Possibilities of Implementation of the Ecological and Legal Mechanism of Environmental Protection for the Regulation of Economic Activity in the Coastal Territories of Lake Baikal

Lesnykh Svetlana Ivanovna PhD in Geography Senior Scientific Associate, V. B. Sochava Institute of Geography of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 664033, Russia, Irkutskaya oblast', g. Irkutsk, ul. Ulan-Batorskaya, 1 tyara@irigs.irk.ru Other publications by this author

 The solution of ecological problems of the Baikal Natural Territory (BPT) is designated by the Government of the Russian Federation in the Fundamentals of state Policy in the field of ecological development of Russia for the period up to 2030 as one of the mechanisms for preserving the natural environment, including natural ecological systems, objects of the animal and plant world ^[1].

The BPT is a territory with a special status, a kind of shield, legislatively approved at the level of the Russian Federation in order to preserve the unique ecological system of Lake Baikal and prevent the negative impact of anthropogenic factors on its condition. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake on the planet with ultra–fresh water, unique ecosystems located along its shores and unique legislation that guards this natural uniqueness.

The law as a whole is a universal tool for eliminating and preventing environmental problems of various levels. Being a regulator of public relations, it contributes to the realization of citizens' ecological interest in a favorable environment ^[2], is a reflection of the state's policy in the relevant area of the surrounding reality and shows preferred norms of behavior. Of all branches of law, only environmental law is focused on the conservation of nature as the "basis of life and activity of peoples", on ensuring the public interests of environmental well-being and allows to take into account both human interests and the interests of nature to the same extent ^{[3, 4]}. Nature and its individual objects and complexes are the main and only object of public relations regulated by the norms of environmental law in order to preserve and restore a favorable state of the environment.

Legal scholars in the field of environmental law ^{[5, 3]} note the need for further greening of legislation and the related lack of knowledge of the environmental side of nature management and the diversity of internal and external environmental relations in nature. Ensuring scientifically based greening of legislation is possible only with close cooperation of legal and natural science researchers, especially in the field of geography, science, with a comprehensive view of the objects and processes of the surrounding world (nature, economy and population). A scientifically based combination of environmental, economic and social interests of a person, society and the state for the purposes of sustainable development and ensuring a favorable environment and environmental safety ^[1] is the most important task of the state policy in the field of environmental development of Russia. It is scientific validity that is one of the first and most important principles of the legislative process, an element of the general rules of rulemaking ^[6].

Regulation of economic activity in different territories. The concept of environmental protection existing in the environmental legislation of the Russian Federation presupposes the existence of two types of territories ^[7]. The first type is territories with a "normal" ecological and legal regime, which are subject to the general requirements of environmental legislation. The protection of such territories is regulated by Federal Law No. 7 "On Environmental Protection". It enshrines the fundamental, cross-cutting, uniform principles of environmental protection, which are specified in the principles of sectoral legislation (water, forestry, land, etc.) ^[8]. Thus, the Land Code regulates relations on the use and protection of land, based on the idea of it as a natural object protected as an essential part of nature, and at the same time as immovable property, an object of ownership and other rights to land. The priority of land protection as the most important component of the environment and means of production over the use of land as immovable property is fundamental. Similar environmental priorities are enshrined in water and forest legislation. Strict compliance with the requirements for the rational use of natural resources is a fairly effective way to protect the environment and allows you to find a compromise between nature protection and economic development of the territory.

The second type of territories is territories with a special legal regime (Territories with a special status are part of the territory of Russia, in relation to which a special system of state regulation has been established for the formation and maintenance of certain parameters peculiar only to this territory, or unique to achieve state interest, different from the unified system of power and separation of powers ^[9]), within the boundaries of which stricter environmental restrictions and prohibitions apply. The order of complexity of regulating relations in these territories increases many times due to the need to take into account regional and local (municipal) features of the territory, where the complex of unique spatially interacting geographical objects characteristic of a particular territory is most clearly manifested.

Of particular interest are territories whose special status is motivated by the criterion of their natural value. This criterion is the most objective and stable, we can say basic, since economic indicators are calculated on the basis of information about the already available resources of the territory and their value. Environmental and economic activities on them are additionally regulated by special legislation at various levels, establishing a special protection regime and imposing significant restrictions on their use.

Unlike territories with a "normal" regulatory regime, where general principles of protection and use of resources are regulated, for each location of territories with a special status, a set of environmental conditions is established (a natural regime peculiar to this particular territory and causing natural uniqueness), and, consequently, a set of processes and phenomena associated with this environment. On this basis, individual measures are being developed to determine the nature and permissible intensity of land use, taking into account the natural possibilities of available resources and the limits of these possibilities. The use of these resources without taking into account the limits of ecological possibilities leads to the destruction of ecosystems (environmental damage) and, as a result, to economic damage.

The above-mentioned concept of environmental protection is reflected in different approaches to the organization of rational nature management. Thus, the general requirements of environmental legislation, which do not take into account the complex features of the location, are applied to objects of industrial or resource nature management. These requirements do not protect the environment as much as they regulate relations in the field of nature management. For unique objects of nature management, the unique features of the complex of environmental conditions of these objects are first taken into account, and then the tools of "special" environmental legislation are applied, showing which resources /industries are permissible to use / develop in this territory (territorial nature management).

In the conditions of diverse and multilevel environmental restrictions, economic activity without damage to nature is possible only on the basis of the territorial principle of environmental management, actively developed by geographers ^{[10, 11]}. The main task of territorial management is to ensure not just sectoral, but integrated territorial management, simultaneous consideration of natural, economic and social factors of development, i.e. management of the territorial complex. Territorial management takes into account the interrelation of environmental components, provides control over the use of natural resources by nature users, encourages them to use resource-saving technologies. Rational use of natural resources here implies "qualitative and quantitative accounting of the natural environment and natural resources with forecasting the possibilities of their social, and not only industrial use" and "such use of the riches of nature, which, by providing society with the necessary energy and materials, simultaneously improves or at least does not worsen the environment of social development" ^[12].

An important part of territorial environmental management, in addition to the management structures themselves, are management mechanisms that regulate the behavior of elements in these structures ^[10], one of which can be attributed to the ecological and legal mechanism of environmental protection.

Ecological and legal mechanism. In environmental law, the preservation of nature as the "basis of the life and activities of peoples" and ensuring the public interests of ecological well-being is achieved through an ecological and legal mechanism that forms the core of the legal regulation of public relations about nature ^[3].

The ecological and legal mechanism is a coordinated system of measures and requirements stipulated by the norms of environmental law or in accordance with them, as well as actions and processes carried out in the implementation of these norms aimed at the consistent and effective achievement of the goals of environmental law. A specific feature of the ecological and legal mechanism is the absolute acceptance of the principle of natural conditionality of human and social life. This fully reflects the goal of environmental law - the preservation and restoration of a favorable state of the environment.

In the arsenal of the ecological and legal mechanism there are relatively autonomous organizational, economic and ideological structural elements ^[13]. Due to a wide range of constituent structural elements (rationing, standardization, environmental impact assessment, expertise, audit, monitoring, education, education, etc.), the ecological and legal mechanism allows, through legal impact on environmental and natural resource processes, to ensure their optimal development ^[14]. It becomes possible to effectively solve various tasks of regulating economic activity and environmental protection. The criterion for the effectiveness of the environmental-legal mechanism is the quality of the regulatory regulation of relations regarding each element of this mechanism that is part of it and the degree of implementation of the relevant environmental-legal norms. The result of the work of the whole mechanism is a legal attitude aimed at solving a specific economic task. 

Implementation of the ecological and legal mechanism. As noted earlier, an important feature of territories with a special status is the presence of additional environmental legislation protecting their uniqueness with stricter restrictions on economic activity. Here, the same land plot falls under the action of several legal regimes: a specific category of land, a territorial zone and a zone with special conditions for the use of territories. The main disputes between representatives of different interest groups in such territories arise precisely in the issue of determining the priority right of use ^[15].

Lake Baikal, unique in its natural characteristics, is an equally unique example of the concentration of all kinds of regulatory legal acts in the field of its protection, which are not sufficient and need constant clarification and addition ^[16]. This is the only water body for which a law was created in 1999 that provides legal regulation in the field of its protection and the basic rules of economic activity – the Federal Law "On the Protection of Lake Baikal". There is also a large number of complementary and clarifying legislative acts of various levels.

Like any water body of the Russian Federation, Lake Baikal falls under the water legislation, but due to its uniqueness, having its own system of state regulation, it falls into more restrictions than an ordinary water body. In addition to the coastal and coastal protective strips, the fish protection zone, the border of the World Natural Heritage site "Lake Baikal" coincides with the border of the Central Ecological Zone of the Baikal Natural Territory (CEZ BPT).

In 2015, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, the water protection zone of Lake Baikal was equated to the BPT CEZ. As a result of the imposition of environmental laws of the Central Economic Zone of the lake. Baikal has fallen into a system of strict environmental restrictions on economic activity, which has made the sustainable economic development of these territories extremely difficult even in the territories designated for this purpose and has significantly exacerbated conflicts of nature management. The sustainable economic development of such a territory has been threatened, residents cannot engage in their usual economic activities and are forced to leave settlements in search of work ^[17].

The Baikal water protection zone plays an essential role in the protection of water resources in the structure of legal mechanisms and environmental norms, but it cannot extend to a distance of more than 70 km from the shore of the reservoir and limit territories that do not affect the water body. The current situation has shown the need to adjust the water protection zone of the lake. Baikal and a scientifically based approach to its design ^[18]. To resolve the current contradiction, Government Decree No. 507-r of March 26, 2018 established new boundaries of the Lake Baikal water protection zone for inter-settlement territories and for coastal settlements in order to ensure the vital activity of the population and the development of economic activity. Thus, the action of the ecological and legal mechanism was realized through a scientifically based combination of environmental interests of citizens in a healthy environment and ensuring their necessary material needs.

It was noted above that strict compliance with environmental legislation is an important condition for ensuring safe and rational use of natural resources. However, it is very difficult, being on the territory, to determine which regulations it falls under and to assess the scale of use (the size of the felling, the area of agricultural planting, etc.), it is also problematic to mentally draw the boundaries of the implementation of a particular regulatory act without knowing the structure of the natural basis of the territory. So in the case of the allocation of a water protection zone, it is necessary to know the location of a lake or river and its natural characteristics. Hence, it becomes obvious that any environmental management is possible only if the actual use of the territory and the system of existing regulations are considered in a single geographical and legislative space and at the same hierarchical level.

To conduct economic activities and make decisions in a situation of multilevel environmental restrictions on the territory, we have developed a tool for legal environmental zoning ^[19], which complements the environmental and legal mechanism of nature protection with a visual representation of the effect of environmental and legal norms. Having a mechanism that clearly represents the effect of environmental regulations, it is enough to simply assess the "environmental friendliness" of the actual use of the territory.

Conflicts of nature management. Traditionally, the rational use of natural resources is cartographically expressed in the form of maps of the use of land, forests, subsoil, etc., and the system of regulatory regulations, in turn, is expressed in the form of maps of legal ecological zoning. The best means to visualize both the actual use of the territory and the environmental requirements imposed on it are geoinformation systems (GIS) designed to ensure the collection, storage, systematization and processing of diverse information. Knowledge of the properties of the object recorded in GIS allows you to attribute it to one or another category of legal zoning. For this purpose, based on the regulations of the legislative framework, specific rules and algorithms are formulated for the automatic assignment of information objects presented in GIS to a specific environmental category. The system of laws becomes not by itself, but oriented to a specific object of use. Visualized in this way, the regulatory framework allows you to "see" the overlap of all regulations on the ground and determine the priority right to use the territory, based on the principle of natural conditionality of human activity and society.

Fig. 1. The alleged conflicts of real and permitted forest use on the territory of the Slyudyansky district of the Irkutsk region.

As an example of the work of the legal environmental zoning tool in the structure of the ecological and legal mechanism of environmental protection, an assessment of the compliance of the actual use of resources with the requirements of environmental legislation was carried out (Fig. 1). The Slyudyansky district of the Irkutsk region, located on the shore of Lake Baikal and experiencing all the features of the restriction of economic activity in the Central Ecological Zone of the BPT, was selected as a model.

At the first stage, an electronic large-scale map of legal ecological zoning has been created, which becomes a geoinformation model of legal zoning, each contour of which, in addition to meaningful information about the object, contains cadastral information and information about its legal status, reflecting the legislative framework. This allows us to proceed to the analysis of the strategy for the use of the territory, in particular to the allocation of places suitable from a legal standpoint for the planned placement of production. In a specific situation, out of all possible types of economic activity, the one that most satisfies the selected criteria and existing legal restrictions is recommended. This is how the problem of optimal choice of the development strategy of the district is solved, allowing to proceed to decision-making and its implementation ^[10].

At the second stage, the categories of legal zoning were compared with maps of the real use of resources, in particular with a map of the real use of forests ^[20], which clearly demonstrates the contradictions in the real and permitted use of the territory, in particular, the location of intensively exploited forests in protected areas. The contradictions revealed as a result of the comparison require more detailed consideration and the involvement of additional data on the actual use of the territory, including the analysis of remote sensing data of the Earth.

Such a situation may be not so much the result of a deliberate violation of environmental legislation, as the result of its active development in general and in the field of Lake Baikal protection in particular. The most striking example is the construction of the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, built on the shore of Lake Baikal in 1966 for the priority needs of the state. The heated debates of scientists about the harm of such production to the ecosystem of the lake in those years were not supported by legislation, but became a significant impetus for the development of legislation in the field of environmental protection.

Nevertheless, the proposed tool of legal ecological zoning, complementing the necessary visualization of the ecological and legal mechanism, allows you to visualize the effect of environmental regulations and to make a long-term forecast of territorial development. With its help, the adequacy and targeting of management decisions and impacts on a specific territory is ensured by unambiguous and accurate interpretation of multilevel environmental restrictions on economic activity for each specific site (taking into account local location features and targeted management, rather than regulating the situation as a whole). It is extremely important to use this mechanism to find the optimal use of different sites before the construction of capital construction projects and business activities.

Conclusion. The system of relations to resources, fixed in normative legal acts, shows the preferred norms of behavior and encourages the use of technologies in nature management based on the widespread use of more efficient and qualitatively advanced factors of production for conducting activities in the territory that has fallen under the law. A clear fixation of the existing legally significant regulations on the use of the territory (types of permitted use of natural resources, maximum loads on natural complexes, restoration potential of the territory) is an essential point for long-term planning and includes the preparation of possible scenarios for the use of natural resource potential within a specific territory, the development of programs for the implementation of the best (safe) option of nature management. The application of the ecological and legal mechanism allows us to find the necessary balance in the sustainable development of the territory, when nature, economy and population interact without harming each other.

The use of the legal environmental zoning tool, as an organizational and legal means of information support for rational nature management and environmental protection, allows you to simultaneously display the effect of all regulatory and legal restrictions on a specific area of the territory. The scientifically-based application of the ecological and legal mechanism in territorial management significantly increases its effectiveness, since the quality of such management largely depends on the usefulness and timeliness of the receipt of characteristics about the territory, on the visibility and accessibility of their presentation. In the tasks of territorial administration, the information with which decisions are made and their consequences are evaluated acquires a system-forming significance.