Sustainable development of the Russian North: the limits of ecological modernization

• Main Author: Aksenova Olga
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2010
• Subjects: eco-system; traditional economy; market economy; ecological modernization; ecologization of economy; environmental non-governmental organizations; Sociology (General); HM401-1281; Russian North
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/9cd970d690854a0ea27e53e6f7d94655

The article examines the prospects of harmonious co-existence between business and the traditional management of natural resources, as well as the future of sustainable development of the Russian North. The means of managing natural resources that we take into consideration are mutually exclusive regardless of the scope of capital currently invested into the Russian North, because they are based on dramatically different mechanisms of economic reproduction. Traditional, subsistence management of renewable resources, typical of the small indigenous communities in the North, fully depends on the ecosystem integrity, making it conservational by nature. Even significant changes in the nature of the community’s tools do not impact the conservational core of the subsistence resource management, which only allows for technologies that do not deplete nature. Such resource management is founded upon conscious consumption limitations and leaves no room for accruing revenue. Market-focused management of natural resources in aimed at increasing revenues and encouraging consumption, and therefore leads to an inevitable use of more and more new resources in the production process, regardless of whether those resources are obtained intensively or extensively. Our research reveals that the environmental overhaul of modern production has its limitations. The environmental policy strategy proposed by the big capital is almost exclusively oriented at conserving the immediate surroundings of industrial areas. Preserving natural ecosystems is not among this policy’s priorities, which can be explained by the overall nature of the environmental overhaul rather by some peculiarities of Russian business. Attempts to alter consumption and make it more environmentally friendly are only made within very rigid frames; furthermore, all that such attempts can achieve is a small mitigation of the destructive impact that industrial companies have on the natural ecosystems. The sustainable development of the modern civilization is, for the most ...