Amur Needs un Clean-up Aid
The United
Nations may allocate $7 million within a UN Environment Programme
(UNEP) budget for an ecological preserve on the Amur River.
On
November 24 the international supervisory board including the experts
for the UNEP project from Russia, China and Mongolia discussed in
China’s city of Harbin major issues to be addressed within the
project, named ‘Complex control in the Amur River basin’. Among
the project’s priorities, the Russian experts stressed the need to
provide ecological security to Primorye’s residents by increasing
the purity of the Amur River water and its fish resources.
The specialists also expressed the necessity to frequently exchange information gathered on the Amur River and its tributaries.
Overall, Russian experts offered eight major ecological problems to be tackled within the project. All of the suggested items were accepted by Chinese and Mongolian experts for consideration.
“Russia took the initiative at the meeting since the country’s Kabarovsk region is located at the river’s lower course and we experience in full the negative effects of its pollution,” cited the Head of the region’s Department of Natural Resources Sergei Andriyenko.
To receive the money for the project, the three participating countries must conduct a cross-border analysis of the Amur River to receive the UN grant for the Amur clean-up. At the next working session to be held in the Chinese town of Heihe in January 2007, the project participants will choose the ecological issues which will top the agenda.
The river, according to experts, has been suffering from rampant pollution for many years. Public attention to ecological problems on the Amur River was greatly increased last December, when it became contaminated by a toxic slick of chemicals which reached it from the Songhua River.
The explosion at a petrochemical factory in the Chinese city of Jilin resulted in 100 tons of benzene spilling into the Songhua River. The previous UNEP ecological projects implemented in the Far East are those in Primorye’s Khanka Lake and in Mongolia’s Daurian Steppe zone, which are the parts of the Amur River basin. The neighboring countries of Mongolia, Russia and China participated in both projects, which did not, however, receive wide attention.
Combined reports
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15. Analyze the articles and make a list of main ecological problems of the river and measures to solve them.
16. Write an essay on the following topic:” Father Amur is the River of life in the Far East”. Lesson 26. Far Eastern Federal District
1. Scan the information.
Statiscical Data:
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Siberia and the Pacific Ocean.
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The Far Eastern Federal District is the largest of the seven federal districts of Russia. With a population of over 6, 8 million (4,7% of the total popularion in the RF), the Far Eastern FD is the least populated federal district of Russia.
The Far Eastern FD was established in 2000 by President Vladimir Putin and is being governed by a presidential envoy. The Far Eastern FD covers the territory of the Russian Far East and is subdivided into republics that enjoy a high degree of autonomy on most issues. Many of these correspond to some of Russia's ethnic minorities.
Federal
subjects
Subjects of the Far Eastern Federal District: 1.Amur Oblast (Blagoveshchensk), 2.Jewish Autonomous Oblast (Birobidzhan), 3.Kamchatka Territory (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky), 4.Magadan Oblast (Magadan), 5.Primorskiy Terrotory (Vladivostok), 6.Sakhalin Oblast (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), 7.Khabarovsk Terrotory (Khabarovsk), 8.Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (Anadyr), 9.Sakha Republic (Yakutsk);
Интересные факты о Дальнем Востоке:
• С 1992 усилился отток населения Дальнего Востока в западные регионы России. За 14 лет население региона сократилось более чем на 1 млн. человек.
• В связи с сокращением населения на юг Дальнего Востока хлынула дешёвая рабочая сила — китайцы, в основном рабочие и крестьяне.
• На Дальнем Востоке ещё с начала 1990-х гг. намечалось построить 2 АЭС — близ Хабаровска и Уссурийска, чтобы обеспечивать дешёвой электроэнергией не только Россию, но и Китай, однако большинство населения отрицательно относится к подобным проектам.
• К 2008 году планируется завершить строительство газо - и нефтепровода «Восточная Сибирь — Тихий океан» (ВСТО).
• Самый большой по территории регион ДВ — Якутия, а самый маленький — Еврейская автономная область. Наиболее населён Приморский край, наименее — Чукотский автономный округ.
• На шельфе острова Сахалин найдены большие запасы нефти.
• В 1920—1922 на территории Российского Дальнего Востока (без Якутии) и Забайкалья существовала независимая Дальневосточная республика.
• Дальний Восток расположен во многих климатических поясах. Самая южная точка расположена на широте Дербента и Дубровника, а самая северная находится ещё севернее Барроу на Аляске.
• Если бы Дальний Восток России был независимым государством, это была бы 7-я страна мира по территории и только 97-я по численности населения.
• На всём Дальнем Востоке России проживает более, чем в 1,5 раза меньше жителей, чем в Москве.
2. Speak about the Far Eastern Federal District.
3. Read and discuss the article.
Chinese Diaspora
Facts say that there are only around 40 million Russians settled across the vast expanse of the Far East and Siberia, with only 7 million in the Far East itself. Yet now, for example, Russia’s main Pacific port and naval base of Vladivostok, once closed to foreigners, is bristling with Chinese markets, restaurants and trade houses. The expanding Chinese presence in the area has led to yellow peril-style fears of Chinese occupation. Russian newspapers publish fantastic estimates of between two and five million Chinese migrants in the Russian Far East, and predict that half of the population of Russia would be Chinese by 2050.
Russians understand hostile intent in the Chinese practice of using different names for local cities, such as Hǎishēnwǎi for Vladivostok, and a widespread folk belief states that the Chinese migrants remember the exact locations of their ancestors' ginseng patches, and seek to restore them.
The fear of the Chinese and talks about the Chinese influx are described as being less prevalent in the Russian Far East, where most of the Chinese shuttle trade is actually occurring, than in European Russia. The southern part of the Russian Far East, south of the Stanovoy Mountains, was yielded by China to Russia in the 19th century in the Treaty of Aigun and Treaty of Beijing.
Chinese historians present the treaties as being Unequal Treaties imposed on China by Russia by force, a presentation that also figures strongly in Chinese schools.