Incredible facts
It's lunchtime, but there's no food at home, so you get behind the wheel and drive to the nearest grocery store.
You walk among the stalls hoping to buy something. In the end, you choose chicken and a prepared salad and return home to enjoy your meal.
Let's look at how a seemingly harmless trip to the store impacts the environment.
First, driving a car contributed to carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The electricity in the store is nothing more than the result of burning coal, the mining of which has devastated the Appalachian ecosystem.
The salad ingredients were farmed and treated with pesticides, which then entered waterways, poisoning fish and aquatic plants (which help keep the air clean).
The chicken was raised on a very remote poultry farm where animal waste releases large amounts of toxic methane into the atmosphere. When delivering goods to the store, many modes of transport were involved, each of which caused its own harm to the environment.
Even the smallest human actions initiate changes in the environment. How we heat our homes, power our electrical appliances, what we do with our garbage and the origins of our food all place enormous pressure on the environment.
Looking at the problem at a societal level, it can be noted that human behavior has significantly impacted the environment. The Earth's temperature has increased by one degree Fahrenheit since 1975, and the amount of polar ice has decreased by 9 percent in just one decade.
We have caused enormous damage to the planet, much more than you can imagine. Construction, irrigation, and mining significantly spoil the natural landscape and disrupt the flow of important ecological processes. Aggressive fishing and hunting can deplete species, and human migration can introduce alien species into established food chains. Greed leads to catastrophic accidents, and laziness leads to destructive practices.
10. Public projects
Sometimes public works projects don't actually work to benefit the public. For example, dam projects in China, designed to produce clean energy, have devastated the surrounding area, causing flooding in cities and environmental waste areas, greatly increasing the risk of natural disasters.
In 2007, China completed 20 years of construction of the world's largest hydroelectric dam, called the Three Gorges Dam. During the implementation of this project, more than 1.2 million people had to leave their usual habitats, as 13 large cities, 140 ordinary towns and 1,350 villages were flooded. Hundreds of factories, mines, dumps and industrial centers were also flooded, plus the main reservoirs were heavily polluted. The project altered the ecosystem of the Yangtze River, turning the once mighty river into a stagnant basin, thereby wiping out much of the native flora and fauna.
Diverted rivers also significantly increase the risk of landslides along banks that are home to hundreds of thousands of people. According to forecasts, about half a million people living along the river are planning to be resettled by 2020, as landslides are inevitable and the ecosystem will continue to be depleted.
Scientists have recently linked dam construction to earthquakes. The Three Gorges Reservoir was built on top of two major fault lines, with hundreds of minor tremors occurring since its opening. Scientists have suggested that the catastrophic 2008 earthquake in the Chinese province of Sichuan, which killed 8,000 people, was also caused by the accumulation of water in the area of \u200b\u200bthe dam, located less than half a mile from the center of the earthquake. The phenomenon of dams causing earthquakes is due to the water pressure created beneath the reservoir, which in turn increases the pressure in the rocks and acts as a softener for fault lines that are already under stress.
9. Overfishing
“There are a lot of fish in the sea” is no longer a completely reliable statement. Humanity's appetite for seafood has devastated our oceans to such an extent that experts fear for the ability of many species to rebuild their populations on their own.
According to the World Wildlife Federation, global fish catches exceed the permissible limit by 2.5 times. More than half of the world's fish stocks and species have already been depleted, and one quarter of species are overdepleted. Ninety percent of large fish species - tuna, swordfish, cod, halibut, flounder, marlin - have lost their natural habitat. According to forecasts, if the situation does not change, the stocks of these fish will disappear by 2048.
It is worth noting that the main culprit is advances in fishing technology. Today, commercial fishing vessels are mostly equipped with fish-finding sonar. Once they find the right spot, fishermen release huge nets, the size of three football fields, that can sweep up all the fish in a few minutes. Thus, with this approach, fish populations could be reduced by 80 percent in 10-15 years.
8. Invasive species
Throughout the founding era, man himself has been a distributor of invasive species. Even though it may seem like your beloved pet or plant is doing much better in its new location, the natural balance is actually being disrupted. Invasive flora and fauna have been proven to be the most destructive thing humanity has done to the environment.
In the United States, 400 of the 958 species are listed as endangered because they are considered at risk due to competition with invasive alien species.
Invasive species problems mostly affect invertebrate animals. For example, in the first half of the 20th century, the Asian fungus destroyed more than 180 million acres of American chestnut trees. As a result, more than 10 species dependent on chestnuts have become extinct.
7. Coal mining industry
The biggest threat posed by coal mining is climate change, but it also threatens local ecosystems.
Market realities pose serious threats to coal, especially in the United States. Coal is a cheap source of energy - one megawatt of energy produced by coal costs $20-30, as opposed to one megawatt produced by natural gas - $45-60. Moreover, one quarter of the world's coal reserves are located in the United States.
Two of the most destructive forms of the coal mining industry are mining coal from mountaintops and using gas. In the first case, miners can "cut down" more than 305 meters of a mountain peak in order to reach a coal deposit. Extraction using gas occurs when the coal is closer to the surface of the mountain. In this case, all the “inhabitants” of the mountain (trees and any other creatures living in them) are exterminated to extract valuable minerals.
Every practice of this kind creates a large amount of waste along the way. Vast damaged and old forest areas are being dumped into nearby valleys. In the US alone, in West Virginia, it is estimated that more than 121,405 hectares of hardwood forests have been destroyed by coal mining. By 2012, it is said that 5,180 square kilometers of Appalachian forest will cease to exist.
The question of what to do with this kind of “waste” still remains open. Typically, mining companies simply dump unwanted trees, dead wildlife, etc. into nearby valleys, which in turn not only destroys natural ecosystems, but also causes the drying up of large rivers. Industrial waste from mines finds refuge in river beds.
6. Human disasters
Although most of the ways in which humans harm the environment develop over several years, some events can happen in an instant, but that instant will have far-reaching consequences.
The 1989 oil spill in Prince Williams Sound, Alaska, had devastating consequences. About 11 million gallons of crude oil were spilled and killed more than 25,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 seals, 250 eagles, about 22 killer whales, and billions of salmon and herring. At least two species, the Pacific herring and the guillemot, did not recover from the disaster.
It's too early to assess the damage to wildlife caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but the scale of the disaster is unlike anything seen before in American history. For several days, more than 9.5 million liters of oil per day leaked into the Gulf - the largest spill in American history. By most estimates, damage to wildlife is still lower than the 1989 spill due to lower species density. However, despite this, there is no doubt that the damage from the spill will continue for many years to come.
5. Cars
America has long been considered the land of cars, so it's no surprise that one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from cars. There are 232 million cars on this country's roads, very few of which are powered by electricity, and the average car consumes about 2,271 liters of gasoline annually.
One car emits about 12,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the form of exhaust fumes. In order to clear the air of these impurities, 240 trees will be needed. In America, cars emit about the same amount of carbon dioxide as coal-burning factories.
The combustion process that occurs in a car engine produces fine particles of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and sulfur dioxide. In large quantities, these chemicals can harm a person's respiratory system, causing coughing and suffocation. Cars also generate carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas produced by burning fossil fuels that blocks the transport of oxygen to the brain, heart and other vital organs.
At the same time, oil production, which is necessary to create fuel and oil to move a car, in turn, also has a serious impact on the environment. Land-based drilling is displacing native species, and offshore drilling and subsequent transportation has created an incredible amount of problems over the years, with more than 40 million gallons of oil spilled around the world since 1978.
4. Unsustainable agriculture
In all the ways humanity harms the environment, there is one common theme: we are failing to plan for the future. But nowhere is this more evident than in our method of growing our own food.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, agricultural practices are responsible for 70 percent of the pollution in the country's rivers and streams. Chemical runoff, contaminated soil, and animal waste all end up in waterways, of which more than 173,000 miles are already in poor condition. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides increase nitrogen levels and decrease oxygen levels in water.
Pesticides used to protect crops from predators threaten the survival of some species of birds and insects. For example, the number of bee colonies on US farmland fell from 4.4 million in 1985 to less than 2 million in 1997. When exposed to pesticides, bees' immune systems are weakened, making them more vulnerable to the enemy.
Large-scale industrial agriculture also contributes to global warming. The vast majority of meat products in the world are produced on factory farms. On any farm, tens of thousands of livestock are concentrated in small areas to save space. Among other things, when unprocessed animal waste is destroyed, harmful gases are released, including methane, which, in turn, has a significant impact on the process of global warming.
3. Deforestation
There was a time when most of the land on the planet was covered with forests. Today, forests are disappearing before our eyes. According to the United Nations, 32 million acres of forest are lost every year, including 14,800 acres of primary forest, that is, land not occupied or damaged by human activity. Seventy percent of the planet's animals and plants live in forests, and, accordingly, if they lose their home, they themselves will be at risk of extinction as a species.
The problem is particularly acute in tropical rainforests with humid climates. Such forests cover 7 percent of the world's land area and provide homes for about half of all species on the planet. At current rates of deforestation, scientists estimate that tropical forests will be wiped out in about 100 years.
Deforestation also contributes to global warming. Trees absorb greenhouse gases, so fewer trees mean more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. They also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor to the atmosphere. Without trees, forests will quickly turn into barren deserts, leading to even greater fluctuations in global temperatures. When forests burn, trees release carbon into the atmosphere, which also contributes to the global warming problem. Scientists estimate that the trees of the Amazon forest processed the equivalent of 10 years of human activity.
Poverty is one of the main causes of deforestation. Most tropical forests are in third world countries, and politicians there regularly stimulate economic development in weak regions. Thus, loggers and farmers are slowly but surely doing their job. In most cases, deforestation occurs due to the need to create a farm plot. A farmer typically burns trees and vegetation to produce ash, which can then be used as fertilizer. This process is called slash-and-burn farming. Among other things, the risk of soil erosion and flooding increases as nutrients from the soil evaporate over several years, and the land is often unable to support the crops planted for which the trees were cut down.
2. Global warming
The average temperature of the Earth's surface has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 130 years. Ice caps are melting at an alarming rate—more than 20 percent of the world's ice has disappeared since 1979. Sea levels are rising, causing floods and having a significant impact on the catastrophic natural disasters that are increasingly occurring around the world.
Global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect, in which certain gases release the heat received from the sun back into the atmosphere. Since 1990, annual greenhouse gas emissions have increased by about 6 billion tons worldwide, or 20 percent.
The gas most responsible for global warming is carbon dioxide, which accounts for 82 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Carbon dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels, mainly when running cars and when factories are powered by coal. Five years ago, global atmospheric concentrations of gases were already 35 percent higher than before the Industrial Revolution.
Global warming can lead to the development of natural disasters, large-scale food and water shortages, and devastating impacts on wildlife. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels could rise by 17.8 - 58.4 cm by the end of the century. And since most of the world's population lives in coastal areas, this is a very big danger for both people and ecosystems .
1. Overcrowding
"Overpopulation is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about," says Dr John Guillebaud, professor of family planning and reproductive health at University College London. "Unless we can do humane family planning ourselves reduce the population, nature will do it for us through violence, epidemics and famine,” he adds.
Over the past 40 years, the world population has grown from 3 to 6.7 billion. 75 million people (equivalent to the population of Germany) are added annually, or more than 200,000 people daily. According to forecasts, by 2050 the world population will exceed 9 billion people.
More people means more waste, more demand for food, more production of consumer goods, more needs for electricity, cars, etc. In other words, all the factors that contribute to global warming will only get worse.
Increasing demand for food will force farmers and fishermen to increasingly harm already fragile ecosystems. Forests will be removed almost entirely as cities continually expand and new areas for farmland are needed. The list of endangered species will become longer and longer. In rapidly developing countries such as India and China, increased energy consumption is expected to increase carbon emissions. In short, the more people, the more problems.
The corresponding amendments to some laws were signed by the President of the Russian Federation. Thus, a chapter on eliminating accumulated environmental damage is being introduced into the Law on Environmental Protection, and additions are being made to a number of existing provisions of the law.
Let us recall that earlier, in 2010, following a meeting of the Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources was instructed to conduct an inventory and record of objects of accumulated environmental damage and develop a set of measures for its elimination, defining the mechanisms and volumes of financing for these measures, including “pilot” projects development of technologies for eliminating accumulated damage.
The first practical steps to assess and eliminate past environmental damage began in 2011 in areas most vulnerable from the point of view of anthropogenic impact (the islands of the Franz Josef Land archipelago, the islands of the Northern Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the territory of the Wrangel Island nature reserve and the village of Amderma in Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russian part of the island of Spitsbergen, Baikal natural territory).
In 2011, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources was given instructions to prepare changes to the legislation of the Russian Federation aimed at improving the legal regulation of eliminating the consequences of negative impacts on the environment and compensating for environmental damage caused and accumulated as a result of past economic activities. At the same time, a draft Federal Law was developed, providing for the creation of legal, organizational and financial mechanisms for eliminating accumulated environmental damage. And now, 5 years later, having gone through numerous approvals, the version of the bill was signed by the President of the Russian Federation (Federal Law dated July 3, 2016 No. 254-FZ “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”).
The Law defines the concepts of “accumulated environmental harm” and “objects of accumulated environmental harm.”
In accordance with the Law, constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local governments are given the right to identify and assess objects of accumulated environmental damage and organize work to eliminate accumulated environmental damage. In a number of cases established by the Government of the Russian Federation, these activities will be carried out by the federal executive body.
The law also establishes criteria for assessing objects of accumulated environmental harm (volume of pollutants, waste and their hazard classes; area of contaminated territory/water area; number of people living in the zone of negative impact of the object, etc.).
Accounting for objects of accumulated environmental harm will be carried out through their inclusion in the state register of objects of accumulated environmental harm. At the same time, in order to justify the priority of work to eliminate accumulated environmental damage and take urgent measures, the law provides for the categorization of objects of accumulated environmental damage.
To implement these provisions of the Law, it is envisaged to develop a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation “On approval of the Procedure for maintaining the state register of objects of accumulated environmental harm”, which will disclose the procedures for making decisions on the inclusion or “non-inclusion” of objects in the register, and determine the procedure for categorizing objects based on a score values of each of the criteria, procedures for updating information about the status of objects, etc. have been established.
The procedure for organizing work to eliminate accumulated environmental damage will be established by an act of the Government of the Russian Federation.
It is worth noting that the need to eliminate accumulated pollution is also established in the Main Directions of Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation and the Concept of Long-Term Social and Economic Development of the Russian Federation for the period until 2020, the Fundamentals of State Policy in the field of environmental development of the Russian Federation for the period until 2030, approved by the President of the Russian Federation 04/30/2012.
Agreements worth 507 million rubles have already been concluded to carry out work to eliminate past environmental damage. In 2016, the federal budget allocated 2 billion rubles for the implementation of new projects to eliminate accumulated pollution.
Also, Federal Law No. 254-FZ dated July 3, 2016 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” establishes:
transitional period of application of legislation on industrial and consumer waste for waste disposal facilities created in Crimea before its acceptance into the Russian Federation;
the possibility of creating biosphere polygons on part of the territory of state natural reserves in accordance with decisions of the Government of the Russian Federation;
the possibility of transferring the powers of federal executive authorities for federal state environmental supervision to executive authorities of constituent entities of the Russian Federation;
the authority of the Government of the Russian Federation to determine the organization performing the functions of the Bureau of Best Available Technologies.
According to the organizers of the exhibition-forum "ECOTECH"
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The problem of defining the concept of environmental harm, identifying its characteristic features and specific features currently has undoubted social and legal significance. Its social side is due to the critical state of the environment. There is no doubt that recently there has been a significant change in the social harmfulness of encroachments on public environmental relations, the nature of the harm caused by them has become more complex, and its objective manifestation has become more multifaceted. In some cases, the actual onset of negative consequences may occur after a sufficiently long time and on a completely different territory, which indicates its transboundary nature.
At the same time, in the theory of environmental law, the study of the concept of environmental harm pays unjustifiably little attention.
The need for in-depth theoretical development of the concepts of “environmental offense” and “environmental harm” was drawn attention to in the early 80s by the well-known scientist S.B. Baisalov. In the Kazakh legal literature, separate studies have appeared on the problems of legal liability for environmental offenses, which also highlight some aspects of compensation for environmental damage. At the same time, there is no single generally accepted definition of the concept of environmental harm to date.
Consideration of the issue of the concept of harm caused by violations of environmental legislation is closely related to the concept of the object of the corresponding offense, since in the most general form the object of the offense is precisely what is harmed as a result of the commission of an unlawful act.
The legal literature rightly emphasizes that there are no harmless offenses; every offense causes harm, since the object of the attack is social relations.
In this regard, it is necessary to briefly consider the positions of scientists on the issue of defining the concept of an object of environmental violation.
In some cases, the object of an environmental violation is understood as material and intangible benefits, namely natural objects and complexes, as well as the environment as a whole, protected by law from pollution, depletion and destruction, as well as human health and material assets, the condition of which depends on the quality of the environment environment, or the actual quality of the latter, in others - environmental interest. Based on the assertion about the inextricable existence of legally significant social relations and the legal norms governing them, some scientists include the norms of environmental and natural resource branches of legislation and the social relations regulated by them as elements of the object of an offense.
The statement of the stated positions allows us to conclude that in the science of environmental law there is no unified understanding of this legal category.
The most rational position seems to be those of those scientists who formulate the concept of the object of an environmental violation as a complex, integral set of social relations of an environmental nature.
Changed economic and socio-political conditions necessitate the expansion of this concept by including social relations that arise regarding the protection of subjective environmental rights (including property rights to natural resources).
Thus, the object of an environmental offense is a set of social relations regulated and protected by legal norms regarding the environment as a whole and its individual components, including relations of ownership and other proprietary rights to natural resources, management relations in the field of environmental management, relations in environmental protection from harmful influences, as well as relations to protect subjective environmental rights and legitimate interests of humans and citizens.
Experts in the field of environmental law note that harm to environmental relations when committing acts prohibited by environmental legal norms is caused, as a rule, by influencing the subject of these relations, and therefore there is a need to determine the relationship between the object and the subject of the environmental offense.
The subject of a social relationship is recognized as one or another phenomenon in relation to which this relationship arose and the cognitive and practical activities of its subjects are carried out. It is obvious that in the structure of an environmental relationship, an object is always material, since both the environment and its components always have a material shell.
The difference between the subject and the object of an environmental offense is that “not objects of the material world in themselves, but objects (things) as elements of social relations are protected by law, and an encroachment on them is an encroachment on the social relations associated with them.”
Consequently, natural objects and the environment as a whole act as material objects, in other words, objective carriers in which certain aspects and properties of environmental legal relations are manifested.
The range of natural objects - potential subjects of environmental torts, which are therefore taken under legal protection, is defined in Article 4 of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Environmental Protection”. These can include: atmospheric air, water, soil, subsoil, flora and fauna, as well as climate in their interaction.
Natural objects, being an integral part of the environment, are characterized by the following necessary characteristics: 1) natural origin; 2) relationship with ecological systems.
It should be noted that the second of these signs is of decisive importance, since in order to classify illegal behavior as environmental it is necessary that at the time of its commission the subject of the illegal act was in a state of natural relationship with the environment.
It is necessary to show the relationship between the concepts “harm caused by environmental violations” and “environmental harm”.
Firstly, any encroachment on social relations protected by law means, first of all, harm to the legal order as such. Consequently, the commission of an environmental offense in all cases harms the environmental legal order as a whole, understood as a state of orderliness and organization of social relations, fixed and regulated by environmental legal norms. At the same time, in some cases, a violation of legal norms is accompanied by a violation of subjective rights, as well as a derogation of the actual subject of the offense - property and non-property benefits.
Therefore, in the legal literature, two types of harm are distinguished - socio-legal and actual, while attention is drawn to the possibility of harm in the socio-legal sense in cases where actual harm (violation of subjective rights, derogation of property or non-property benefits) is absent.
Thus, violation of social relations protected by environmental legal norms as a consequence of illegal behavior reveals the social nature of the harm caused to the object of an environmental violation. At the same time, in cases where the subject of an environmental violation is also directly negatively affected, the consequences of such behavior, by their physical nature, can be material in nature and expressed in damage or destruction of materialized objects.
Based on the research data, we can conclude that not every violation of legal environmental requirements entails actual harm to the environment, expressed in a deterioration in its qualitative condition or a decrease in quantitative characteristics.
Based on the above, we can propose the following classification of harm caused by environmental violations:
- 1) harm caused to the environmental legal order as a whole (its harm in the socio-legal sense);
- 2) harm in the actual sense, expressed in a real deterioration in the qualitative state of the environment or a decrease in its quantitative characteristics.
The actual harm caused by environmental violations is also heterogeneous in structure. Some violations of environmental legislation, such as illegal hunting of animals, birds, fish, illegal logging, etc., do not entail negative environmental consequences in terms of the quality of the environment and maintaining ecological balance, but cause property damage to the state as the owner of natural resources or to an individual user of natural resources.
Therefore, in order to classify such harm, it is necessary to take a closer look at the question of exactly what negative impacts on the environment have a pronounced environmental “coloring”.
Since environmental harm is considered not just as any, including minor, derogation of the quantitative characteristics of individual natural objects, but primarily as negative changes in the qualitative state of the environment as a whole, that is, what must be understood as environmental quality.
Environmental quality is characterized by a combination of the following criteria:
- 1. In biological terms, the criterion for the quality of the environment is its state that is favorable for human life and health. Taking into account the interrelation and interdependence of phenomena and processes in nature, man interacts with his natural habitat. Individual elements of nature are direct sources of satisfying the natural physiological needs of humans - breathing, quenching thirst, nutrition. This means that in the biological aspect, in order to preserve the conditions for the reproduction of humanity as such, the environment must first of all meet such a criterion as purity (non-pollution);
- 2. In the economic aspect, the quality of the environment must ensure the satisfaction of the material needs that increase as humanity develops (development of industry, agriculture, energy, transport, etc.). Therefore, economic indicators of a favorable state of the environment are resource intensity (inexhaustibility) and the productive capacity of natural resources.
- 3. In the social aspect, the quality of the environment must meet the aesthetic, recreational, scientific, and cultural needs of a person, since in the process of communicating with nature, a person satisfies not only physiological and material, but also spiritual needs. In this aspect, the quality of the environment must meet criteria such as species diversity and aesthetic richness.
- 4. In the structural and functional aspect, the environment must meet such criteria as environmental sustainability (balance of environmental components), preservation of natural ecological connections.
Thus, environmental quality indicators are:
- 1) cleanliness (non-pollution) of the environment;
- 2) resource intensity (inexhaustibility) and productive capacity of natural resources;
- 3) species diversity and aesthetic richness;
- 4) environmental sustainability and preservation of natural ecological connections.
It follows from this that the structure of environmental damage caused to the environment contains either socio-cultural, economic, or biological aspects. Various combinations of them are also possible. The appearance of structural and functional disturbances of natural ecological connections, leading to loss of ecological balance, depends on the degree of severity of the economic and (or) biological aspects.
It should be emphasized that any of the above aspects of environmental harm is necessarily accompanied by negative material consequences for society as a whole or an individual user of natural resources, manifested in losses of previously invested costs for the reproduction and improvement of natural objects, forced expenses for its restoration, and lost income. Therefore, I completely share the opinion of A. Khadzhiev, who argues that causing environmental harm is inevitably accompanied by negative economic consequences. However, I cannot support his further conclusion that economic harm caused to nature cannot but lead to environmentally damaging consequences.
For example, in assessing the harm caused by the illegal exclusion of animals, birds, and fish from the natural environment, there are no environmental criteria. Since the illegality of such actions lies only in the lack of appropriate permission, there is no reason to talk about the occurrence of any negative environmental consequences in this case.
Therefore, in cases where the presence of actual harm, expressed in the derogation of the quantitative characteristics of natural resources, does not lead to their depletion or other negative environmental consequences, we should speak of causing property damage to the state or the user of natural resources.
The same position is taken by D.L. Baideldinov, who proposes to consider economic and environmental harm as independent types of harm caused to nature. He writes: “There is a classification of harm divided into environmental and economic harm to nature. Economic harm affects the property interests of natural resource users and can be expressed materially. Restoration of such damage is carried out in accordance with the general principles of civil liability. Environmental damage affects the very state of nature... Restoring environmental damage is possible not through monetary payments, but by carrying out work to restore the natural object in kind.”
Thus, environmental harm should be understood as a deterioration in the quality of the environment caused by a violation of environmental protection legislation, or such a decrease in its quantitative characteristics that can cause negative environmental consequences, as well as any associated derogation of a material and intangible benefit protected by law, including human life and health.
The absence of a direct indication of harm to individual natural objects is explained by the fact that the negative impact on any individual component of the environment inevitably affects its condition as a whole. Thus, harm caused to a natural object appears as a manifestation of harm to the environment.
Environmental damage has a pronounced specificity.
Firstly, negative anthropogenic impact often causes not only direct damage caused to a specific natural object, but also harm caused to other objects interconnected with it or the environment as a whole, expressed in the loss of ecological connections of the damaged or destroyed object with the entire natural system.
From a natural science point of view, any artificial change in the environment inevitably leads to the development of natural chain reactions aimed at neutralizing the change or the formation of new natural systems, the formation of which, with significant changes in the environment, can become irreversible.
Secondly, not all harmful effects appear immediately; many of them are potential.
Thirdly, an essential feature of environmental damage is that its economic assessment must be preceded by a determination of the physical volume of the consequences of negative anthropogenic impact. Therefore, only those negative changes that can be identified and measured in accordance with the scientific and technical capabilities existing at a given stage of social development can be recognized as environmental harm.
Fourthly, environmental harm has specific forms of manifestation, which will be discussed in detail below.
So, to argue that the main damage to the environment is caused by illegal behavior means contradicting the actual state of affairs. Many scientists reasonably believe that her current critical condition is the result of massive exposure to lawful behavior.
In accordance with Art. 86 of the Law of the Russian Federation, harm to the environment can be caused by legal entities and citizens through environmental pollution, damage, destruction, damage, irrational use of natural resources, destruction of natural ecosystems and other environmental offenses. Harm refers to real damage and lost profits. Real damage in the environmental sphere can be expressed in a decrease in forest areas, a decrease in soil fertility, as well as in the costs of their restoration. Lost benefits in the environmental sphere can be expressed in lost income, for example, from the economic use of soil whose fertility has decreased.
Damage to the environment can be both economic (death of forests destined for felling and sale) and environmental. These types of harm are organically related to each other, both by source and method of infliction. Unlike the economic one, the environmental one is longer lasting in its consequences. This harm cannot always be compensated. Therefore, preventive work to prevent harm from occurring is of great importance.
Harm to the environment can be caused both by lawful actions (permitted by the state) and as a result of violation of environmental legislation. Environmental and legal liability for unlawful harm occurs only when it is a direct consequence of a violation of environmental legislation.
Legal regime of environmental management. Water pollution.
Pollution, clogging, depletion of surface or ground water, drinking water sources, or changes in natural properties are considered offenses if they have caused significant harm to flora or fauna, fish stocks, forestry or agriculture.
By significant we mean harm caused to flora and fauna - the occurrence of diseases or death of animals and plants, destruction of fish stocks, spawning grounds, disease or death of forests, reduction in land productivity, the emergence of wetlands or saline lands. The assessment of the damage caused is carried out taking into account the stocking of water bodies, the real cost of the costs of restoring work and eliminating the consequences.
Biosphere pollution. Violation of the rules for the release of pollutants into the atmosphere or violation of the operation of installations, structures and other objects, if this resulted in pollution or a change in the natural properties of the air, is punishable. Pollution is: the introduction into the air, atmosphere or the formation of pollutants in them in concentrations exceeding quality standards or natural content levels; increasing the concentration of chemicals; changes in thermal conditions, radiation, electromagnetic and noise parameters.
Sources of pollution can be vehicles, industrial enterprises, overhead power lines, distribution substations, power plants, radar stations, cellular and space communications.
Marine pollution – the introduction of substances and materials that deteriorate the quality of the marine environment, limiting its use, leading to the destruction, depletion, disease or reduction of living marine resources. Pollution of the marine environment from land-based sources or as a result of violation of the burial or discharge from vehicles of substances or materials harmful to human health and living resources of the sea or interfering with the lawful use of the marine environment is punishable.
Violations include: loading of substances and materials from a ship without appropriate permission, flooding of unspent nuclear fuel from military ships; failure to take measures in the event of an incident with a ship or other entity that has resulted or may result in the discharge of oil or other pollutants; discharge of chemicals from settling tanks into the sea. These violations occur during the construction of drilling rigs and platforms at sea, the transportation of petroleum products, the flooding of waste, military testing, accidents on ships, and the discharge of chemical substances into the sea by enterprises located on the shore. Damage caused to the marine environment can manifest itself in the massive loss of marine biological resources, destruction of the food supply of fish, and pollution of recreational areas for citizens.
Corruption of the earth. Offenses include poisoning, contamination or other damage to land with harmful products of economic activity due to violation of the rules for handling fertilizers, plant growth stimulants, pesticides and other hazardous chemical and biological substances during their storage, use and transportation, resulting in harm to human health or the environment.
Destruction or damage to forests as a result of careless handling of fire or other sources of increased danger is an offense. Forest pollution can occur through the discharge of harmful substances, as well as the placement of waste and industrial waste, municipal and other waste, and the construction of landfills.
Illegal hunting – tracking for the purpose of production, pursuit and the production of wild animals. Being in hunting grounds with a gun, hunting dogs, or hunting tools is equivalent to hunting. Hunting without the appropriate permit or carried out contrary to the ban or by a person who does not have the right to hunt is considered illegal. The subject of illegal hunting is wild animals in their natural habitat.
Illegal hunting of fish, sea animals or other animals if it caused major damage or was carried out using a self-propelled vehicle, electric current, chemical or explosive substances, or occurred on the territory of a nature reserve or in an environmental disaster zone, in spawning areas or on migration routes, it is punishable. It is an offense to illegally kill fur seals, sea beavers, seals, and other marine mammals on the open sea or in restricted areas. Harvesting refers to the process of catching, slaughtering, extracting and otherwise removing aquatic animals and plants from the natural environment, ending with the acquisition of the object of extraction.
Violation of environmental protection rules.
Environmental protection is regulated by the standards established by environmental and environmental legislation. Violation of these standards when designing industrial, agricultural and other facilities by persons responsible for their compliance, if this entailed a significant change in the radioactive background, harm to human health, mass death of animals or other serious consequences, is recognized as an offence. When locating, designing, constructing, or laying power lines that have a direct or indirect impact on the state of the natural environment, the requirements for environmental safety and public health protection, which include measures for nature protection, rational use and reproduction of natural resources, must be met.
All these requirements are detailed in the relevant federal laws, in articles of the Land, Forestry, Water Codes, in instructions and regulations of construction and design organizations. Failure to comply or improper implementation is a violation of environmental protection rules during the production of work.
Violation of rules for handling environmentally hazardous substances.
The production of prohibited types of hazardous waste, transportation and storage, burial, use or other handling of radioactive, bacteriological, chemical substances and waste in violation of established rules, if this created a threat of causing significant harm to human health or the environment, is an offense. Prohibited types of hazardous waste – highly toxic substances; hazardous waste – raw materials, substances and energy that are unsuitable for production or have lost their consumer properties and can cause poisoning. Violation of waste management rules consists of an illegal action or inaction (failure to fulfill official duties); neutralization, disposal, warehousing, storage, burial, transportation, disposal.
Illegal trafficking of potent and toxic substances the increased public danger of potent and toxic substances required a special law banning their production, processing, acquisition, storage, transportation, shipment, and sale. Their use for scientific and medical purposes requires special permission. More than 100 types of potent substances are released, for example, aminazine, sodium barbidol, clonidine, piperadol, tazepam, theofedril, frenolone, chloroform, ether. There are more than 60 types of toxic substances: methyl alcohol, strychnine, phenol, potassium cyanide, snake venom, some mercury compounds, hydrocyanic acid, etc.
Violation of rules for the protection and use of subsoil during the design, construction, and commissioning of mining enterprises and underground structures, unauthorized development of areas where mineral deposits occur, if these actions caused significant damage, is considered an offense.
Subsoil is the part of the earth's crust located below the soil layer and the bottom of reservoirs. The rules for their protection are regulated by the country's mining and geological legislation. Disturbances consist of flooding, flooding or fire, when the quality of minerals decreases as a result; in the discharge of wastewater, disposal of industrial waste, contamination of subsoil, accumulation of industrial waste in places of sources of drinking or industrial water supply. This includes failure to extract associated components, failure to comply with the terms of the mineral extraction license, and failure to conduct a full study of the subsoil before construction. Development of areas is permitted only if there are no mineral resources in the subsoil under the development site. Damage from violation of the rules for the use of subsoil includes loss of minerals, deterioration of the land, and increased costs of mining.
Violation of the regime of specially protected natural areas and natural objects: reserves, nature reserves, natural monuments, causing significant damage to them is an offense. Objects of protection in this case are areas of land, water surface and air space above them, if they have special environmental, scientific, cultural or aesthetic significance and are removed from economic circulation. These are state nature reserves, natural and national parks, botanical gardens, health resorts and resorts, where any activity, exploration and development of mineral resources, placement of garden plots, movement and parking of mechanized vehicles, and extraction of animals are prohibited.
By natural complex we mean naturally-geographical complex, representing a limited area of territory in which natural components are in stable interaction. Objects with a special status include nature reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, botanical gardens, and national parks.
Hiding or distorting information about events, facts, phenomena that create a danger to the life or health of people or to the environment, committed by a person, is recognized as an offence.
Events, facts or phenomena that create danger include natural, man-made processes that, in the absence of unfavorable development or the absence of control and regulatory measures, can cause danger to humans and the environment. Information subject to these requirements includes environmentally and medically significant information, information about disasters, accidents at nuclear energy facilities, epidemics, military operations, industrial processes that may pose a danger to humans, the nation as a whole, and the environment.
Concealment is the failure to provide information to persons who have the right to receive it or need it, in order to influence events and phenomena. Distortion of information is considered to be the communication of incomplete or incorrect data, forecasts, estimates.
Illegal handling of radioactive materials- destruction of radioactive materials is an offense. Nuclear energy facilities include nuclear installations, including nuclear power plants, space and aircraft, installations and devices with nuclear charges, storage facilities for nuclear materials and radioactive substances, and radioactive waste storage facilities. Radioactive substances can be in gaseous, liquid or solid form.
Violation of safety rules when handling microbiological agents or toxins if this results in harm to human health or the spread of epidemics, it is recognized as an offence. The violation consists of active actions or inaction, improper control, release of macroorganisms into the environment, failure to use protective equipment, violation of storage and transportation conditions.
This law applies to the activities of medical, pharmaceutical, research, and military organizations engaged in genetic engineering, production and cultivation of microorganisms. Dangerous to humans are viruses, bacteria, toxins, genetically modified microorganisms that can cause infectious diseases, health disorders, permanent loss of health and death. Damage from violation of the rules for combating plant diseases and pests consists of costs for the destruction of contaminated areas of forest, products and animals, restoration of vegetation in affected areas, compensation for property damage in the event of the death of perennial cultural plants and crops.
Violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules means the use of food products without prior control, the use of dirty water, the use of dirty water when preparing food, and violation of waste disposal rules.
Types of liability for environmental violations. Environmental-legal liability is a type of legal liability; it differs from other types of legal liability and has characteristic features:
All offenses occur in the area of the natural environment.
The object of encroachment is a component of the environment.
An environmental-legal violation usually covers two objects - the environment and human health.
It manifests itself in the forms of legal liability - criminal, administrative, civil, disciplinary and financial liability, regulated by the Law “On the Natural Environment”. The requirements of the law require the establishment of a clear causal link between the violation and environmental degradation. The subject of environmental offenses is a person who has reached the age of 16 and has violated environmental legislation.
An environmental offense is characterized by the presence of three elements:
Illegality of conduct
Causing environmental harm
A causal connection between unlawful behavior and environmental harm or the emergence of a real threat of harm.
Disciplinary liability arises for failure to implement plans or measures for nature protection and rational use of natural resources, for violation of environmental standards. Disciplinary liability is borne by officials and other guilty employees (Article 82 of the Law “On Environmental Protection”
Financial liability is regulated by the Labor Code (Articles 118-126). Such liability is borne by officials and other employees of enterprises through whose fault the enterprise incurred expenses for compensation for damage caused by an environmental violation.
Administrative liability is regulated by both environmental legislation and the RSFSR Code of Administrative Offences.
Criminal liability for violation of environmental safety rules, violation of storage rules, disposal of hazardous substances, violation of safety rules, damage to land, illegal harvesting of aquatic animals, violation of rules for the protection of fish stocks, illegal hunting, illegal cutting of trees and bushes, destruction or damage to forests.
(all environmental crimes are separated into a separate chapter)
The application of disciplinary, administrative or criminal liability for environmental offenses does not relieve the perpetrators from the obligation to compensate for damage caused by an environmental offense.
Responsibility for environmental offenses performs a number of functions:
Incentivizing citizen responsibility
Compensation for damage caused
Preventive measure
Environmental offenses provide for three levels of punishment:
For violation
For a violation resulting in significant damage
For a violation resulting in the death of a person.
Types of punishment can be: fine, deprivation of the right to engage in certain activities, correctional labor, restriction of freedom, imprisonment.
Ecological catastrophy - manifests itself in a serious disruption of the ecological balance in nature, the destruction of the stable species composition of living organisms, a complete or significant reduction in their numbers, and a disruption in the cycles of seasonal changes in the circulation of substances and biological processes. The motive for an environmental crime may be misunderstood military or government interests.
