ABSTRACT
This chapter explores general economic and environmental trends moving on to engage more purposively with the industrial and agricultural sectors of the Russian economy. It discusses the particularities of the relationship between economic restructuring and measurable environmental trends during the course of the 1990s. The chapter attempts to advance the work of Peterson in order to posit a generalised framework of regional environmental issues across the Russian Federation. The Russian economy contracted markedly during the 1990s as a consequence of the attempt to construct a functioning market economy on the basis of a well-entrenched command economic system. The north western parts of Siberia are the main focal point for Russia’s oil and gas industry due to the extensive hydrocarbon reserves located in the autonomous regions of Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets. Regional understandings of economic change invite connections to be made with the wider environment based on admittedly rather rudimentary linkages between economic activity and polluting trends.
