THE ARCTIC — NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: A TEST ON MATURITY

Abstract

The article examines the present-day situation in management of the most important field for the country — natural resource and mineral management — which has undergone significant changes in the post-Soviet period. The reforms have touched both the federal authorities responsible for the development of plans for analyzing future industrial demands on domestic and international markets and their supply with mineral resources, and the state-run organizations responsible for replenishing and maintaining the country’s raw materials database. The main focus of this article is on the lack of extraction on the RF territory of the kinds of minerals which have been at the epicenter of the international market due to the appearance of new industrial and technological innovations and breakthroughs, which have lately become the determining factor of the level of economic development of a country. In Russia, these minerals are completely ignored even though the Northern, Arctic and Far-Eastern regions feature a nearly inexhaustible supply of these raw materials. Remaining in the shadow of great success in extracting hydrocarbons and of their demand on the Western and Asian markets, not only do the problems with managing the use of polymetals and rare earth metals in Russia not receive proper attention, but this management can fall under the sole purview of foreign companies altogether. The article analyzes the extremely unsatisfactory performance of federal authorities responsible for the planning of future use of natural resources and minerals as they do not maintain a close relationship with and do not follow the recommendations of the leading geological institutes of the country. These authorities are moving further and further away from providing the national economy with strategic raw materials, fail to effectively manage federal financial resources allocated for the replenishment of the national natural resource inventory, shifting the responsibility onto large private extractive companies whose primary concern has always been to fulfill their own commercial needs first. The article especially focuses on the Arctic zone of the RF, the least explored and the richest area in terms of natural resources, which can, if properly managed, make Russian economy self-sufficient, despite the growing sanctions against it, while supplying the international market with the most valuable resources. The current natural resource and mineral management, run by unprofessional staff at the most senior levels, completely contradicts the ideology of a sustainable development of the Russian society, the ideology which alone can bring the country to a new, progressive level. This article shows the acute need for an increased federal involvement in managing strategic types of mineral resources and the need to keep them from becoming foreign company assets.