Legal framework for licensing and leasing of natural resources in Russia

Environmental management licensing is the administrative and legal regulation of environmental relations through methods of prohibition, authorization, and commissioning. An environmental management license has three characteristics, according to which it is:

2) a form of state control over rational

Licenses are issued based on applications from seekers, including on a competitive basis. A license is issued by an authorized state environmental management body. Today, such bodies are the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation and its territorial-sectoral departments in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The competence of these bodies to issue licenses is determined by the type of natural resource. Failure to comply with the established order of license usage entails the revocation of the license by the decision of the body that issued it. There are over 30 types of activities and services related to the issuance of licenses in the field of environmental management.

The subject of lease relations in environmental management is the use of land, water, forest, recreational, and other resources. Under an agreement for the lease of natural resources, one party - the lessor - undertakes to transfer to the other party - the lessee - specific types of natural resources (land, forest, medical-recreational, water, agricultural, hunting) for targeted use for a period established by the agreement. The lessee undertakes to pay the rent stipulated by the agreement and to comply with the rules for the rational use and protection of natural resources.

The lessor acts as the owner or holder of the natural resources. In the Russian Federation, lessors can be the Federation, republics, krais, oblasts, autonomous entities, cities, and districts.

The lessee in a natural resource lease agreement can be any legally capable natural or legal person: state, cooperative, public enterprises, organizations, citizens, joint ventures, international organizations and associations, peasant and collective farms, etc.

The terms of a lease agreement can vary. Land leases are usually long-term in nature, with the possibility of transition to ownership. This is because land requires capital expenditures from its owner for the conservation and improvement of soil fertility. Forest and water leases have shorter terms; for hunting grounds, the lease is concluded for a period of 2 to 5 years. At the same time, the lessor has the right to terminate the lease agreement early if the lessee fails to meet its conditions: in case of non-targeted use of resources, failure to carry out measures for their protection and rational use, or violation of environmental protection requirements.

Environmental insurance refers to relations aimed at protecting the property interests of citizens and legal entities upon the occurrence of environmentally unfavorable circumstances at the expense of monetary funds created by the policyholders.

Policyholders are enterprises, institutions, and organizations of all forms of ownership that have production facilities on the territory of Russia. Usually, these are enterprises that present an objective potential danger of emergency situations or disasters (chemical plants, nuclear reactors, oil and gas pipelines, etc.). Insurance is voluntary. Policyholders conclude an agreement with a state insurance company, which provides for the insurance valuation of the agreement, insurance premiums, and the procedure and conditions for their payment. The insurance valuation in voluntary environmental insurance is the size of the enterprise's annual turnover, i.e., revenue from the sale of products and the provision of services. Insurance premiums are paid at tariff rates, which are set as a percentage of the enterprise's annual turnover.

The object of environmental insurance is the risk of property liability, which is expressed in the filing of property claims against the policyholder for compensation for damage caused by pollution of land, water, or air as a result of the occurrence of an insurance event.

An insurance event in this type of environmental insurance is the sudden, unforeseen damage to the environment as a result of accidents that led to an unexpected release of pollutants into the atmosphere, soil contamination, or discharge of wastewater.

An essential condition for the occurrence of an insurance event, and consequently for the payout of insurance compensation, are two factors: suddenness and lack of intent.

Victims of the damage — citizens and legal entities — in such a case appeal to the court.

Insurance indemnity is paid to the policyholder in an amount stipulated by the concluded agreement. It includes several indicators: - compensation for damage; - payment for losses from the deterioration of living conditions and the environment; - compensation for expenses for cleaning the territory, for saving lives, and

Russia's international cooperation in the field of environmental protection is carried out in three main directions: international organizations, international conventions, and multilateral and bilateral ties.

The first direction primarily includes the UN system (global projects - ozone, climate, biodiversity, regional seas; transboundary problems related to atmospheric pollution, surface water, and the transport of industrial waste; technical assistance projects for Russia, and programs for Arctic environmental protection). An important area of work is interaction with the World Conservation Union (joint actions of nature reserves and national parks of Northern Eurasia, preservation of biodiversity in transboundary protected areas of Europe), with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (creation of new financing mechanisms, improvement of environmental funds and the environmental information collection system), and a number of other organizations.

International environmental law and the global biosphere crisis

Compliance with international environmental standards directly determines the legal regime of land use, the rules for the application of agrochemicals, and the procedure for protecting natural resources. Practical agronomy functions within the framework of strict environmental legislation, which is formed on the basis of global agreements. Russia participates in more than 20 multilateral environmental conventions and carries out systematic work to protect the biosphere.

• Multilateral environmental conventions — more than 20
• Bilateral agreements on ecology — 40
• Partner states for environmental monitoring — 28
• Population reduction during the Neolithic crisis — 7–8 times

Bilateral cooperation is developing within the framework of 40 agreements of various types with 28 states, including Germany, Denmark, the USA, and Finland. Joint work covers tasks ranging from the protection of migratory birds to global ecosystem monitoring. In addition, the regulatory framework is based on a number of key international treaties:

• Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution;
• Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal;
• Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora;
• Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter;
• Convention on Biological Diversity.

At the end of the 20th century, the biosphere found itself in a state of a global environmental crisis. The accelerated reduction of biological diversity over the last 10,000 years points to the risk of a catastrophic decline in the number of species in the foreseeable future. According to fundamental concepts of the self-organization of matter, the transition of a system to a new quality occurs through an unstable state — bifurcation, when the accumulation of changes leads to the explosive destruction of the previous structure at the slightest disturbance.

The concept of the noosphere and the tasks of the ecological revolution

An example of going through such a crisis is Neolithic society. The use of fire and the development of effective food-gathering methods allowed the late Neolithic population to quickly spread across the oecumene and exhaust familiar resources. The resulting food shortage caused an explosive crisis, as a result of which the population decreased by 7–8 times, yet it was this Neolithic revolution that forced humanity to switch to agriculture and livestock breeding.

The idea of the noosphere, formulated in the 1920s, views human reason as a planetary force capable of directing the evolution of the biosphere towards harmonization. Since matter at all levels has the property of self-organizing into more ordered forms, collective reason and will give humanity the opportunity to consciously build a failure-free interaction with the environment. This requires a rethinking of the approach to environmental management at all levels — from legislative regulation to the tillage of a specific field.

For a successful transition, it is necessary to combine achievements in the fields of engineering, technology, law, values, and electronic communication. In the publication "Beyond the Limits" (1994), this process is designated as an ecological revolution, for the implementation of which scientists allow several decades. In the conditions of modern agronomy, this period requires the introduction of resource-saving technologies, effective environmental monitoring, and strict compliance with the terms of leasing and licensing of natural resources.

Thus, in the context of impending environmental threats, millions and millions of individuals on Earth must become involved in increasingly ordered ecological activities in all the mentioned spheres of human spirit manifestation, and the very awareness of these threats must concentrate and integrate their (the individuals') will to search for and affirm new values, leading the global community from the traditional coordinates of eco-hazardous life activities into eco-safe coordinates.

And this process is already underway: this includes the famous report to the Club of Rome "The Limits to Growth" (1971), the book of the same name (1972), the World Industry Conference on Environmental Management (1984), the UN General Assembly resolution (1987) in which the concept of sustainable development was first proposed for study to the governments of all countries, the UN Conference on Environment and Development (1992) where this concept was adopted and the total ecologization of all aspects of the global community's life was proclaimed, and the subsequent UN Conferences "Rio + 10" and "Rio + 20" in 2002 and 2012; as well as numerous international cooperation programs in the field of ecology and environmental protection, for example, on ozone holes and the greenhouse effect, and green movements similar to the Friends of the Earth movement in the Netherlands, and the rapidly increasing environmental requirements for technologies used in the production of goods and services.

There is an integration of the minds of individuals or groups into a single collective planetary Mind, one embodiment of which is the global computer network. It is obvious that the idea of harmonizing the relationship between nature and society at this stage of its history provides a powerful impetus to the phenomenon of integration as a continuous and accelerating global process. Its practical results are difficult, if not impossible, to anticipate (just as, for example, the cloning of livestock animals in 1997 became an unexpected event), but it is precisely along this path that we can expect decisive results in overcoming the Global ecological crisis. And it should be agreed that engineering activity—the creation of waste-free technologies, effective equipment for purification and waste disposal, telecommunications, etc.—is a most important, but not the only sphere of human spirit activity, the results of which will lead to a noospheric future. Engineering activity creates only the prerequisites for it. Enormous shifts are required in other areas. This must be remembered, and we must prepare for it.

And what about bifurcation? The reader has apparently sensed that the authors lean toward an optimistic answer to this question. Indeed, a moderate interpretation of the final stage of the Global ecological crisis is proposed: it is assumed that two hot and one cold world wars were the bifurcation explosion that can be taken as the starting point of the noospheric era. All three wars were, by and large, instruments for resolving the raw material, that is, the ecological crisis, although these three events have been, and are being, dressed in various guises by different researchers and commentators. Thus, it can be said that bifurcation occurred, but society clearly did not notice it and certainly did not label it. A number of arguments can be made in favor of this assumption. Here is one of them: perhaps in the context of such an assumption, F. Fukuyama's sensational conclusion about the end of history—the end of the period of the biosphere-civilizational bifurcation's zenith—is logical.

The fixation by society of the beginning of the noospheric era could become a factor stimulating the conscious, purposeful, and constructive activity of the global community in advancing toward the harmony of society and its relationship with Nature.

Abiotic — a non-living factor or object that influences or determines the conditions of existence of living beings in an ecosystem. 2. Autotroph — an organism capable of synthesizing all necessary organic substances from inorganic ones, using light or certain organic compounds as an energy source. (see

producers). 3. Australopithecines — fossil, higher hominid primates that moved on two legs. Numerous skeletal remains have been found in the South and East of Africa. They lived about three million years ago. 4. Agro-ecosystem — a specific (usually simplified) biocenosis created under human influence during the development of agriculture. 5. Adaptation — an evolutionarily emerged adjustment of organisms to environmental conditions, expressed in changes in their external and internal features. 6. Nitrogen — a chemical element of group V of the periodic system

of Mendeleev. The main component of air (78% of volume). Nitrogen is one of the essential biogenic elements that is part of the most important substances of living cells — proteins and nucleic acids. 7. Amensalism — a method of interaction between species and populations in ecological systems, where one species suffers harm/is disadvantaged while the other species receives no advantages. An example of this is the suppression of light-loving plants in the shade of trees. 8. Anaerobic — a process occurring in the absence of oxygen. 9. Anaerobic respiration — the respiration of certain types of anaerobic microbes. 10. Anaerobic digestion — the decomposition of organic residues by microbes in the absence of oxygen. This often produces methane (see biogas). 11. Anthropogenic — created by humans or resulting from their activity (e.g., anthropogenic environmental pollution). 12. Anthropocentrism — a view according to which man is the center and highest goal of the universe. 13. Anthropogenic ecological consciousness — man is the center and

Range — the area of distribution (of a group of living organisms, types of communities, similar conditions, etc.). 15. Archean — the lower of the two largest subdivisions of the Precambrian.

The upper boundary is about 2.6 billion years ago. In most regions of the world, it is represented by highly metamorphosed rocks. 16. Assimilation — assimilation, fusion, absorption. The absorption of nutrients by living cells (photosynthesis, root absorption, etc.). The conversion of substances coming from the external environment into the organism's own body. 17. Aerobes — living organisms capable of existing only in an environment containing oxygen. 18. Atmosphere — the gaseous envelope of the planet, which on Earth consists of a mixture of various gases, water vapor, and dust. The modern atmosphere is to a large extent a product of the living matter of the biosphere. 19. Atom — the smallest particle of a chemical element that retains its properties. In the center of the atom is a positively charged nucleus, in which almost all the mass of the atom is concentrated; electrons move around it, forming electron shells, the dimensions of which determine the size of the atom. The atomic nucleus consists of protons and neutrons. The number of electrons in an atom is equal to the number of protons in the nucleus (the charge of all electrons of the atom is equal to the charge of the nucleus), and the number of protons is equal to the atomic number of the element in the periodic system. Atoms can gain or lose electrons, becoming positively or negatively charged ions. The chemical properties of an atom are determined mainly by the number of electrons in the outer shell;

by combining chemically, atoms form molecules. 20. Bioaccumulation - the accumulation within organisms of increasing quantities of potentially toxic substances absorbed from the environment or ingested with food, which do not decompose and are not completely excreted from the organism. 21. Biogas - a mixture of gases (2/3 methane, 1/3 carbon dioxide) formed during the anaerobic digestion of organic matter, which can be used as fuel. 22. Biogens - 1) Nutrients necessary for vital activity. For plants - ions or molecules absorbed from the environment and containing essential elements:

carbon dioxide, water, compounds of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, mineral salts). 2) Substances generated by organisms in the process of vital activity or resulting from the decomposition of organic remains. 23. Biogeocenosis - an evolutionarily established, relatively stable system of functionally linked living organisms and their environment, characterized by an energy state, type, and rate of exchange of matter and information. (See ecosystem). 24. Biodegradation - the consumption and destruction of organic material into simple natural substances (carbon dioxide, water) carried out by organisms. 25. Biome - a large group of ecosystems with a similar type of vegetation (e.g., tundra, taiga, tropical forests). 26. Biomass - the mass of living matter. Often refers to the biomass of a specific group of organisms or a trophic level. 27. Biosphere - the region of existence of living matter, the Earth's shell, in which the collective activity of living organisms manifests as a geochemical factor of planetary scale, the largest ecosystem of the Earth - the domain of systemic interaction between living and non-living matter on the planet. 28. Biotic structure - the distribution of organisms in an ecosystem into groups of producers, consumers, detritivores, and decomposers. 29. Biotic potential - the ability of a species to increase its population size and/or range under improved living conditions. Depends on fertility, the ability to preserve offspring, ease of adaptation to changing living conditions, the ability to spread and colonize new areas, and resistance to environmental pressure. 30. Biotope - a space relatively homogeneous in abiotic environmental factors, occupied by a biocenosis. 31. Biocenosis - a community of producers, consumers, and decomposers that are part of a single biogeocenosis and inhabit one biotope (a section of the Earth's surface, land or water, with uniform environmental conditions). 32. Species - the basic structural unit in the system of living organisms.

conditions to interbreed with each other and occupying a continuous or partially fragmented range. Each species in nature exists in complete biological isolation from other species, expressed as the inability to interbreed. A species represents a system of genotypes forming a specific set of ecological niches in biogeocenoses, possessing a common evolutionary destiny. The total number of species on

Earth is estimated to be between 1.5 and 5 billion. 33. Hydrogen - H, a chemical element of the seventh group of the periodic table. It combines with many elements; with oxygen, it forms water. The most abundant element in the cosmos, it makes up (in the form of plasma) more than 70% of the Sun and other stars, and is the main part of the gases in the interstellar medium and nebulae. On

Earth, it is part of water, living organisms, coal, and oil. 34. Renewable resources - resources that are restored as a result of the natural cycle (e.g., water) or reproduction and growth (forest, fish in water basins). It is necessary to protect renewable resources from overexploitation. 35. Renewable energy resources - energy sources, for example, solar radiation, wind, geothermal energy, which are not depleted during their use. 36. Secondary consumer - an animal (predator) that feeds almost exclusively on herbivores. 37. Second law of thermodynamics - a law of nature according to which, in any energy transformation, a portion of it is lost as low-potential heat dissipated into the environment (see entropy).

Therefore, for the operation of any system, an inflow of energy from the outside is necessary (the efficiency is always less than one). 38. Second basic principle of ecosystem functioning - ecosystems exist due to solar energy, which is available in abundance, inexhaustible, and does not pollute the environment. 39. Survivorship curve - a graph showing the probability of individuals surviving to a certain age. 40. Survival of the fittest - a concept according to which individuals better adapted than others to the biotic and abiotic factors of the environment are more likely to survive and reproduce (see natural selection). 41. Leaching - the gradual dissolution of a substance located on the soil surface or within its profile, and its removal by water seeping through the soil into groundwater and water bodies. 42. Heidelberg man - a fossil human, close to Pithecanthropus. In 1907, remains were found near Heidelberg (FRG). They lived about 400,000 years ago.

Genome - the set of genes contained in a single set of chromosomes of a given organism. 44. Genes - chemical carriers of hereditary information, transmitted from parents in the egg cell and sperm, and to a certain extent - behavioral traits). They can change as a result of mutations, and their new combinations contribute to the appearance in offspring of traits that were absent in parents. 45. Genotype - the genetic (hereditary) constitution of an organism, the totality of all its genes. In modern genetics, it is viewed not as a mechanical set of independently functioning genes, but as a single system in which any gene can exist in complex interaction with the other genes. 46. Gene pool - the totality of genes present in individuals, to preserve all currently living species, one also speaks of the Earth's gene pool. 47. Geology - a complex of sciences about the composition, structure, and history of the development of the Earth's crust and the Earth. 48. Hydrosphere - the sum of all waters, objects of the globe, oceans, seas, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, swamps, groundwater, glaciers, and snow cover. 49. Heterotroph - an organism that feeds on organic matter (consumers, detritivores, decomposers). 50. Hybridization - crossing of genetically diverse organisms. One of the important factors in the evolution of biological forms in nature. 51. Humus (earth, soil, humus) - high-molecular dark-colored organic substances of the soil. It contains plant nutrients that become available to them after the decomposition of humus. Soils rich in humus are fertile. 52. Selection pressure - the influence of environmental factors leading to [individuals] differing by certain traits from the majority of the population members. This changes its gene pool. 53. Degradation - gradual deterioration, decline, or loss of positive qualities. 54. Demographic explosion - a sharp acceleration in population growth rates. 55. Demography - the science of the patterns of population reproduction in the socio-historical conditioning of this process. 56. Detritus - dead organic remains of plant or animal

Detritivores are organisms that feed on detritus, obtaining nutrients and energy by consuming detritus. 58. Deoxyribonucleic acid is DNA, a high-molecular natural compound found in the cell nuclei of living organisms. DNA is the carrier of genetic information, and its individual sections correspond to specific genes. A DNA molecule consists of two polynucleotide chains twisted around each other into a helix. The chains are built from a large number of monomers of four types – nucleotides, the specificity of which is determined by one of four nitrogenous bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine).

Combinations of three adjacent nucleotides in a DNA chain constitute the genetic code. Disruptions in the sequence of nucleotides in a DNA

chain lead to hereditary changes in an organism – mutations.