Legal foundations of nature conservation and environmental legislation of Russia in agribusiness

Constitutional Foundations and the Basic Law on Environmental Protection

Any field work, application of agrochemicals, ploughing of lands, or water usage directly affects natural resources and is regulated by the legislation of the Russian Federation. Legal nature conservation represents a system of legal norms established by the state and relationships arising on their basis. Its main goals are the preservation of the natural environment, the rational use of natural resources, and the improvement of the environment for the benefit of current and future generations.

The state system of legal nature conservation relies on four key areas of legal measures. These include the legal regulation of resource use and conservation, the organization of personnel training and funding for the environmental sector, state and public control, and environmental legislation. The objects of protection include land, subsoil, water, forests and other vegetation, wildlife, atmospheric air, natural monuments, resort areas, and suburban green spaces.

Constitutional norms directly shape the rules of nature management for any enterprise. According to Part 1 of Article 9 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, land and natural resources are used and protected as the basis of life and activity of the peoples living in the respective territories. Part 2 of Article 9 enshrines the right of citizens to land and other resources, and Article 42 guarantees everyone the right to a favorable environment and compensation for damage caused to health or property. At the same time, Article 72 assigns the ownership, use, and disposal of land, subsoil, and water, as well as the provision of environmental safety, to the joint competence of the Federation and its subjects.

The practical basis for the standardization of economic activity became the Law on Environmental Protection, adopted in December 1991. The Law solves three main tasks: the preservation of the natural environment, the prevention and elimination of the harmful impact of economic activity, and the improvement of the quality of the environment. The document enshrines the priority of protecting human health and a scientifically grounded combination of environmental and economic interests.

The Law on Environmental Protection establishes strict requirements for enterprises and organizations whose production activities exert pressure on ecosystems. In the document, the human being is viewed as a subject of impact, responsible for their actions, and simultaneously as an object with guarantees for compensation for harm caused. To implement these norms, the Law enshrines economic incentives for environmental protection measures and introduces the mandatory nature of three procedures: state environmental expertise, state environmental control, and environmental education.

Natural Resource Legislation and Regulatory Acts

To regulate specific areas of agricultural and industrial nature management, a subsystem of natural resource legislation has been formed in Russia. It regulates the procedure for working with individual components of the environment — from soil cover and water objects to forest belts and atmospheric air. A separate place is occupied by acts protecting human health through environmental requirements, such as the RSFSR Law on the Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare of the Population (1991) and the Fundamentals of the Russian Federation Legislation on Health Protection (1993).

• Land Code — 1991
• Law of the Russian Federation on Subsoil — 1992
• Water Code of the Russian Federation — 1995
• Forest Code of the Russian Federation — 1997

The subsystem of sectoral natural resource legislation, which determines the rules for the use of natural objects, includes the following basic acts:

• Land Code (1991);
• Law of the Russian Federation on Subsoil (1992);
• Water Code of the Russian Federation (1995);
• Forest Code of the Russian Federation (1997);
• RSFSR Law on the Protection and Use of Wildlife (1982);
• RSFSR Law on the Protection of Atmospheric Air (1980);
• other legislative and regulatory acts.

Additionally, environmental safety requirements are clarified at the level of Presidential Decrees, Government resolutions, and departmental orders. Thus, the principles of state policy are set out in the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of February 4, 1994, on the state strategy for environmental protection and sustainable development. On the basis of laws, the Government issues regulatory legal acts that are mandatory for execution, such as Resolution No. 13 of 16.01.97 "On Approval of the Rules for Harvesting Wildlife Objects Belonging to Species Included in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation."

Specialized environmental ministries and agencies also issue bylaws within their competence. These documents are mandatory for all natural and legal persons, as well as related departments. An example of such regulation in the field of waste management is Order No. 527 of the State Committee for Environmental Protection of the Russian Federation of 27.11.97 "On the Federal Classification Catalog of Waste."

Compliance with environmental standards at agricultural facilities is based not only on laws but also on current sanitary, construction, and technological regulations. These define the permissible standards for environmental quality, including maximum levels of noise, vibration, electromagnetic fields, and other physical factors. A practical tool for control is the "Nature Protection" standard system—the 17th system of state standardization. The standards of this system have the force of law and serve as a scientific basis for recording environmental violations.

Structurally, the system of standards in the field of nature protection is divided into 10 key complexes based on objects of impact. For an agronomist, this classification provides a clear understanding of which block of requirements a specific environmental standard belongs to.

Each of the 10 complexes includes six specialized groups of standards. These cover the following areas of legal and technical requirements:

• Indicators of the quality of natural environments, parameters of pollutant emissions and discharges, and indicators of the intensity of impact;
• Rules for nature protection and rational use of resources;
• Methods for determining the parameters of the state of natural objects;
• Requirements for monitoring and measuring devices for environmental conditions;
• Requirements for devices, apparatus, and structures for protecting the natural environment.

State cadastre and the development of environmental standards

An important part of the legal system for environmental protection is resource accounting through state cadastres. A cadastre is a consolidated, systematized list of objects of a specific resource type with their detailed description. In nature management, the following main cadastral systems are maintained:

• Water resources;
• Forest resources;
• Land resources.

For practical farming, the State Land Cadastre is of key importance. It contains a complete list of all land plots with a detailed description of their productivity, current state, and actual use. Based on data from land and other cadastres, prospective development plans are formed for both individual agricultural enterprises and the entire industry as a whole.

The intensification of production and the development of society continuously create new environmental challenges. For this reason, the improvement of environmental legal norms and standards is ongoing, requiring the agronomic service to regularly track changes in legislation.