Problem Aspects of the Application of Forest and Water Legislation in Russia

Abstract

The article describes the current environmental legislation in Russia, the effectiveness of which is generally evaluated as low. The author of the article sees the main reason for such a situation in the absence of a federal specialized executive body in the environmental sphere, which would be directly interested in the development of environmental law. It is emphasized that the current increase in the number of environmental laws, as a rule, does not entail an improvement in environmental affairs. This is largely due to the insufficient elaboration of the mechanism for the implementation of various legal norms reflecting issues of compliance, use, application and punishment for violations in the environmental sphere, as well as due to the lack of effective levers that would encourage enterprises to introduce environmental protection measures. This, in particular, convincingly confirms the current situation in the field of forestry and water management, by the example of which the main problematic aspects of the application of forest and water legislation are analyzed. It is shown that the adoption of editions of the Water (2006) and Forest (2007) codes not only did not improve the situation in the field of water and forest management, but also greatly aggravated the existing and gave rise to new problems. The consequences of serious gaps in forest and water law are disclosed and measures are proposed for the development of environmental legislation in force in Russia.