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The
project aims to develop a Strategic Action Programme
(SAP) for the Russian Arctic which will be a tool for
addressing the threats to this strategic region and for
ensuring that future development is sustainable and
beneficial for its native peoples. The SAP will identify
and prioritise the key regional environmental issues and
problems, define their root and secondary causes, and
propose interventions to address these. This exercise will
be carried out through a highly consultative process which
will enable a wide range of stakeholders to participate.
After eighteen months of work a final SAP will be submitted
for adoption to the Government of the Russian Federation.
Leading
straight from the SAP and commencing implementation, the
project’s Environmental Protection System Improvements (EPSI)
component will identify legislative, institutional, and
capacity mechanisms needs and propose appropriate
mechanisms and policies that will incorporate environmental
management considerations to on-going development processes
in the Arctic region.
In
parallel to the SAP, up to ten pre-invest studies
will be conducted on priority pollution hot-spots which
were identified during the preceding
PDF-B phase. The studies
will assess the scale of selected problems and identify
methods and means for tackling them. A large-scale donor
conference, a Partnership Conference, is be convened
later on to mobilize the public, private and international
funds needed to address these pollution problems. The
Partnership Conference will be preceded by a series of
Private Sector Round-Tables to be held in the United
States, Italy, and the Nordic region.
A last
component of the project comprises three demonstration
projects, namely:
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Development of organizational
frameworks and plans for the management of lands used by
indigenous peoples, balancing environmental and economic
needs;
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Utilization of marine algae to combat
oil spills; and
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Demonstration of
environmental remediation techniques in the
decommissioning of two military sites.
If
successful these demonstration projects will be either
replicated in the Russian Federation and perhaps other
parts of the Arctic region.
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