Russian Nature. Exploring the Environmental Consequences of Societal Change
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Author(s): J. Oldfield
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 0754639401
Format: hardback
159pp
Price: £45.00, $89.95
Review Date: 10 February 2006
Review: The aim of this book is to explore the way in which the recent upheavals within Russian society, precipitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, have influenced the country’s environmental situation, both at a national and subnational level. Jonathan Oldfield begins by looking at the Soviet Union’s worsening environmental situation and the capacities that existed to lessen it. He then looks post-1991 at the relationship between economic change and polluting trends in the context of Russia’s extensive restructuring of its industrial, agricultural and service sectors. Since 1991 environmental governance structures have been developed and the policy initiatives and their implementation (or lack of it) are examined. The last chapter gives a detailed examination of the environmental trends within Russia since 1991, focusing on air- and water-pollution trends in both urban and rural settings.