Far East Zoning, Freight Handling, and Microplastic Study

Photo: Shtrik Vadim/GeoPhoto.ru

Far East Zoning, Freight Handling, and Microplastic Study

The Far East and Arctic Ministry has introduced a new informal zoning scheme for the Far Eastern Federal District, the largest of the eight Russia’s federal districts encompassing a vast territory of some 6.95 million square kilometers. The purpose of zoning is to optimize economic, investment and workforce planning and administration processes. According to the plan announced by Minister Chekunkov, the district will be broken down into four provinces, namely, Transbaikal, Border, Insular and Northern. Two Arctic regions, the Yakut Republic and the Chukotka Autonomous District became part of the Northern province, along with the subpolar region of Magadan.

The Russian port authority released recent data regarding freight handling at the Arctic ports of Russia. The Russian Arctic ports handled a total of 46.3 million metric tonnes of cargo in the first six months of 2021, of which 13.4 million tonnes are dry bulk and 32.9 are liquid bulk. The Murmansk sea port handled 27.5, Sabetta 13.9, Varandey 2.3 and Arkhangelsk 1.5 million tonnes of cargo.

On 11 July, the nuclear-powered icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy (50 Years of Victory) with more than 100 passengers onboard left Murmansk and headed to the North Pole. One of its passengers, Fyodor Konyukhov, a survivalist, traveler and explorer, will disembark onto the ice pack in the vicinity of the North Pole to establish a research base and gather data on microplastic pollution in the Arctic Ocean. It is the first event under the Clean Arctic initiative recently announced by the civic society, environmental activists and conservancy groups.
Alexander Stotskiy
12 July 2021
Arctic Today