Earth's pulse
When we worry for any reason, we always strive to find a place of power where we can stand still, avoid running, listen to our own breathing, see the endless beauty of the world around us, merge with nature and remember that you are part of all this beauty. You can find yourself in a forest, on a lonely seashore, at the foot of a mountain or on the plain, and you will see life in any corner of the Earth. The rustling of insects, the singing of birds, the roar of predators, or tiny, but strong-willed flowers on sheer cliffs, and somewhere nearby there are boulders wrapped in colorful lichens. All this is biodiversity.
International Convention on Biological Diversity
Rio de Janeiro, 1992
The level of the landscape diversity in Russia is one of the highest in the world. At the same time, more than 60% of the area of Russia is represented by the undisturbed and slightly disturbed landscapes preserving the natural habitats of plants and animals. [1]
There are unique natural objects that are important for the world’s culture such as the UNESCO World Heritage natural sites[2]: the Virgin Komi forests, Lake Baikal, volcanoes of Kamchatka, Central Sikhote-Alin, Golden Altai Mountains, Ubsunur basin, the Western Caucasus, Wrangel Island, Plateau Putorana, the Lena Pillars.
Preservation of landscape diversity and ecosystems ensures, in turn, the conservation of biodiversity at all levels of its manifestation. Biodiversity protection plays a major role in climate regulation, stabilization of the global carbon balance, and human health also depends on it.
According to the UN[3], the world's ecosystems are in danger today. A report released in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services says that more species - up to 1 million plants and animals - are threatened with extinction than at any time in human history. The unprecedented and accelerating deterioration of nature over the past 50 years has been driven by changes in the land and sea use, exploitation of living creatures, climate change, pollution and invasive species.
Any human economic activity imposes certain risks on the environment and affects the natural diversity of plant and animal communities. And the energy industry is not an exception here.
When developing production or construction activities Enel Russia pays attention to many factors including the principle of presumption related to the danger of its activities for biodiversity, which is enshrined in the Policy on Biological Diversity implemented in Enel Russia . In the company, when making decisions on the implementation of projects, an environmental impact assessment is mandatory to identify all types of potential impacts. At all stages of the life cycle of power facilities, the principle of the “impact minimization hierarchy” is taken into account, consisting primarily in solving the problem of preventing negative impacts, and if not possible, in finding solutions to minimize it, and the third extreme measure is compensation for the impact in monetary terms or through in-kind compensation for harm through the reproduction of species that have been harmed or the restoration of their habitat. In case of any environmental impact the priority is always given in the company in favor of in-kind compensation.
Among the recent major projects of Enel Russia in the field of biodiversity preservation, we can highlight the completion of elimination of the sludge dump at Konakovskaya GRES in the Tver region, thanks to which 8 hectares of land were restored within the forest area. During the construction of Kola wind farm in the Murmansk region, compensatory reforestation on the area exceeding 70 hectares and artificial reproduction and release of Atlantic salmon into the Umbra River were carried out.
We, as power engineers, do vital work for the well-being of the population and strive to limit the impact on our environment with its numerous and diverse plants and animals as much as possible. Read about the beauty and biodiversity of the regions of our presence in Telegram channel of Enel Russia in the “Pulse of Life” section.
Life is a miracle. And we believe in it.
[1] https://www.cbd.int/doc/world/ru/ru-nr-05-ru.pdf
[2] http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31
[3] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/