Conservation policy and socioeconomic development in Russia during the 20th century

An analysis of the history of land resource management and land conservation policies in Russia depicts a close relationship between the status of the environment and the socioeconomic development, with its alternating ideological doctrines and changes in national ideology. The main characteristics of land resource utilization policy in Russia in the 20^th century were: (a) Stolypin’s Land Reforms at the beginning of the century and new forms of land tenure; (b) the post-1917 October Revolution concept of ‘mastery of nature’ and conservation decrees; (c) short-term production goals and a utilitarian approach to land resources in the 1930s; (d) programmes of ‘remaking the nature’ and endeavours to re-organize land degradation control affairs in the 1950s–1980s; (e) the transition to a market economy in the 1990s and the present-day land conservation policy and legislation. Radical progress in land resource improvements in Russia can only be achieved when the economy is revived and the state and society undertake to solve urgent ecological and environment conservation problems.