The second meeting of the Arctic Expert Club

On October 23, HSE Institute of Regional Studies and Urban Planning and the Arctic Center for Strategic Research (NArFU) held a panel discussion on Environmental Demands for Russian Arctic Economical Development Establishment.

Russian Arctic is a strategic region for sustainable social and economical development and Russian national security protection. Federal government has paid a lot of attention recently to Russian Arctic development. What is meant here is the approval of Arctic Development Strategy and state program “Social and Economical Development of the Russian Federation Arctic Zone up to 2020”, the formation of Arctic Development State Commission. The analysis of the basic social and economical development indexes of the Russian Arctic members proves that although these regions constitute a large proportion in the total Russian area and in the total volume of natural resources extraction, although these regions are characterized with larger income and salary indexes in comparison with average indexes in Russia, they are also characterized with low indexes of population size and  of people employed in economy as well as Gross Regional Product (GRP) proportion index (except for Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District and Krasnoyarsk Krai which constitute more than 2 % of national GRH), low proportion of innovative products in goods and services production structure, etc.

At the same time, Russian Arctic is a unique natural ecosystem and a place of living and traditional household management of the indigenous peoples. Arctic territories are characterized with extremely vulnerable nature which requires a long regeneration period due to human impact. The high priorities, determined by the state, aimed at vast economical development and Arctic natural resources development challenge the scientific expert community and public figures to define the effective state policy concerning ecological priorities of the given region which would provide balance of economical and ecological development of this unique territory.

A range of urgent issues concerning Arctic ecological development was on the agenda of the second meeting of the Arctic Expert Club, namely ecological safety provision in the context of Arctic intensive development, challenges of accumulated ecological damages liquidation,   improvement of statutory and legal base for environmental activity provision in Russian Arctic, prevention of the Northern seas contamination due to oil spills, social, economical and ecological development of monocities, tourism development, organization of international ecological cooperation.

The panel discussion participants have noted that one of the ambitious areas of Russian Federation spatial development is the Arctic zone in terms of large-scale development of natural resources, biological resources and new capacities expansion in the Arctic. It will cause the increase of ecological pressure of the Arctic territories and water areas. Provision of Arctic ecological and economical sustainable development requires problem solution in the sphere of natural resource management and environmental protection, among which the most urgent ones are the following: provision of complex natural resource management with the use of the latest environmentally friendly and low-waste technologies, optimization, definition and development of the most advanced environmentally friendly spheres of economical activity, the use of coastal areas biological resources, development of tourism, service industry and other spheres.

In the panel discussion participants opinion, in terms of ecological safety provision it is necessary to conduct geological and geomorphological, meteorological, hydrographic and cartographic work for  grounding of economic activity alternative course in the Russian area of the Arctic and the territories of the Russian presence in Svalbard, to provide expert evaluation impact Arctic regions investment and tourist attraction, to create data bases of the Arctic territories and water areas ecological sensitivity to contamination and specifically oil contamination, to provide evaluation of ecological and economic damage of mining industry natural resource management in the Arctic territories, to create integrated safety and security system for territory and population protection as well as protection of the Arctic objects being of critical importance for Russian Federation national security provision in natural and man-made emergency situations.

One of the most urgent challenges in the Arctic region requires dealing with monocities sustainable development provision, as monocities issues concern economical (low competitive ability of the enterprises), social (out migration) and ecological (high proportion of hazardous industries waste) spheres. Ecological issues of such cities demand more detailed consideration due to the current and anticipated environmental changes and establishment of its sustainable development, based on “green technologies” implementation, will allow to secure and develop the Far North infrastructure, to improve the population prosperity and health and to shift to more ecologically effective production and local resources rational use.

In the context of modern geopolitical situation and active implementation of the state policy in domestic tourism development the issues of conditions and options for Arctic tourism development were concerned. Taking into consideration the fact that Arctic tourism development is niche tourist product, objective options for tourism development already exist: the existence of Special Protected Natural Areas in the region, among which is Russian Arctic National Park, which are capable of hosting touristsналичие, Arctic tourism development along the Northern Sea Route, the tendency of interest increase towards ecological and ethnographic tourism both among foreign and Russian tourists. The key recommendations here were as follows:

• stimulation of regional initiatives aimed at tourist and recreation clusters creation and their support on the federal level, of which their integration into Federal Target Program “Domestic and Inbound Tourism Development in the Russian federation (2011-2018)”;
• creation of competitive Arctic tourist product and its promotion on Russian and international exhibitions involving Federal Agency for Tourism.  

It is also important to organize work in optimization and improvement of the system using remote sensing data (RSD) of the Earth based on GIS-technology and to use the potential of GLONASS for the environment rapid assessment for the solution of different issues concerning Russian Arctic development and making effective management decisions.  

Establishment and further development of international cooperation in the Arctic is of primary importance for Russian Arctic development. Arctic is acquiring the more and more important role in world politics and economics. The Arctic region, rich in natural resources and characterized with good transportation facilities, attracts the attention of not only Arctic states, but also of China, Japan, South Korea, India and other countries. The issues of Russian Arctic protection in terms of its being a resource base and transport corridor must be ensured, mostly diplomatically. At the same time, full-scale Arctic deployment and implementation of important economical projects will demand vast attraction of foreign investments.

International cooperation in the Arctic should follow the path of confidence building between the Arctic states, the development of constructive business interaction in all spheres, including issues of ecological safety.

An important condition for creation and effective operation of the Russian Federation ecological policy implementation mechanism, including the Arctic, is legislation improvement and provision of its strict adherence by all economic entities. For this purpose, a modern scientific-research and forecasting base, conditions for new knowledge, technologies and methods commissioning and development of Russian Arctic high-tech economic sectors  must be created.

The panel discussion participants touched upon another important issue – environmental implication of navigation development along the Northern Sea Route. One of the most significant state decisions for the Northern Sea Route development was validation of “Complex Northern Sea Route Development Project” by Russian Federation Prime-Minister on June 05, 2015. It is necessary to speed up the launch of the action plan for year-round disposition of equipment and personnel on icebreakers in the Northern Sea Route water area for emergency readiness provision, including diving operations, and readiness for oil spill clean-up by the inclusion of the said personnel in the icebreaker crews by providing funding for icebreaker emergency readiness provision, including oil spill clean-up, from the federal budget.

The experts have also mentioned the importance of state involvement into dealing with Russian Arctic offshore and coastal areas spatial planning. The major principles of ecologically sustainable economic use of offshore and coastal areas are the following:

• well-balanced consideration of economic, social and ecological conditions for marine economic activities development planning;
• optimization of marine natural resource management on the ground of ecological-economical approach;
• preservation and reconstruction of marine ecosystems and their biodiversity;
• preservation of unique, representative and habitat-forming natural marine and coastal systems and formation in reliance on them basin systems of protected offshore and coastal areas;
• prevention of negative ecological impact of economic activities and foreseeing future ecological impact;
• preservation of underwater cultural heritage;
• prevention of conflicts between water areas.

Implementation of these principles in offshore and coastal spatial planning is related to the definition of ecologically and economically sound spatial correlations between different types of offshore and coastal areas (depending on their condition and economic use).

Russian Arctic natural systems ecological condition evaluation is also an important state task for Arctic territories sustainable development provision. It has been stated, that Russian Arctic inland area is connected with the South of Russia by river flow system covering about 2/3 of Russian territory which is a positive factor for rapid mutual economic development of Russian Arctic and neighbouring territories. Russian Arctic communication by waterways with baseband settlement regions (the South of the Urals, Siberia, etc.) and economical potential concentration will become a powerful factor both for the development of onshore Arctic, and polar marine natural resource management, in particular, the Northern Sea Route use, hydrocarbon extraction from offshore drilling platforms, biological resources hunting, environmental monitoring and protection. The main waterway in this case could be Yenisei river system. It is advisable to consider the possibility of Ket-Kas (Ob and Yenisei) Channel reconstruction. Through this channel ships from Ob River basin, on condition of creating gateways within the Angara HPP Cascade, will receive direct access to Lake Baikal region and vice versa. What is more, the creation of single water system Ob-Yenisei-Baikal will stimulate the flow of tourists.

Summing up the panel discussion results and summarizing all raised issues of ecological balance preservation for Russian Federation Arctic zone economical development provision, its participants ended up with a suggestion to organize a working party for Ecological Safety in the Arctic Strategy development based on a specially organized Consortium which may include  Institute of Regional Studies and Urban Planning, National Research University Higher School of Economics, the Arctic Center for Strategic Research, NArFU, Council for the Study of Productive Forces, Russian Academy of Sciences and Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

Following the results of the second meeting of the Arctic Expert Club, recommendations and suggestions for the federal executive authorities were formulated.

The full version of the panel discussion resolution can be found here.