By Yuri Inertny
According to the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Minister, Vladimir Tsalko, amendments are needed to the Code on Mineral Resources, while the Investment Code also needs revision. Legislation needs to be brought in line with global practice.
Naturally, nature protective agencies need to rise above economic concerns, since water and air and our biological and landscape diversity is priceless; their preservation is paramount. In recent years, industrially developed cities such as Bobruisk, Grodno, Novogrudok, Svetlogorsk, Lida and Soligorsk have seen their air quality improve. However, vehicles in Belarus produce higher levels of harmful emissions than necessary and need to be brought under stricter control. Their ecological classification is yet to be resolved, so it’s too early to say that the burden on the environment has been minimised.
2011 is the International Year of Forests, as proclaimed by the UN General Assembly. In Belarus, 9.4m hectares of land are occupied by woods (almost half of our territory), which places our country among the top ten forest states in Europe.
