V Environmental Advocacy Forum “Natural Ecosystems and a Human. Advocacy Aspects"

On September 24, 2021, the V Environmental Advocacy Forum “Natural Ecosystems and a Human. Advocacy Aspects" took place. It was organized by the Ombudsman of the Ivanovo region and the Ivanovo regional branch of the All-Russian Society for the Conservation of Nature.

The plenary session was attended by the rector of IvSU Alexey Malygin and IvSU vice-rector for research and project activities Inna Smirnova.

Along with the plenary discussion (moderators: Svetlana Shmeleva, Ombudsman of the Ivanovo Region, and Svetlana Semushkina, Chairperson of the Council of the Ivanovo Regional Branch of the All-Russian Society for the Conservation of Nature), several specific sessions were organized: “Ecosystems in nature and in a city”, “Elimination of accumulated environmental damage”, “Environmental education for sustainable development: reality and prospects”, “Harmonious land use and quality of food”.

The moderators of the session "Legal foundations of environmental safety: condition, problems, ways of their solution" were representatives of Ivanovo State University: Dean of the Faculty of Law Olga Sokolova and Head of the Department of Constitutional Law and Human Rights Nina Isaeva. The meeting was held in a hybrid format, which allowed participants from different regions to join the discussion.

The session program included reports from government officials, civil society institutions, scientists and students. Among the issues discussed were protection of environmental rights of citizens in the activities of the regional ombudsman (Svetlana Shmeleva, Ombudsman of the Ivanovo region); supervision over the implementation of environmental legislation on the territory of our region (Maksim Grechanik, prosecutor of the Ivanovo interdistrict environmental prosecutor's office); environmental problems of the Ivanovo region and ways to solve them (Dmitry Kochnev, first deputy head of the Department of housing services of the Ivanovo region); implementation of environmental legislation at the regional level (Yury Kirsanov, deputy head of the Department of State Environmental Supervision of the Department of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Ivanovo Region); legal aspects of personality ecology (Nina Isaeva, head of the Department of constitutional law and human rights, Ivanovo State University); criminal legislation on environmental crimes (Olga Sokolova, Dean of the Law Faculty of the Ivanovo State University).

The discussion at the meetings turned out to be lively, showing a genuine concern for the region's environmental problems and a desire to find ways to resolve them.