MR: What do believe is the most serious environmental problem facing Russia today?
Yablokov: In Russia, there are two problems: radioactive pollution and drinking water quality. Nearly every big city has problems with radioactive pollution and all of them have problems with drinking water quality.
MR: Each year the government allocates a certain amount of money for the environment. In your opinion, should the bulk of the money be spent on cleaning up the environment, or restructuring industry?
Yablokov: The best way of course to kill the pollution is before it starts. So restructuring industry is the better course of action. However, now we have a lot of private industry, so it is impossible to restructure this industry with governmental money. So it is reasonable that the government should implement strict regulation and to follow these regulations. The problem is, that now the federal government and the local governments do not have enough power to enforce these regulations. This is turning out to be a very serious problem.
MR: Boris Yeltsin has stated that the budget for 1996 has been set. How will this money be used for the environment?
Yablokov: We have only a small amount of money allocated to the environment. I think less than one-half percent is budgeted for the environment. We need five times more to stabilize our degradation. There are many reasons for such a situation. One of them is that there is a lot of money going to unpredictable catastrophes. We have a special Ministry of Catastrophes (the American equivalent is the Federal Emergency Management Agency), and this Ministry received ten times more money than the Ministry of the Environment.
MR: From a political standpoint, how has the collapse of the Soviet regime affected the environmental situation?
Yablokov: After the collapse of the Soviet Union we introduced some market economy principles like Ôpolluters payÕ. In a comparatively short time we improved our environmental situation. But now, I think the situation has gotten worse that how it was during the communists regime. This is because under the Communist totalitarian regime we had quite strict regulations. It is true that we had unhealthy environmental development and unhealthy industrial development, but we had a strong government and strict regulations. Now we have an enormous devastation of natural resources. Literal devastation which is mostly illegal. A lot of private initiatives, firms and enterprises cut trees down in an unhealthy way. They cut down forests without replanting, they extract oil and gas in the worst way possible and without consideration. They try to earn as much money as possible as fast as possible. We call this Ôwild capitalism.Õ It flourishes in my country. This wild capitalism has struck our nature worse than under the over-militarized Soviet regime.
MR: Are there any aspects of Russian environmental policy that have improved since the downfall of the regime?
Yablokov: Yes, of course. There are several aspects which have considerably improved. First of all, air pollution is declining, not because of some special regulation, but because of the drastic decline in industrial activity. During the Soviet era, the bulk of industry was military. Now we donÕt need such a huge amount of military industry. Compared with five years ago, industrial output has declined by about forty percent. From this, our air is about seventeen percent cleaner than it was five years ago.
MR: What are you and your committee doing to inform the Russian population about environmental problems?
Yablokov: My committee to the Council of National Security. It is quite an invisible Board; influential, but quite invisible. We belong to the Presidential Administration. The role of my committee is to analyze the environmental situation, then construct proposals. These proposals are sent not to the public, but to a federal agency, or to the president.
MR: Based on that, what do you think the general level of understanding is among the Russian public?
Yablokov: This surprised me, but the level of public awareness has been particularly stable during the last seven years. Public polls continue to show that environmental concern is in third place. Last year, the first concern was the economy, crime was in second place, and again, in third was the environment.
MR: Has the Chernobyl experience permanently precluded RussiaÕs pursuit of nuclear power?
Yablokov: Yes, maybe the Chernobyl experience has made us more aware about any nuclear problem, including nuclear testing. Of course the Chernobyl incident has had quite an impact. This year marks the tenth anniversary of Chernobyl, and in my country we have a special program which analyzes the consequences of Chernobyl. It turns out that the consequences are much worse than it was officially predicted.
MR: Since Chernobyl has had such an effect; how much money will Russia spend on alternate sources of energy, such as wind, geothermal, water power and/or solar?
Yablokov: Well, forty years ago the Communist rulers decided that the bulk of money for energy should go the development of nuclear energy. I think it was a tragic decision because before this, we had a reasonable amount of money allocated for the development of solar, wind and small electric plants. After turning the general strategic development into nuclear energy, all spending on alternate sources of energy was stopped. Of course there is still some spending at the local level, but this is on a very small scale. From my point of view, the pursuit of nuclear energy killed all of the research on environmentally-friendly sources of power.
MR: In view of RussiaÕs long history of totalitarian government must the impelling force for environmental protection come from the government, or will the Russian people eventually demand it?
Yablokov: Both the government and the people have a concern for the environment. Each year, the government passes several hundred environmentally-related proposals, but in the end, only a few of them are implemented. The state of our economy and the political instability precludes us from concentrating on environmental issues. We are a country in transition. We are not stable like AmericaÕs government. If the United States Government passes a law, it is enforced. In my country only about twenty-five percent of presidential decrees are fulfilled. It is nearly impossible to enforce anything new in this transitional period.
MR: Finally, do you think the United States should come to the aid of Russia?
Yablokov: The answer is common sense. We donÕt need American money, we need your experience. We need your participation in our activities. We donÕt need money; most of our resources-oil gas, forests, metal are distributed on the world market in return for enormous profit. This profit leaves Russia and ends up in western banks. This is dirty money, but it does exist. People are afraid of the great political instability so the money leaves Russia. We need your help to stop this flow. We need your experience. The majority of Russian people do not yet understand the market economy. You can teach us aspects of capitalism and we can learn from AmericaÕs mistakes. The United States has a two hundred year democratic history with a consumer-oriented society. We would like to avoid your mistakes and learn ÔconsumerismÕ; this will be the best way you can help us. MR