Determining the conditions, factors and prerequisites for the sustainable development of the region is largely related to the assessment of its natural resource (environmental) potential. The value of the natural resource potential, as the sum of the potentials of individual types of natural resources (land, water, forest, mineral resources, etc.) depends on such factors as:
list, nomenclature of natural resources available in the region (the longer the number of natural resources to be used in the production process, the greater the value of the natural resource potential); quantitative characteristics of certain types of natural resources (the size of reserves, the timing of their exhaustion, etc.); qualitative characteristics (useful substance content, caloric content, availability, etc.); possibility of integrated use of resources.
A quantitative, integral assessment of the natural resource potential of the region is possible if the private potentials of individual types of natural resources are calculated according to a single principle. The following areas of measurement of qualitatively different natural resources and determination of the natural resource potential of the region are used:
with the help of a point system, when experts assess the significance of each type of resource in points, and then the sum of the “values” of all types of resources available in the region are determined in this way, taking into account the “weights” – the values of their reserves; on the basis of value (monetary) indicators, when the values (at market prices) of reserves of all types of natural resources of the region are estimated and then summed up; on the basis of absolute energy potentials, or a conditionally natural method, implying the commensurability of qualitatively heterogeneous natural resources on any single, common basis (for example, different energy resources in terms of caloric content of 1 ton of equivalent fuel (t c.t.) or
1 tonne of oil equivalent (tonnes of oil equivalent)).
It should be noted that it is very difficult to carry out an economic assessment of different types of natural resources on a single methodological basis, therefore, the value of the natural resource potential is most often characterized in natural-material indicators (area, volume of reserves, productivity, etc.).
An important aspect of assessing the natural resource potential of the region is its structural analysis, carried out taking into account national, national interests (Fig. 2).
The first structural unit unites the natural resources of industries that have a national specialization – oil resources, mining and chemical raw materials, metal ores, mineral raw materials, etc.
The second structural subdivision includes natural resources of local industries and sectors of the national economy that determine regional production specialization – local fuel and energy resources (peat, firewood, hydropower of small rivers, etc.), forest resources for local industry, mineral resources for local construction, etc.
In agricultural regions, a third structural unit is allocated – natural conditions and resources that ensure the functioning of the agro-industrial complex (AIC) – agroclimatic conditions and land resources, local fertilizers, etc.
The fourth subdivision includes that part of the natural resource potential that is considered as the territorial and resource base of society’s life (land, water, forest, used as a habitat, restoration of physical and spiritual strength of man). The natural resources of the fourth structural unit are resources of state and local importance.
It should be pointed out that the natural resource potential of the region is changing in the process of environmental management, which is due to both the depletion of certain types of natural resources and the irrationality of their use, and the purposeful human activity to restore and improve them (planting forests, installing hydraulic structures, land reclamation, etc.).
Environmental management in the region. An important element of regional governance is the management of natural resources in the region, which is understood as the activities of the state and local governments to organize the rational use and reproduction of natural resources, protect local ecological systems, as well as ensure legality in ecological and economic relations.
It should be noted that the economic mechanism of nature management reflects both the most important features of the national economic mechanism and the local specifics of the regions, due to differences in the development and location of productive forces, the scale of production, the uniqueness of natural complexes and ecological systems, the degree of anthropogenic impact on the environment. The environment, as an object of management, although fundamentally indivisible, is very peculiar in each particular region. As a result of such dualism of the object of control, an adequate system of control bodies should correspond to it, reflecting, on the one hand, the integrity of nature, and on the other hand, its regional originality. That is why environmental management in the region combines forms and methods of organization and regulation of environmental management processes at two levels – national and regional (local). The main goal of this department is to meet the needs of society in raw materials and materials, in the purity and diversity of the environment, as well as the preservation, restoration and development of the natural resource potential of both individual regions and the country as a whole.
Management of natural resources at the state level is carried out by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Belarus, in relation to which 6 regional, Minsk city committees and 123 mountains (district) inspections of natural resources and environmental protection are subordinate. At this level, comprehensive management of nature management in the country, state control over the use and protection of natural resources, conducting state environmental expertise, and implementing state environmental programs are carried out. The same bodies of state administration represent and protect the legal interests of society and the state as a whole in matters of environmental management: they send appropriate submissions to the judicial authorities, impose fines, apply other sanctions, etc. Mainly at the national level of management of natural resource potential, the sectoral principle of environmental management is implemented, which consists in exercising state control over the state of natural resources and taking measures to control the state of natural resources. their protection, rational use by industries and departments that belong to the bodies of special competence authorized to perform environmental functions.
Along with the implementation of the national policy of environmental management, regional, city and district inspectorates of natural resources implement the territorial principle of managing the natural resource potential of the region. Together with regional, city, district, settlement and village Councils of Deputies and executive committees, they develop and approve local nature protection programs, organize their financing, material and technical support and control over their implementation. The Executive Committees, in accordance with the Law of the Republic of Belarus “On Local Authorities” (1991) and “On Environmental Protection” (1992), are granted the right to establish the procedure for State environmental control in their territories, to coordinate all environmental activities in the region, to make decisions on the prohibition of the activities of legal entities, individual enterprises, industries, workshops, plots located in the territory of the region, or on the deprivation of the right to use local natural resources in case of environmental pollution, unsustainable use of natural resources.
Issues of managing the natural resource potential of the regions, both at the national and territorial levels, are partly within the competence of such ministries and departments as:
The State Committee for Land Resources, Geodesy and Cartography, which accounts for land, monitors their use, manages the land management service, etc .; the Ministry of Forestry (in rural areas – forestry), which exercises control over the condition, use, reproduction and protection of forests; The State Committee for Hydrometeorology, which monitors the state of surface water, atmospheric air, soils, radiation pollution of the natural environment; The Ministry of Internal Affairs, which by the forces of the environmental police ensures the protection of atmospheric air from the harmful effects of vehicles.
The powers of local authorities are legally detailed in certain areas of environmental management. They are most widely reflected in the Code of the Republic of Belarus on Land, which clearly delineates the competence of regional, urban, district and rural (settlement) executive and administrative authorities in the field of land relations.
Thus, the competence of local authorities includes:
granting and expropriation of land plots; transfer of land plots to private ownership; charging for land; development and approval of programs for the protection and rational use of land, increasing soil fertility; control over the use and protection of land, etc.
The Water Code of the Republic of Belarus defines the competence of local authorities in the field of water use and protection, entrusting them with:
development and approval of programs and activities in the field of water use and protection, adoption of measures for their implementation; ensuring the population’s need for drinking water; making a decision on the provision of water bodies for separate use; approval of water use limits; taking measures to carry out anti-flood measures, etc.
Consider the most important functions of managing the natural resource potential of the region, which are implemented both at the state and at the regional, including local levels.
1. Monitoring, accounting and control in the environmental sphere is an activity related to obtaining objective information about the natural environment of the region and the nature of anthropogenic impacts on it, as well as monitoring the state of the environment. A distinction is made between regional and local environmental monitoring. The functions of these types of monitoring are generally the same, however, if regional monitoring is associated with the collection, processing, evaluation and storage of environmental information in the whole region, then local monitoring is directly related to the sources and objects of pollution – specific polluting enterprises, the state of individual natural objects, as well as environmental components (air, surface, sewage and soil-groundwater, etc.).
In turn, local monitoring can be carried out both by the business entities themselves (self-monitoring) and by specially created territorial monitoring centers.
Information on the results of local and regional monitoring, obtained as a result of observation and control of the state of the natural environment of specific regions, is processed by economic, statistical and analytical methods based on standard, standard accounting forms (for example, No. 2-tp (air) “Report on the protection of atmospheric air”, No. 2-tp (water management) “Report on water use”, etc.), and then transferred to a higher (national) level of monitoring.
2. State environmental expertise is an organizational and legal form of control and management in the field of using the natural resource potential of the region, involving verification of the environmental feasibility of making certain economic decisions related to the development or placement of productive forces in the region (construction of new facilities, increase (expansion) of production, etc.). State environmental expertise is mandatory, since the financing of any projects and programs of regional development is opened only if there is a positive conclusion of the examination. Its implementation is entrusted to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Belarus.
3. Forecasting and planning of nature use and environmental protection is an activity related to determining the future state of the natural resource potential of the region (country) and drawing up appropriate plans, forecasts and programs for nature management and environmental protection. Forecasting and planning as a function of regional management can be carried out both at the state and territorial levels. In the first case, there is an environmental justification for the development and distribution of the productive forces of the country as a whole in accordance with the basic provisions of the National Program for the Rational Use of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection. Planning and forecasting of nature use and environmental protection at the territorial level is associated with the development of five-year territorial (regional, city, district) programs and annual forecasts, including groups of indicators for the following environments and natural components:
atmospheric air (limits on pollutant emissions, commissioning of installations for the capture and neutralization of harmful substances from gases, etc.); water resources (the volume of water used, the limits of permissible wastewater discharges, the commissioning of treatment facilities, etc.); land resources (areas of land reclamation, capital investments for the protection and rational use of land resources, etc.); forest resources (the cost of aviation protection of forests from fires, the area of treatment of forest areas by means of combating pests and diseases, etc.); biological resources (achieving the optimal number of animals and plants, the costs of implementing these goals, etc.); mineral resources (limits of mining).
4. Financing and crediting of environmental management is an activity to financially support the implementation of an active environmental policy and the preservation (restoration) of the natural resource potential of the region. The system of financing environmental measures in Belarus has passed a long evolutionary sequence of stages – from stimulating rational nature management exclusively at the expense of the state budget in the conditions of the command and administrative system to the principle of financing natural protection activities by republican, regional, regional and city extra-budgetary funds for nature protection in the mid-90s of the last century. In order to strengthen State control over the expenditure of funds for the maintenance and restoration of the natural resource potential of the regions, since 1998 the funds of the Republican Extrabudgetary Fund for Nature Protection have been included in the State budget, and the extrabudgetary nature protection fund itself has become known as the State Trust Budget Fund for Nature Protection in the financing system of the Main State Treasury of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Belarus. Funds of territorial funds for nature protection are accumulated as part of local budgets, and domestic legislation guarantees the use of funds only for environmental purposes.
In addition, financing of environmental measures in the regions is carried out by business entities that, at their own expense, are building, overhauling and modernizing environmental facilities.