Reaction to abolition of EPA in Russia

[Ken Hanly <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The environmental situation in Russia is getting worse.

    Cheers, Ken Hanly
#1
PROMINENT RUSSIAN CULTURE FIGURES CALL ON AUTHORITIES TO RESTORE
FEDERAL
EPA

MOSCOW. July  19 (Interfax)  - A  group  of  prominent  Russian
culture
figures issued  a statement  on Wednesday expressing their
concern about
the absence of proper environmental control in the country.

"The reduction  of the life expectancy in Russia by more than 30%
is due
to  environmental  reasons"  and  "by  the  number  of  victims,
it  is
comparable to more than one Chechen war," the authors said.

"And at this time the Ministry of Education is trying to exclude
ecology
from the  secondary school  program, the  Ministry of  Internal
Affairs
forbids an  environmental police in Moscow, the Federal Security
Service
accuses environmental  organizations of  aiding and  abetting
espionage
without any viable grounds and the Federal Assembly is constantly
trying
to weaken environmental legislation," they said.

The  authors  called  the  Russian  president's  recent  decree
on  the
abolishment of  the State  Ecological Committee and the Russian
Forestry
Committee "the  authorities' tragic  mistake." This "actually put
an end
to any  serious independent  control of  the state over the
condition of
nature in the country," they added.

"One must  not improve  the investment  climate  in  Russia  by
lifting
environmental restrictions and exit an economic crisis by
aggravating an
environmental one," they said.

In this  connection, they  called on the Russian government "to
join the
public movement and find forms of controlling the condition of
nature."
Among those  who signed  the document  are writer  Alexander
Kabakov and
film producers  Igor Maslennikov,  Georgy Daneliya and Vladimir
Menshov,
among others.

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