ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how governmental institutions engaged in environmental protection and resource management are evolving and discharging their duties under the new political and economic conditions of post-Soviet Russia. It provides an overview of federation-wide developments. The chapter explores the challenges of building environmental protection institutions at the regional and local levels, and highlights several important factors that affect the capacity of the organizations to pursue their goals of environmental protection and resource management. It presents a new conceptual framework for approaching the broader question of the redevelopment of the state, institutions, and governance in post-Soviet Russia. Officials in the Republic of Tuva, one of the poorest and least developed regions of the Russian Federation, flagrantly violated federal laws and regulations by turning over a section of the autonomous republic's only nature preserve to a local collective farm for reindeer grazing. An important component of bureaucratic capacity is the ability to act autonomously.
