It is important to ensure an adequate level of protection for nature, which is a national asset of the country, Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko said at a meeting with top officials of the Council of Ministers in Minsk on 11 August, BelTA has learned.
The issue arose during the discussion of a possible merger between the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry and the State Inspectorate on Wildlife Protection. “In the complex area of nature protection and control over natural resource use, these agencies work in a coordinated manner and seemingly successfully: they uncover criminal schemes and prevent various types of violations. For example, poaching has been reduced to a minimum,” he emphasized.
At the same time, as the president noted, apart from poaching, there are other problems in nature protection. “This is the protection of our nature, and we need to go all out here, because this is truly our national heritage,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stated. “In the center of a vast civilization - the Eurasian continent, there is the cleanest corner of the planet. It is even surprising that it has been preserved."
“The appropriate inspectorate must fight not only poaching, but also those who are accustomed to littering and polluting. Both the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry and the inspectorate are falling short here. So we don’t have everything under control. There are plenty of problems that need to be addressed,” the head of state emphasized.
