Asia

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
of the CIS regional workshop

CIS regional workshop took place in Krasnoyarsk (Central Siberia, Russia) in July 29, 1998. It was the first one among regional workshops organized by the Global Secretariat of a joint initiative of environmental NGOs, UNEP and Government of Costa Rica to develop solution oriented approach in the component of the agenda of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) on "Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation" (UC). In the CIS workshop there were more than 20 participants representing different regions of the Russian Federation, Georgia (New Independent State in Caucasus Region) and also from the US and Columbia (Rosario Ortiz – UC focal point for Latin America and representative of the Global Secretariat of the UC initiative).

In the beginning of the workshop there were presentations made by Alexander I. Zabelin (Deputy Chief of Krasnoyarsk Regional Forest Service); Professor Rosa M. Babintzeva (leading forest researcher from Sukachev Forestry Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences); and Rosario Ortiz (for more agenda info see Appendix 1).

For the preparation and presentation of 5 selected case studies we announced a competition for the best report which author(s) will present corresponding case study in the Global UC workshop in Costa Rica. We widely announced this competition , formed its jury from well-known international specialists under the leadership of Professor Dmitry V.Vladyshevsky – one of the best CIS researchers in this field (see his opening speech as Appendix 2 and his closing speech as Appendix 3) and created the Organizing Committee for the regional workshop.

There were 9 applications to present their corresponding case studies: 1 from Georgia and the other 8 - from different regions of the Russian Federation. The following 5 case studies were presented in Krasnoyarsk workshop:

1. "UC of deforestation and forest degradation in Georgia" (Alexander Urushadze).
2. "Major reasons of deforestation and forest degradation in Sikhote-Alin Region – Russian Far East" (Anatoly Lebedev & Ivan Kyalunziga)".
3. "UC of deforestation and degradation of oak forests in Volga river Region" (Dr.Igor Yakovlev).
4. "UC of deforestation in Bryansk Region -Western Russia" (Oleg Markin).
5. "Pest outbreaks as one of the main reasons of forest degradation in Central Siberia" (Vladimir Soldatov).

Jury recommended that A. Urushadze presented his case study at the Global workshop in Costa Rica. Jury recommended to present the case study of A. Lebedev and I. Kyalunziga at the Workshop of Indigenous Peoples, because it was the best one in this issue. Ivan Kyalunziga is a Head of the udege indigenous community in Iman river and Anatoly Lebedev is a local journalist and the well-known leader of the environmental NGO, a member of the International Reference Group of the Taiga Rescue Network. The above mentioned 2 reports identified most of the UCs for the CIS region and gave practical ways for their mitigation. 3 other reports also identified some UCs for their corresponding regions and gave some useful recommendations.

Finally we would like to present several observations common for the CIS countries:

1. For the CIS (12 countries of the former USSR) the issue of identifying Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation is a new one . Federal Forest Services of different CIS countries that are in charge of forest cover (there is only federal property on forests in these countries)currently have a lot of economic problems and try to solve them by increasing timber harvesting. Because of the corruption and constantly increasing levels of criminal activity, government officials don’t tackle the UC problem.
2. The World Bank , International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions by giving credits and loans convert CIS countries into resource colonies for the developed countries.
3. During the last decade in the most of the CIS countries there was not deforestation but forest degradation.
4. Majority of environmental and social NGOs appeared only in the late 80’s and early 90’s in the CIS countries. They have been playing more and more important role representing public interests. Their activists together with progressive journalists and researchers could identify major UCs for corresponding countries and regions and create coalitions for their solving.
5. Environmental education is very important task for all CIS countries.
6. As preliminary steps to Sustainable Forest Management in the CIS countries there were suggested:

1. Transparency of governmental and business decisions.
2. Public involvement in forest management.
3. Development and implementation of Criteria and Indicators..

7. There should be made significant changes in forest legislation in all CIS countries to move from sustaining timber harvest to sustaining forest ecosystems with appropriate valuation of different forest goods and services.

Because the CIS workshop was organized in the form of the competition and due to the lack of time there was no working group discussions. The main UCs for the region and possible ways to solve them were identified by the Professor D. Vladyshevsky (Appendixes 2 and 3) and winners of the competition A.Urushadze, A. Lebedev and I. Kyalunziga. The workshop in Krasnoyarsk was a starting point of the UC process in the CIS countries. This work will be continued with close cooperation of different stakeholders in sub-national, national and regional levels.

Appendix 1.

International Workshop
July 29, 1998
The House of Scientists Krasnoyarsk, Russia

Programme

9.00-10.00 Participants registration (The House of Scientists)

10.00-10.20 Opening of the Workshop-A.Laletin, T.Baskanova – Co-chairs of the Workshop Organizing Committee

10.20-10.30 Speech of welcome – A.Zabelin –Deputy Chairman of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Forest Service

10.30-10.50 "A Joint Initiative to Address the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation" by Rosario Ortiz Quijano (Columbia)

10.50-11.10 Coffee break

11.10-11.40 "Underlying Causes of Deforestation Examplified by Krasnoyarsk region and the Predivinsk forest industry enterprise" by Prof. R.Babintzeva (Institute of Forest, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Krasnoyarsk)

11.40-12.20 Opening speach and information on evaluation criteria and terms of the competition – Prof. D.Vladyshevsky (Krasnoyarsk Technical University) – Chairman of the Jury

12.20-17.30 Workshop participants reports on underlying causes of deforestation in their respective regions:

12.20-12.50 I.Kyalundziga, A. Lebedev (Primorskii region)

12.50-13.00 Organization issues

13.00-14.30 Lunch

14.30-17.30 Workshop participants reports (continuation)

14.30-15.00 O.Markin (Bryanskii region)

15.00-15.30 V. Soldatov (Krasnoyarskii region)

15.30-16.00 Coffee break

16.00-16.30 A.Urushadze (Tbilisi, Georgia)

16.30-17.00 I.Yakovlev (Ioshkar-Ola, Mari-El Republic)

17.00-18.00 Discussion of the reports

18.00-18.30 Closing remarks by the Jury Chairman D. Vladyshevsky

20.00-22.00 Dinner. Announcement of the Competition results .

Appendix 2.

Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Russia

D.V.Vladyshevskii

Deforestation is a global phenomenon causing concern with a growing number of people. The cause of it used to be originally the need of more agricultural areas to provide the growing population with food. The population growth, industrial development, construction of roads, water reservoirs, etc. required areas free from tree vegetation for management purposes. It resulted in the concentration of deforestation in the densely populated central Europe. In comparison with 1900 deforestation turned out to be manifold (Dorst, 1968). In the Ukraine, the most populated part of Russia, the forested area decreased from 15.1 to 9.1% in the period from the second half of the 18^th century to 1914 according to M.A.Tsvetkov (1957).

As the civilization developed logging for timber began playing a greater part among other causes of deforestation, such as the use of deforested areas for agricultural and other needs. People have always used forests for timber. But the population growth and the variety of timber products made forest logging one of the main forms of negative anthropogenic impact on the biosphere. It should be noted that those who log forests for timber do not aim at the destruction of it. However forest industry makes regeneration of stands of little probability by logging at the boundaries of forest areas, in mountains. After deforestation in these areas the danger of the soil layer destruction increases drastically. In Russia it is characteristic mainly for the southern boundary of forest. However it occurs also in the pre-tundra forests (because of their logging by reindeer-breeders, enterprises extracting minerals, etc. in certain areas).

In the last quarter of the 20^th century the world community started to attribute more attention to the legislative aspects of forest use, to the possibility of decreasing forest logging with the help of legislative acts and international agreements, because of the growing danger of the ecological crisis. In particular, an increasing number of countries admit that it is expedient to introduce the ecological certification. It implies the refusal to purchase timber harvested in an unsustainable way that leads to the reduction of forest areas and deterioration of their condition. In the democratic countries non-government nature conservation organizations influence increasingly the adoption on nature protection laws, the banks that invest into forest logging or other activities impacting on the condition of the Earth’s forests. These activities are economically efficient in many cases. They are based on the so-called one-step analysis. It allows mitigating the negative influence of the direct causes. However it does not touch upon the underlying causes that determine the character of the modern forest use (as well as the nature use on the whole).

The Underlying Causes of Deforestation

These causes are not obvious and are brought into being by the concealed mechanisms determining the character of life in the human society. Unfortunately the higher the number of interconnected factors that need to be analyzed to find out the underlying causes of deforestation, the more rarely the analysis of them is performed. Instead of analyzing they try to get rid of the direct cause. Often it does not yield positive results.

In the past timber was mainly used to produce heat and deforested areas – for the production of crops. There were no doubts as to the necessity of these activities. The need of food and heat has a natural limit of satisfaction. Therefore it was senseless to produce food and heat in excess. It limited deforestation naturally.

On the other hand, in the course of many milleniums the main part of the Earth’s population had lived under conditions of insufficient material consumption and suffered systematically from hunger. Thus, in China 1828 years out of 2019 were "hungry" years. In India the first great hunger known to the modern history occurred in 1769-1770 in which three million people perished. People keep dying from hunger at the time being. The population of many countries suffers other privations. For the citizens of the former USSR as well as of the modern Russia the problem of accommodation has always been and is the "eternal" problem. The deficiency of heat has added up to the problem recently.

Under such conditions it is natural for the society to be oriented at the growth of the economic well-being, the increase of the volume and diversity of production, at the raise of the payment level. As a result, those states that managed to perform "the economic miracle", i.e. to develop their economies quickly, are viewed as prosperous and their peoples – as skilled, worthy, and happy. The present leaders of Russia assure Russian people that such prospects are realistic for them. The Russian society will hardly recognize ecological limitations to forest use for the sake of the whole humanity and future generations if these limitations are on the way to the well-being perspective. Thus, the most important cause of the modern forest use in Russia is the poverty of people. In doing so the poverty should be understood as insufficient material consumption leading to diseases and decrease of the life expectancy. If the international community is able to impose ecological limitations to logging, these limitations will be construed by the government as one of the causes of economic difficulties (not the mercenary or poor economic and political reforming by the leaders of the society).

The other group of causes is not so obvious, although it can also be formally called "poverty". This kind of poverty is different from half-starving. It should be called the relative poverty, when there are wealthier people causing envy.

In the USSR the role of the individual economic success was in all ways diminished, and the focus was put on the unfair distribution of the national income in the capitalist countries. In the today Russia this uneven distribution (independent of its level) is viewed as the unavoidable natural phenomenon. The modern Russian ideology is oriented to the tolerant attitude to the rich, it suggests that everyone should endeavor to reach the economic success as the greatest life value. It is supposed that as the number of rich people grows, there will be less poor people, and the middle class that is not numerous in the modern Russian society will increase in number.

It is widely known that the basic juridical and moral laws are, unfortunately, violated in Russia for the sake of the maximal personal enrichment. It results in great economic and ecological losses for the society. The avarice of the Russians aiming eagerly at the power and wealth should be considered the most important underlying cause of deforestation in Russia.

The purpose of the paper is to expose and consider the political and socio-economic factors that lead to the reduction of the forested area in the Central Siberia - the most forested region of Russia.

The Political Premises of Deforestation

The state control over forests goes back to the political system of the USSR. Besides, part of the forests had been and keeps being under control of the individual Departments (the Ministry of Defense, Reserves, and departmental services that are in charge of them, some other). However the main manager of the forested area had always been the specialized state structures (at present - the State Committee on Forest of the Russian Federation).

Having the power the state organs had passed more than 100 laws and acts that specify them by the time the Forest Code of the Russian Federation (1997) was adopted. Such a situation is characteristic for bureaucratic management systems, as the numerous norms allow for the knowing officials to ground nearly any selfishly profitable decision.

On the other hand, being the national property forests had been widely used by anybody and everybody in the course of many decades of the Soviet power. This use was legalized in a number of aspects by both the former norms and the Forest Code, For example, it runs that citizens have the right to be in the forested area, to gather berries, mushrooms, nuts, etc. for personal needs. Besides, in certain regions many forest uses began to be considered as admissible. But they were against the law (timber harvest for personal needs, haymaking, cattle grazing in the state forested area, etc.) This situation is characteristic of the rare populated regions of Siberia. The main negative consequence of such a situation is forest fires caused by humans in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Under the state control over forests the second aspect of forest use is the slighting attitude of the state forest users to the many norms concerning forest harvest and forest management activities. Thinning and sanitary logging must be aimed at the production of valuable, highly productive stands. But in practice they turned into high-grading when harvest of the most valuable part of the stand is disguised as thinning.

It resulted in the paradoxical situation. It was defined the following way in the report on the Pilot project to the World Bank of Reconstruction and Development: "the forests of the age of maturity must have the maximum wood-supply, high wood-quality and maximum value in terms of cost. But in reality they are worse in all respects than maturing and even middle-aged forests." The marketable timber made up 50% in such forests. In Canada the index reached the level of 96%, in Sweden - 92%, USA - 78%. The underlying cause of it is the legislative nihilism, the widely spread inequality of citizens before the law common in Russia both before the revolution and in the USSR. It resulted in the fact that Soviet people accepted the moral admissibility of secret violation of the biggest part of laws. Siberia presented especially favorable conditions for such kind of violations because of its huge areas that are hard to control. Naturally, the less was the wood-supply of marketable timber in forests allocated to logging, the bigger were logged areas. Besides, the density was so low in the stands disturbed by preceding logging (as part of mining activities) that they could not be considered forest. The measures to regenerate it were minimal and in practice - inconsiderable.

The political system of USSR determined the values of leaders at various levels. The striving for self-realization is natural for the majority of people. The self-realization found its expression not just in money, but in a successful working career. The subordinates used the tactics of meeting the interests of leaders of a higher rank, on whom they fully depended. The leaders’ interests were various in the sphere of production, but as a rule, the fulfillment and exceeding of production plans were the main ones. The leaders of a higher rank assessed the leaders of a lower rank by this index. The situation was conditioned by what the political leaders of the USSR aimed at - to prove the superiority of the social system over the capitalist one. The main proof of superiority was the victory in the economic competition (in practice some indices served as the proof of the victory, e.g. the volume of production per capita). Under the political system the production success or its imitation provided the promotion, rise of the social status, governmental awards, and material welfare.

It resulted in the widespread "skimming the cream off" the resource base. Forest logging in Siberia is specific in the way that any forest harvester could log only once in his lifetime in an area allocated to logging. It made harvesters disinterested in forest regeneration. It concerned mainly the northern forest industry enterprises. Their forest villages were considered temporary, built only for the period of logging of a certain forest tract.

The interests of the future generations could not be fully neglected. But in practice the activities in this direction were minimal or pretence. The leaders of an enterprise, who were designated to be in charge of an intact forested area, could provide exceeding of the plans over a number of years at the expense of logging the most productive and accessible stands. In this way they got promoted. After they had got promotion new leaders of the enterprise sticked to the same politics.

The process had never been studied with the help of traditional scientific methods in the USSR. From time to time the leaders allowing predatory nature use were criticized in press and discharged afterwards. However these cases were rare. Alongside with these leaders and their collectives having the thinking of "temporary" people there were and are leaders who are concerned about their collectives and what they are doing. But the correlation between them in the country was not known.

It is obvious that it would be possible to predict how effective a political system is if there were information about the real purposes of leaders of all ranks in the society. It is not less important to know in what way the leaders will pursue their goals. Every new leader declares his honesty and competence. He prevents the activities in his milieu that can put his reputation under threat. It resulted in the fact that negative effects of the mercenary use of power became known only after a considerable time, more often after the change of leaders. However the consequences that were harmful for a certain collective or the society could be not for the leaders. Such a situation became characteristic for the after-reform Russia, when many directors of enterprises sold the property of the enterprises, expropriated a considerable part of the money and left their collectives unemployed.

In the forestry branch it resulted in the fact that forest areas were reduced and the age and species composition was changed unfavorably in the most accessible zone. However the state of the art is evaluated by large average indices. It creates a favorable impression, as the data referring to both intact forests and those exhausted by excessive logging are summarized.

It was impossible to analyze objectively the efficiency of the existing political system in the USSR. Moreover, even at the level of individual production units the analysis and control were conducted from the position of interests of the leader higher in rank. The critical analysis of the former management system was performed after the break-up of the USSR. The system got the name of the system of upward distortions, depersonalization, irresponsibility concealed by collective decisions. Eventually it resulted in the situation when the main thing was not to do what was necessary, but to create the appearance of successful work. The forest management suffered especially much from this system. It was complicated and labor-intensive to evaluate the condition of vast Siberian forests with the help of the traditional on the ground inventory. Fires, mass outbreaks of pests, other natural disasters used to serve and keep serving as excuses of reduction in areas of mature forests, they allow to write off theft and effects of irresponsibility. But it is very hard to quantify the effects that become evident only when the situation is threatening (as was the case with sanitary logging, that were turned into high-grading). It has only recently become easier to obtain reliable information thanks to the success with GISs on the basis of remote sensing of the Earth's surface from satellites.

The Ecological and Socio-Economic Causes of Deforestation

The next stage of the analysis is consideration of the ecological and socio-economic causes of reduction of forest areas. They are determined by the two groups of factors. The first group is concrete forest-vegetation conditions. The second is the economic situation of forest users (population) in a concrete region, an individual village.

The ecological causes of deforestation. This group of causes is the most studied. The study of forest vegetation conditions is not directly connected with the political aspects of life in the society, so it does not touch directly upon the interests of the leaders. These conditions are the objective reality, and the knowledge of them helps to manage forests in a more successful way. As a result it is possible now to make highly reliable predictions as to the successfulness of the natural or artificial regeneration. It is well-known that the conditions are the least favorable in the pre-tundra forests as well as on the boundary with the southern woodless steppes. It is also well-known how much more difficult it is to provide regeneration in the grass groups of forest types in comparison with the cowberry (Vaccinium vitis idaea) or bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) types. The knowledge makes it possible to use the funds for forest regeneration in the best way if foresters and forest directors are interested to work in this direction.

The following data show the efficiency of the funds use in reality. In the Krasnoyarsk region forest plantations occupy about 1 million of hectares at present (1.3% of the forested area). According to the official data of the Regional Committee on Forests 174 ths. ha of forest plantations were established in the period from 1987 to 1996. However G.S. Varaksin and other (1998) pointed out that only 15% of the plantations are in a good condition and 35% more are in a satisfactory condition. Supposedly plantations were not established at all in a number of cases. Instead of it the vegetation was burnt in a certain area in spring, and the non-existent plantations were recorded lost. However the scale and facts of this kind of abuse rarely become known. The information is obtained from the so-called unofficial sources.

The socio-economic causes of deforestation. As it was mentioned, this group of causes is of a particularly great significance. Forest logging, as well as other forms of forest use (but the recreational one), is determined by the main economic law – the eagerness to get the maximum profit. The second determining factor is the social situation (the people who agree to work under certain conditions of work and payment and who have necessary knowledge and skills). The forestry goals and the general ecological situation regulate the possibility to harvest a certain volume of timber.

Let’s view the named groups of factors. The following determine the profit from forest logging: equipment of an enterprise, the leadership’s competence, the leaders’ moral qualities, the quality of the forest resource base (the remoteness, wood-supply and quality of timber, the accessibility), the quality of working resource (the qualification and moral qualities), the market situation. The following additional circumstance can be significant: the possibility for the forest complex employees to get additional profit from individual farms, hunting, fishing, and gathering. The fact that the employees have the material reward incentive can play an important role. In its turn it depends on the named additional circumstances.

Some enumerated factors are direct. It is absolutely obvious that the forests situated in the most accessible areas will be logged in the first turn. They are characterized by the high wood-supply and the high quality of it. It is unknown with what level of payment and what living conditions the village population of forest logging enterprises will put up. It is hard to predict the purposes of the forest logging enterprise leader, hard to know about his business qualities.

It is not always known in what way the forest resources will be used by the local population. In some cases it takes care of them condemning the predatory treatment. For example, people in the central Angara River region call the forest logging enterprises that practice predatory harvest "steal-the-forest". Sometimes the local population itself lives by the principle: "it may suffice for my lifetime" An attitude to life depends on many factors, the attitude of the formal and informal leaders is very important. The Soviet people had lived their whole life under the totalitarian regime. It is hard for them to believe in the possibility of exercising an effective control over the leaders’ activities, of establishing fair relationship with the authorities. It is still harder to believe that the authorities and owners will start considering the people’s interests. At any rate having originated from the old system the today "new Russians" exploit their employees in such a pitiless way, that the first historic capitalist systems will appear to be the most humane.

Under the conditions the ordinary employees of the forest complex change their attitudes to the material reward. Its level corresponds to their idea of it. Part of the population in the taiga zone surrender to the powers of their employers. They are uncertain of finding a different job, and aware of the difficulties connected with changing the place of living. Their employers lower the payment down to the level just below which it is hard to survive. Under the conditions practically all the employees have individual farms. The farms become the main source for survival (i.e. the situation reminds of the familiar for Soviet people conditions on the war collective farms before the Second World War: the payment to collective farm workers was extremely low – "of a symbolic character".

Thus, the deforestation process is determined by the two named factors-the eagerness of the rich to become richer, and of the poor – to ease the hardships of poverty. However, the eagerness to get immediate profit from the predatory forest use meets growing resistance from the part of the world community that is interested in the ecological welfare. In part the international nature conservation organizations support financially the Russian incentives. Thanks to it, the Russian forest protection bodies are able to practice nature protection. The example of the support is the issue of the methodical-legislative recommendations by V.Zaharov, A.Morozov, A.Yaroshenko (1997), the given collection, and many other editions, including periodic ones.

Conclusion

The principal underlying factor of deforestation on the planetary scale is the traditional orientation of the most people to the economic success as the priority value. The probability of its change to the reasonable sufficiency of consumption and the adoption of humane values as the priority seems to be of little probability in the nearest future, however there are some changes.

The second underlying factor of deforestation in the modern Russia is the mentality of the humble, submissive doer. It will take a quite lot of time for a different mentality to form, when people are concerned in all that happens and take the responsibility for it.

The traditional way to improve the situation is the introduction of the rational organization-legislative forms of influencing the forest use. In particular, the introduction of the international satellite monitoring of the forest condition, the ecological certification of forest products based on the data obtained in this way.

The forest protection problem in Russia is complicated by the transfer to the "short-term leadership", when a high rank official can easily be fired after the next in term elections. It conditions the fact that the next leaders are oriented at the achievement of quick results, it is especially hard to do in the forest management. As a result the long-term forest use strategy will constantly be sacrificed for the sake of the current political interests under the conditions of the economic and political instability. The following acquire a special importance: education, rise of the level of the political, ecological and economic literacy of the population. To a considerable degree the present paper is devoted to the purpose.

References:

Varaksin G.S., V.A Sokolov, and S.K.Farber. 1998. Forest Regeneration//The Problems of Sustainable Forest Use. Krasnoyarsk.(Rus.)

Dorst Z. 1968. Before the Nature Dies. Moscow: Progress Publishers(Rus.)

Zakharov V., A. Morozov, ?.Yaroshenko. 1997. To Environmentalists about the Forest Management. Moscow.(Rus.)

Tzvetkov M.A. 1957. The Change of the Forested Area in the European Russia from the End of 17^th Century to 1914. Moscow: AS USSR Publishers.(Rus.)

Appendix 3.

Closing remarks of Prof. Dmitry Vladyshevskii
Krasnoyarsk, Russia
July 29, 1998

The problem under study could be solved if recommendations of our guest from Colombia are put into practice, I mean the change of life-style.

It may be not so unrealistic. Believe my experience, being much older than anybody else here, I have been observing all of my life drastic changes within a short period of time. If we do not change our life-style, then sooner or later, forest and other resources will be depleted. If the whole society sees economic success as the priority value, and if the most developed countries, with law-abiding populations use other less developed countries, like Russia or Colombia as their ecological colonies… .

All this can not last forever. We are in the worst position in this respect, on the one hand. But on the other hand, our eagerness to catch up with the western standards of material well-being can not last forever too.

Gradually, all people are coming to an understanding that it is impossible for everyone to live up to the "American standard". And in principle this is impossible. We still hope that in the developed countries, people will become aware of the necessity to admit the principle of "reasonable sufficiency." What can be done in practice? Television is flooded with western commercials of western goods, which are overabundant and do not find their customers there. A home-made commercial, which can clearly, on the regional level, explain the perspective of this urge for high standards of material consumption, could flash on this background. It could explain that this urge is just the desire to demonstrate your personal success., but not the effort to provide biological survival, it could explain that these commercials advertise prestigious consumption, which is detrimental to nature.

The second block of objectives comprises those initiatives our speakers have been talking about, those initiatives which will allow to preserve resources till the most favourable times, when people re-estimate the values. The more resources are conserved till that time, with fewer losses, people will transfer to the more favourable state. There are no guarantees for such a favourable transition. Many civilizations have died up till now due to ecological reasons. The majority of people might also die because of this, even without nuclear war. People don’t feel like dying, and this gives hope that adequate measures (efforts) will be undertaken in the near future, before the life expectancy of men in Krasnoyarsk drops to 40 years, not 49 as it is now. I should have died 20 years ago, for example. And a question arises: who will advance the technical progress in so short-living generation, where men die at the age of 49, and where it takes 16 years, as Mr. Soldatov said to become a really mature specialist. Ecological problems don’t have the beginning and end. They touch upon all aspects of life. We cannot cover everything and at the same time we cannot confine ourselves to one-step analysis, it is necessary to track the whole causation chain to find those links which can be really solved right now.

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