The compensation for losses caused to the indigenous peoples in Arctic Russia due to the industrial development of their traditional lands is an urgent question whose resolution requires development of new mechanisms and tools. The losses caused to indigenous traditional lands are part of the damage caused to the natural environment, their culture and livelihood. In the Russian Federation cultural impact assessment is a rather new tool aiming to protect indigenous peoples' rights to lands. In this paper the authors show the applied side of the cultural assessment that is used to improve the methodology of the calculation of losses adopted by ministry of regional development in Russia in 2009. This methodology is based on the resource disposition and evaluation of traditional lands. Accordingly, compensation payments are calculated as the sum of the losses in traditional economic activities such as: reindeer herding, hunting, fishing and gathering. Such compensation is considered by authors as the elements of a benefit-sharing system. In practice, this methodology has been tested at industrial projects on alluvial diamonds in Yakutia. In this paper we look at the Polovinnya project case-study which deals with indigenous peoples of Dolgans and Evenks and argues that such a justified, understandable methodology both for indigenous peoples and subsoil user could reduce to a minimum the conflict of interests.
Agricultural and forest lands near settlements are main reserve for expansion of urban areas. Thus, among 148.5 thousand hectares of lands added to Moscow city territory in 2012, 72.2 thousand hectares or 48% were occupied by agricultural and forest lands. Urban areas are characterized by excessively high intensity of land use, land depletion, deterioration in environmental quality and decline in sustainability of urban development. The paper presents the results of analysis of urban land use planning system in the interests of sustainable development of urban territories. The object of the study is the land that is part of Moscow, which is planned to be developed in the coming decades. The authors propose an algorithm for urban development of such areas, which takes into account the quality of land. Design calculations for areas under development were carried out for Shchapovskoye settlement in New Moscow as an example. In addition, the paper covers aspects of land management when developing agricultural land within cities. The authors developed a classification of agricultural land according to a criterion of “suitability for urban development”. The suggested classification has been applied to achieve the objectives of planning urban land use development, determining the order of construction on agricultural lands within the system of sustainable urban development management.
The analysis of different approaches to agricultural land reallocation implemented in several countries leads to the proof that the current methods of preserving valuable agricultural land in Russia are not effective and that the cancellation of compensation of agricultural production losses had led to some negative consequences. The authors developed a new methodology of allocation and preservation of the most valuable agricultural land and carried out calculations of their areas in all federal districts of the European part of the Russian Federation, which includes the most part of arable land in the country. Based on that was developed a new approach to land reallocation and economic regulation of that process.
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