Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 1 – The Russian government has now replaced its 2010 development plan for Siberia with a new one that looks out to 2035, but the new plan, much shorter (46 pages rather than 70) ignores the region’s environmental problems, the needs of the population, and the international situation Russia finds itself in, the Taiga News Agency says.
Instead, the new plan is filled with meaningless generalities, Tayga.info says; but one of its greatest shortcomings is that unlike the 2010 plan which had an entire section devoted to the environment, the new plan does not, referring only in passing to the problems in that area (tayga.info/180568).
Nor does the new plan say anything about meeting the critical needs of the population, including the development of infrastructure such as gas lines, a real shortcoming because in many parts of the Siberian Federal District no progress has been made toward the long-promised total gasification of all settlements.
Instead, the new plan is devoted almost exclusively to the need to expand the development of extraction industries; but even with regard to these, there are absolutely no figures given, only the desire that there be more of all natural resources taken out and sold abroad.
Most leaders in the region have been silent or have dutifully expressed their support, but Novosibirsk Governor Andrey Travnikov has denounced the plan in the sharpest terms. “It appears,” he says, “that the fate of Siberia is to dig into the bowels of the earthy and melt what’s found as the first step toward their redistribution and sale.”
Such talk, he continues, is “not very relevant” to the needs of Siberia and its people.
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