Home – Home – Jornals – Geography and natural resources 2016 number 6S

According to its Russian and International status, the Baikal Region is destined to be a model territory for sustainable development of worldwide importance. Today, the raw material sector plays a key role, which is likely to remain so in the future, in the economies of Irkutsk Region, Trans-Baikal Territory (Zabaykalsky Krai) and the Republic of Buryatia. Given that, how ever, in the past 25 years some of the institutional, legislative and organizational provisions for the mineral resources management turned out ineffective, the achievement of goals of sustainable development has been largely impeded. Among main subsoil users in the Baikal Region are large, vertically integrated companies. The hefty incomes of large holdings have thus far neither risen life standards of the population, nor contributed to the innovative economic development of the regions they have been active in, though. It is critical therefore to improve the effectiveness of the state management in the field of the subsurface use, particu larly in the replenishment of the mineral resource base in the region. At present, the recovery of raw materials is way ahead of their pre-development stage, which will soon grow into an obstacle to the resource development and raw materials production and processing and, as a result, their following redistribution. Large-scale geological mapping of the territory, regional geological prospecting and exploration, and areas licensing should be conducted by the state institutions, e. g. large state-owned specialized holdings. A significant contribution can be made by the Federal targeted programs for geological studies of the subsurface in the centers of the most promising mineral resource occurrences. The sustainable development of the Baikal Region, including its mineral resource base, should imply a continuous rise in living standards of the people residing on its territory, their ecological welfare, as well as an increase in population.