implementation of the function on nature protection. According to a presidential decree the environmental ministry had been transformed into a state committee. The head of the committee is not a minister and is not a member of the cabinet, and hence, important decisions regarding nature protection would be undertaken by the government without his taking part in them. All this indicate that today one should not expect the decisions to allot wider power to territorial environmental organs. More likely - at the contrary.
To solve the problem, although partially, is possible by addressing other institutions which are more independent from regional authorities. Such institutions might be (however, to a certain extent only, since there are limits to possibilities of enforcement in environmental sphere) the judicial organs - for example, ecological public prosecution organs at the regional level. Another option might be the creation of environmental territorial organs at the inter-regional level. In this case a single institution, being in a framework of an environmental committee, is to be responsible for environmental protection on the territory of several neighboring subjects of the federation. This option, particularly, is being considered today by the government, to improve, for example, the system of taxes collection in the regions - creation of inter-regional institutions is suggested for this purpose. Certain potential seems to possess the so-called 'fourth power' - mass media at the regional and inter-regional levels - for mobilisation of public opinion to solve regional environmental problems.
What is the significance of regionalisation of Russian environmental policy for the West? Increase in the role of the regions means that environmental policy is made today not only in Moscow. It is made to a high extent in the regions, and today the used-to-be practice of the eighties when all the deals of the western partners had been accomplished, is not enough anymore or adequate to the current reality. It is necessary to develop cooperation with the regions, it is necessary to analyse and to be aware of their interests, approaches and possibilities. Without this precondition activities on joint implementation and Russia's adherence within this framework to provisions of international agreements are slightly possible and realistic.
Notes:
Note *: The paper is based on the results of an INTAS sponsored project conducted by the three authors during the period 1995-97 (INTAS 93-1699). This part of the study also draws upon intermediate results of the project "The international environmental policy of Switzerland", Swiss National Fund, Environmental Focus Program, Contract 5001-35212. Reference is also made to results of the SEER project "The domestic basis of international environmental agreements: modelling national/international linkages", EC Contract EVSV-CT 930.85. The authors thank INTAS, the Swiss Federal Agency for Education and Science and the Swiss National Fund for their financial support. Back.
Note 1: Evan Luard (1990), The Globalization of Politics: The Changed Focus of Political Action in the Modern World, London: Macmillan. Back.
Note 2: James Rosenau (1994), Fragmegrative Dynamics: Notes on the Interaction of Globalizing and Localizing Processes, Paper presented to the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., 28 March - 1 April 1994."Fragmegrative" refers to the combination of "fragmentation" and "integration". Back.
Note 3: Brian Hocking (ed.) (1993), Foreign Relations and Federal States, Studies in Federalism No.5 (edited by Murray Forsyth), London: Leicester University Press; idem (1993a), Localizing Foreign Policy, Non-Central Governments and Multilayered Diplomacy, London: Macmillan. Back.
Note 4: See: Robert D. Putnam (1988), "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games", International Organization, 42 (3), pp.427-460. Putnam only refers to the national-international intersection, not to the regional dimension of subsidiarity. Back.
Note 5: In their pace-setting study of clean air policies in Europe, Peter Knoepfel and Helmut Weidner suggested that the effectiveness of environmental measures cannot be analyzed without looking at the regional and local level. They introduced and applied the concepts of "regional implementation areas" and "local implementation areas" (LIA). See: Peter Knoepfel/Helmut Weidner (1985), Luftreinhaltepolitik im internationalen Vergleich, 6 vols., Berlin: Edition Sigma. Back.
Note 6: For analyses of the role of regions and localities in environmental policy see: Astrid Epinay/Peter Knoepfel, "Der Spielraum des kantonalen Umweltrechts unter dem EWR- und EWG-Vertrag", Umweltrecht in der Praxis, 7 (1), 17-40; Richard Stren/Rodney White/Joseph Whitney (eds.) (1992), Sustainable Cities: Urbanization and the Environment in International Perspective, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Back.
Note 7: This devolution of IEA is modelled after the State Implementation Plans applied in the 1970 U.S. Clean Air Act. See Chapter 5. Back.
Note 8: Acid rain is the popular term used to describe a very complex chemical and atmospheric phenomenon which occurs when emissions of sulfur and nitrogen precursor compounds are transported through the atmosphere, transformed by chemical processes, and then deposited back again on earth in either a dry or wet form. Back.
Note 9: See: Stephan Kux/Walter Schenkel/Thomas Widmer/Petra Zeyen (1994), The Clean Air Policy of Switzerland, Intermediate Report of SEER-Project, Basel: mimeo. Also: Rita Imhof (1994), Luftreinhaltung und Verkehr in 11 Kantonen. Situation, Akteure und Massnahmenplan, Cahiers de l`IDHEAP 125, Lausanne: IDHEAP. Back.
Note 11: Andrew Morris (1985), "Supporting structures for resolving environmental disputes among friendly neighbors", in: Schmandt/Roderick 1998, p.236-237; Hocking 1993b, p.241-242. Back.
Note 12: Michael McGinnis/Elinor Ostrom (1992), Design Principles for Local and Global Commons, Paper prepared for presentation at the conference on "Linking Local and Global Commons," Harvard University, 23-25 April 1992, as quoted in Marc A. Levy (1993), The Effectiveness of International Environmental Institutions: What We Think We Know, and How We Might Learn More, Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Acapulco, Mexico, 23-27 March 1993, pp.13-14. Back.
Note 13: Fritz W. Scharpf (1988), "The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration", Public Administration, 66 (3), pp.239-278. Back.
Note 14: Boardman 1990, p.2. Back.
Note 15: Boardman 1990, p.200. Back.
Note 16: See also: Peter Knoepfel/Ingrid Kissling-NŠf (1993), "Transformation šffentlicher Politiken durch VerrŠ umlichung. Betrachtungen zum gewandelten VerhŠltnis zwischen Raum und Politik", in: Adrienne HŽritier (ed.), Policy-Analyse, Special Issue 24, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 267-288. Back.
Note 17: E. Rehbinder/R. Stewart (1990), Environmental Protection Policy, Vol.2, Integration Through Law. Europe and the American Federal Experience, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Back.
Note 18: See: Simon Hix (1994), "The Study of the European Community: The Challenge to Comparative Politics", West European Politics, 17 (1), pp.1-30. Back.
Note 19: For a general overview of regionalization in Russia see: Vladimir Shlapentokh/Roman Levita/Mikhail Loiberg (1997), From Submission to Rebellion: The Provinces versus the Center in Russia, Boulder, CO: Westview. On current developments: Institute for East West Studies, Russian Regional Report, Internet Edition, RRR@IEWS.ORG. Back.
Note 20: Ohkrana Prirodnoy Sredy Rossii. Kratky Obzor [Environmental protection in Russia]. Moscow, 1995, p.4. Back.
Note 22: "Ekoinform", No 1, October 1992, pp.9-10. Back.
Note 23: "Rossiskaya Gazeta", 28.06.1994. Back.
Note 24: Petrov V. Ekologicheskoe pravo Rossii [Russian environmental law]. Moscow, Bek, 1995, p.27. Back.
Note 25: Federal law "On general principles of organisation of local self-governance in the Russian Federation". It is signed by the RF president 28.08.1995. Back.
Note 26: O Sostoyany Okruizhauishei Prirodnoy Sredy Goroda Moskvy v 1992 Godu, State Report, Moscow, 1993, p.164. Back.
Note 30: Ibid, pp.93, 94, 104. Back.
Note 33: Segodnya, 4.10.1995. Back.
Note 34: Obzor Vybrosov Zagriazniaushyh Veshestv v Atmosfery na Territorii Murmanskoy Oblasti za 1993 God, Murmansk Oblast Environmental Committee, Murmansk, 1994, p.3; Osnovnye Pokazateli Ekonomicheskogo i Socialnogo Razvitya Murmanskoy Oblasti, Goskomstat RF, Murmanskoe Upravlenye Statistiki, p.6-14. Back.
Note 35: Sostoyanye Okruizhauishey Sredy Severo-Zapadnogo Regiona Rossii, p.82. Back.
Note 36: Okhrana Okruizhauishey Prirodnoy Sredy v Rossiiskoy Federacii, Statistical Reports 1988-1993, Moscow, Goskomstat. Back.
Note 37: Zeleny Mir, No 1., 1995, p.7. Back.
Note 38: Nazionalnya Ekologicheskaya Programma Respubliki Saha (Yakutia) na 1994-2000, Introduction, Yakutsk, 1994, p.1. Back.
Note 39: Ibid., Part II, p.17. Back.
Note 41: Kommersant-Daily, 29.06.1994. Back.
Note 42: Kommersant-Daily, 30.09.1995. Back.
Note 43: Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 9.04.1996. The impact of property rights and natural resource management on regional environmental policy is the subject of a follow-up study by the three authors in the framework of an INTAS project 1997-1999. Back.
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