Debate

Currently, the following documents have been provided for the most wide-ranging discussion:

1. The Natural Resources Charter, developed in 2010 by group of independent experts in the field of sustainable development and utilization of natural resources, formed by Paul Collier, director of the Center for Study of African Economies (Oxford University).

This global initiative aims to help governments and society to effectively use the opportunities provided by natural resources. The Charter has no policy point or sponsorship; it is a common program, which describes the challenges of natural resources management, containing twelve principles of natural resources management and utilization, generalizing the experience and practices of those countries that succeeded in avoiding the so-called "resource curse".

The authors of the Charter require its annual update with new developments, reviews, opinions (http://naturalresourcecharter.org/)

2. European Landscape Convention adopted at the 718^th meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg, July 19, 2000), put forward for signing on October 20, 2000 at the Ministerial Conference on Landscape Protection (Florence) and entered into force on March 01, 2004.

Convention was adopted on the basis of special awareness of landscapes value to provide the conditions for transition to sustainable development, and the quality and diversity of landscapes is the universal Europe-wide resource, which generally makes a decisive contribution to the quality of life, being the key element of individual and social well-being, the foundation of the European natural and cultural heritage, reinforcing the uniqueness, originality and highlights of Europe; it plays an important social role in cultural, environmental and social spheres, including solution to problems of employment, and simultaneously serves as the main basic resource for development of many economic sectors related to the landscape and dependent thereon.

Such key terms as “landscape” (as the area or space in the sense of how they are perceived by residents and visitors, and the distinctive features and character of which are the result of natural and/or cultural (i.e. human) factors), "Landscape Policy", "goal of landscapes quality ensuring" have been defined.

The signatories to the Convention should necessarily perform the following actions:

1. General measures: mandatory consolidation of the landscape concept in national legislation; the requirement of forming and implementing the national landscape policies; establishing the mechanisms to ensure public, local and regional authorities and other structures involvement in forming and implementing the principles of landscape policies; as well as in the integration of landscape approach with the national regional and urban planning policy, with management in the field of culture, ecology, agriculture and socio-economic sphere.

2. Special measures: enlightenment and informing the population and the public; education (school and university), multi-disciplinary courses in the field of landscape issues; typification and classification of landscapes at the national level, mechanisms of landscape policy implementation at various management levels (national, regional, local).

3. European Cooperation of Parties to the Convention: development of programs and projects of international and cross-border cooperation in the field of landscape issues, mutual assistance, information and experience exchange.

Currently Convention has been signed by 38 European countries and ratified by 32 countries. Russia is not among them yet.

To solve the problem of conservation and efficient use of the landscape potential of Russia and Europe as a whole - on the basis of the formation of Pan-European system of national (sustainable) socio-natural landscapes as the real mechanism for sustainable development – it is necessary to:

speed up the process of signing and ratification of the Convention;
speed up the process of establishing national landscape legislations;
provide public support, including legislative security, operation of nongovernmental national organizations; speed up the process of nonpublic systems of specially protected areas formation along with the existing public systems, so that to consolidate the efforts of the whole society to solve the of landscape problem
solve on a priority basis the organizational issues pertaining to the development and implementation of the International Europe-wide program and Euro-project with primary Russian component "Pan-European systemization of national (sustainable) socio-natural landscapes as the real tool for sustainable development"; the creation of International Centre for Landscape (in Russia, which acts both as initiating country and as the largest landscape nation) to coordinate the activities within the framework of Euro-project and this program as a whole under the auspices of the Council of Europe and European Union; the creation of landscape legislation for Russia, which is extremely important, as it acts as the main biogene-producing landscape donor in Europe.

http://www.gpntb.ru/win/inter-events/crimea2006/disk2/sud.pdf