Republic of Kalmykia in Transition: Natural Resource Management After Disintegration of the Soviet Union

Introduction

The Republic of Kalmykia, a member republic of the Russian Federation (RF), is located in the southeast of the European part of Russia and in the north-western area of the Caspian Lowlands. The local language is Khalmg-Tangeh. The capital, Elista, is 310 km from Volgograd and 350 km from Grozny. Kalmykia has a territory of approximately 76.1 thousand km2 and a population of 321,000. It is largely an area of steppe and desert, although elevations reach as high as 220 metres.

Kalmykia is engaged primarily in livestock breeding and production, food processing and agro-industrial production. Today the Republic is facing numerous environmental problems, including desertification and the destruction of pastoral land. Traditional pastoral ways of life are also threatened. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the management of natural resources has presented difficult challenges at both the government and community level.

Background

Summary of issues

Pressures from the disintegration of the Soviet Union have created many unique economic, environmental and cultural challenges. These challenges have introduced many changes and caused the Kalmyk people to reconsider their priorities for a future within the international community.

Seven major challenges may be identified:

History of Kalmykia

Historically descended from Mongols, Kalmyk people have a unique cultural and religious life, representing the only Buddhist area in Europe. Originally, the Kalmyks were part of the Oirat tribes, a semi-nomadic branch of the Oirat Mongols, famous for belligerence since the time of Ghengis-khan. The Kalmyk khanate was founded in the 17th century with Tibetan Buddhism as its main religion, following the earlier migration of the Oirats from Chinese Turkistan through Central Asia to the steppe around the mouth of the Volga River. They became allies of the Russians and, at the end of the 18th century, were charged by Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia, with guarding the eastern frontier of the Russian Empire. Under Catherine II, however, the Kalmyks became vassals. In 1771, about 300,000 Kalmyks from east of the Volga set out to return to China but many were massacred on the way. The Kalmyks west of the Volga remained in Russia, where they retained their Lamaist Buddhism and their semi-nomadic way of life.

The word Kalmyk in Turkish means "remnant", or those who stayed behind. The Kalmyk language is related to the Mongolian group of Altaic languages (Altai is part of Russian Siberia). The Kalmyks used a local writing system until 1925, at which point the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast was formed (1920) and then elevated to the status of an autonomous republic in 1935. During World War II, all the people of Kalmykia (about 170,000) were part of the "eight deported nations" under Stalin. The order prescribed that the Kalmyk people be moved to Sakhalin Island, Siberia, and Central Asia, and their republic was dissolved. According to estimates, up to one-third of the Kalmyks died during deportation. In 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev denounced the deportation as a Stalinist crime and Kalmyks started to return to their homeland. The Kalmyk Republic was officially re-established in 1958.

The Russian Federation was formed as a newly independent state in December 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russia, called at this time the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), was the largest and most developed country of the Union. RSFSR as a federal state was composed of 89 federal units, including federal regions (oblasts and krais), ethnic-based autonomous republics, and autonomous regions (oblasts and okrugs). Today, the Russian Federation has inherited most of its administrative structure from the RSFSR. It is now composed of 68 federal regions and 21 ethnic-based republics and regions, which have a great amount of autonomy within the Federation. The Republic of Kalmykia is one of these ethnic-based republics that form an integral part of Russia.

Kalmykia has always been a cultural crossroads and this multi ethnic republic is comprised of ethnic Kalmyks of Mongol origin (Buddhists), Russians, Dargins, Chechens, Kazakhs, and others. Its traditional Buddhist culture is unique in Europe. Here, the largest European Buddhist temple, "Syakusn Syume," has been built along with an orthodox church, Moslem mosque and two catholic chapels. Kazakh, Slavic, German Korean and other local ethnic festivals regularly take place in Kalmykia. Special efforts are also made in the education system to incorporate Kalmykia's multicultural reality.

The ethnic identity of Kalmyks, or their sense of themselves as a nation, is bound up in their Buddhist traditions. In the 1980s, following almost 60 years of limitations imposed by the state, a revival of Buddhism took hold in Kalmykia and Buddhist holidays were once again celebrated throughout the republic.

Kalmyks loves chess. In November 1995 the current President of Kalmykia was elected as the President of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), which unites more than 150 countries. Since that time many international chess events have taken place in Kalmykia. All children in Kalmykia are taught to play chess in school, in order to develop logic and reasoning skills.

Environment

Throughout history, Kalmykia has experienced a vast destruction of pastureland, agricultural land, and traditional pastoral ways of life. During the Soviet era, this region suffered from unwise agricultural policies and mismanagement, and numerous projects contributed to the vast destruction of the local environment.

For example, high quotas for meat and fine fleece production in the planned economy, and the increase of sheep breeding for this purpose eventually led to overgrazing of most of Kalmykia's rich pastureland. The subsequent degradation of the soil contributed heavily to the desertification of the republic.

Intensive desertification urgently requires soil conservation and protection. Soil has always been Kalmykia's richest resource. In the Soviet era, degradation of the pastures of the Black Soils led to the first large man-made desert in Europe, with vast areas of open and blowing sand. During dust storms, the sand reaches the borders of European countries beyond Russia. Major environmental challenges after the disintegration of the Soviet Union are outlined below:

Activities with negative environment impact:

Key challenges:

Key corrective responses:

Key environment-related outcomes:

Associated outcomes:

Environmental challenges after the disintegration of the Soviet Union

Open desert and deteriorated pastures now cover half of Kalmykia. Different studies show that 83% of Kalmykia's territory suffers from processes of desertification and 47% from severe and very severe desertification. The appearance of the desert in this region resulted mainly from agricultural mismanagement. At the end of the 19th century, farms were small and the livestock that was raised - camels, cattle and fat-tailed sheep with flat hoofs - did not cause much harm to pasture grasses. After 1917, and especially from the middle of the 20th century, large agricultural collective farms appeared and livestock breeding was reoriented toward meat production and fine fleece sheep breeding. The number of sheep in Kalmykia increased from less than 1 million in the 1970s to approximately 3.2 to 3.5 million in the mid-1980s. This increase did not take into account the carrying capacity of the local pastures and the result was accelerated pasture degradation. In addition, the introduction of heavy Caucasus sheep with sharp hooves destroyed vegetation (the percentage of camels and cattle were reduced from 40% to 6.7%). Eventually, overgrazing led to a sharp reduction of the sheep population as sheep literally starved to death in the pastures.

Other major consequences of environmental degradation include rapid salinisation, water pollution and drought, the destruction of pastoral land, and the reduction of biodiversity and ecosystems productivity.

The Black Soils (Chernaya Zemlya) generated widespread public attention. In 1991, a part of the Black Soils area was declared a national biosphere reserve and all economic activities were forbidden in this territory. The Black Soils biosphere reserve, with an area of 2.98 million ha in Kalmykia, now serves as an example of biodiversity conservation efforts. Here, many endangered species are under protection: 24 mammal species (such as hare, various types of rodents, saiga antelope), 60 bird species (such as eagle, partridge, skylark, buzzard), and 124 types of plants.

In 1993, Kalmykia declared a "state of environmental emergency." In summary, this ongoing crisis is a result of intensive land degradation, shortage of water, increasing human strain on the natural environment over recent decades, and extreme natural conditions. These conditions have contributed to a decline in the life expectancy and overall health and quality of life of the population. This has, in turn, threatened the gene pool of the Kalmyk people and pointed the way towards ecological ethnocide. Since the declaration of the state of environmental emergency, the UNEP has assisted Kalmykia in the development of a National Action Plan to improve the state of the environment and to combat desertification.

Desertification has had a major impact not only on the environment, but also on the economy of Kalmykia, the region's agricultural/pastoral way of life, relations with neighbouring regions, and the population as a whole. This process is leading to major socioeconomic changes, causing migration of the population, and reduction in health standards and the quality of life. Fresh water supplies are also a pressing issue.

In the last ten years, the economy has been slowing down considerably. To restore economic activity in the desert territories, an interest in traditional livestock and economic practices has been revitalised. For example, several farms have started to breed camels to produce camel hair, steaks, and kumis, a mild alcoholic drink made from fermented mare's milk. At the same time, the large areas of degraded pastures are also being regenerated (300,000 hectares have been recovered in the Black Soils and Kizlyar area in neighbouring Dagestan in the last ten years). Large-scale planting operations are carried out every spring and autumn in degraded areas to fix the soil and to improve the quality of pastureland. Although attempts are being made to replace the sheep with camels in some parts of the country, much of the environmental damage is beyond repair.

Exploration for oil and gas deposits in the Chernozomelsky region has potentially negative environmental consequences. Recently, after the opening the Astrakhan gas condensate emission station, air conditions in Kalmykia have worsened considerably. Dust and sulphur emissions lead to air, soil and water pollution, causing serious health problems.

The Caspian Pipeline Tengiz-Novorossijsk is an example of potential economic benefit, environmental risk and territorial conflict. The pipeline runs from Kazakhstan through Astrakhan and Kalmykia. Gas production and transportation are expected to begin in June 2001. However, a territorial conflict has arisen between two regions of the Russian Federation - Kalmykia and Astrakhan - which cannot divide ownership and rights to 390 hectares of the pastures on which 87 km of this pipeline passes. According to some estimates, deductions from the disputed section of the pipeline in the budget of the region should amount to about 20 million US dollars annually over 10 years. The territorial conflict has historical roots. During Kalmyk deportation, the Astrakhan population used this land, and this practice continued until the introduction of market principles in recent years. Today the border situation is contentious: not only has the land been assigned monetary value, but tensions are high over environmental degradation and the deterioration of pastures.

Inappropriate irrigation projects upset the delicate ecosystem of the region and caused catastrophic ecological damage. Negative effects on the environment are also caused by the rise of the Caspian Sea level and exposure of about 230,000 hectares of land to floods that destroy property, roads and power lines.

Lack of water for agricultural purposes and for drinking have always plagued Kalmykia. A few large-scale projects were developed during Soviet times to solve this problem, but they failed because of an inability to predict and to take into account the environmental consequences of their implementation. This failure is explained also by an ignorance of the local conditions and traditions, demonstrating that the complexity of the situation cannot be solved by technological intervention alone.

The best example is the story of the Volga Chograi canal. When Mikhail Gorbachev was the party leader of the Stavropol region, several projects were developed to divert Volga water to arid regions through a man-made canal, without careful attention to the environmental impacts these projects would have. The construction of the Volga Chograi canal was part of the Minvodkhoz (Ministry of Water Management and Amelioration, a very powerful state organisation in Soviet times), one of many projects that diverted northern and Siberian rivers to the south. Financed by the Russian federal budget, a stretch of about 160km was dug for the canal in 1987-1988. An anti-canal movement started in Kalmykia, but this democratic movement was suppressed. Following the appeal of scientists, and those who opposed the canal for environmental and economic reasons, construction of the canal was halted. As a result of this immense project, a deep gash in the landscape remains. Ground waters have risen and become highly mineralised (93g/l). Health symptoms, similar to the ones around the Aral Sea, are present in this area: people suffer from diseases, sand storms and fresh water shortages.

Conclusion

After disintegration: Challenges for communities and natural resource management

Kalmykia is now paying special attention to environmental management and the development of economic instruments to regulate the environment. In 1993, President, Kurzhon Ilumzhinov declared a state of environmental emergency in the Republic. In addition to federal environmental legislation and several other republican environmental regulations, an Environmental Impact Assessment Act was adopted in Kalmykia in 1995. Today the process of decentralisation embraces not only the redistribution of powers between the Central Government of the Russian Federation and the regions (constituent units of the RF), but also the redistribution of powers within these constituent formations (between regional and local governments). In other words, all intergovernmental relations are in the process of adaptation to new realities. Natural resources are one of the most disputable and contradictory areas of intergovernmental relations in the Russian Federation. Here "questions of ownership, use, and disposition of lands, resources deposits, water and other resources" (Article 72, par "V" of the Constitution) are a matter of shared jurisdiction. The Central Government of the RF has already negotiated treaties and agreements with a number of federal regions and republics, which contain different provisions governing natural resources.

It was recognised that Kalmykia required a form of public governance that could mitigate competing interests and provide analysis on natural resources. The Ministry for the Protection of the Environment and Natural Resources has been created in the Republic of Kalmykia, and it now plays an active role in solving and promoting environmental restoration. In Kalmykia, local communities and their governments are working to reorganise themselves in coordination with Republican administration to better deal with challenges facing communities and the natural resource management. As illustrated, this has been done through the capacity building of institutions, the diversification of economic activities away from a reliance on natural resources and a concerted effort to attract private investment. Key to all of these strategies has been the renewal and introduction of traditional economic practices more adapted to local environmental conditions .

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