The Law "On integrated nature use" establishes the system of decision-making related to integrated management of nature use, and includes environmental impact assessment based on ecologo-economic zoning of the territory, introduction of territorial ecological requirements and restrictions, and legitimation of the latter via contracts for integrated nature use, which are to be concluded with municipalities.
The novelty of the draft regional Law "On protected areas in the Leningrad region" is that it approaches the establishment of the categories of PA of regional and local importance following the fundamental principle of creating an ecological frame of the territory. This frame is to include water protection zones of water bodies, protected areas proper and areas under special nature use regimes (areas which have exhausted their assimilation capacity).
The draft regional Law "On protected areas in LR" adds new categories to those listed in the corresponding Federal Law, e.g. coastal zones of water objects. These are natural territories singled out to protect model natural complexes of coastal zones, coastal areas with high biodiversity and productivity, conserve shallow water areas where natural biological water purification processes are the most active.
Another innovation in the draft Law is that the list of categories of protected areas and localities remains open, which means that as socio-economic or ecological conditions change the list of PA categories can be modified accordingly through amendments to the Law.
Regional Law "On fees for the use of water objects in the Leningrad region" adopted at the third reading of the Legislative assembly on June 29, 1999 establishes fees for the use of water objects and the payment procedure. The size of the fees depends on the drainage area (r. Neva, Baltic Sea, r. Volga and drainage areas of other rivers and lakes).
According to the fees stated in the Law next year the Leningrad region budget will receive 18.7 mln. roubles, of which 3.8 mln. will be transferred in compliance with the regional Law "On the budget of the Leningrad region in 1999" to a special budget line for the protection and restoration of water objects. Besides, in accord with the federal Law "On mineral resources" the budget is to receive 14.2 mln. roubles for the regeneration of the raw material resources. And, finally, the payments for the use of forest resources made to the regional budget this year will be 36.9 mln. roubles.
