Despite the fact that environmental problems became especially relevant only in the 20th century, the individual measures aimed at preserving the environment were taken by different countries before, an analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza Matvey Katkov said in the National Question Program on Vesti FM.
The expert noted that, if by ecology we mean the preservation of the traditional habitat and the opportunity to engage in different activities, then such measures can be traced in the history of Russia in the 16th-17th centuries during the development of Eastern Siberia by the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
“Of course, often these steps were purely practical in nature, associated with the need to maintain subsistence farming. But sometimes such actions were actually systematic state policies aimed at certain ethnic groups. For example, something similar can be observed during the development of Eastern Siberia by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In the 17th century, the Moscow kings conducted a policy toward the Samoyedic people, which now can be described as ethnoecological,” the expert said.
He noted that often such projects were political in nature while being also environmental.
"Part of the Moscow merchants in the 16 -17th centuries rightly feared that the land east of the Gulf of Ob could actually get under the British jurisdiction. In this regard, a whole set of measures were taken to maintain the traditional way of life,’’ the historian continued.
The concept of 'ecology' is modern, but the problems associated with it, one way or another, have always existed. Another thing is that the scale of these problems was quite different and the measures aimed at it were not expressed in the adoption of any special programs or investment projects, the era was different. But the topic itself, as we see, is not new. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that today the national environmental projects are closely linked to global politics, "the expert concluded.
