Challenges and perspectives in sustainable management of natural resources at regional level

Abstract

The paper considers natural capital accounting and valuation as crucial factors for management decision-making, which is aimed at economic diversification and sustainable development and ensures efficient exploration, consumption, and replenishment of natural resources. Tomsk Oblast serves as an example for implementing natural capital and ecosystem service valuation into management decision making. The authors have determined the possibility and estimated readiness of local authorities to account economic benefits and losses in ecosystem management. The materials used in the study are data of Russian state statistics, strategic plans and regulations of Tomsk Oblast, the departmental information, and the outcomes of previous research on the natural capital valuation in Tomsk Oblast. The authors give reasons for institutional changes necessary to account and valuate all functions of the natural capital and ecosystem when making management decisions. This means that there should be a system of economic value monitoring for natural resource management, which implies economic-ecological accounting and is represented as a complex of integrated statistical factors giving natural capital information. The authors also suggest the mechanism to design information and methodological basis for natural capital economic valuation. The new information basis integrated into the regional government system will provide data on costs and benefits in natural resource management and ensure interaction between the authorities, municipal organizations, companies, and public.