ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS OF KAZAKHSTAN IN THE 1980s AND EARLY 2000s

Abstract

The article considers the impact of industrial development on environmental pollution in Kazakhstan in the 1980s and early 2000s. Special attention is paid to the comparison of socio-environmental policy of the country in the late-Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The problem of the impact of industrialization on the environment and ways to prevent its possible pollution were the most urgent for our republic, where one of the most powerful industrial bases is located. The necessity of measures on radical reorganization of nature protection was dictated by the deterioration of the environment.

At the same time, proper utilization of natural resources was also dictated in Kazakhstan by specific natural and climatic conditions related to the insufficiency of water resources. Kazakhstan belonged and still belongs to the category of countries with large deficit of water resources and water reservoirs were intensively polluted by industrial enterprises and posed a real environmental threat. Insufficient consideration of natural peculiarities and in some cases simply ignoring them led to irreversible processes in many industrial regions of Kazakhstan.

As a result, the incompatibility of the natural environment and some existing technological processes aimed mainly at achieving visible profit without taking into account the damage caused to the environment became increasingly clear. Backward production technology - insufficient equipment of enterprises with water treatment systems, and, most importantly, the lack of waste-free technology led to the destruction of large water reservoirs in the country. Emissions of harmful substances into rivers and lakes, the emergence of the public "green" movement for the preservation of ecologically clean nature, the critical situation in some centers of industry, forced to organize production in the industry in a new way, to pay great attention to the protection of nature, social problems of workers, their health.

Based on statistical data, the author concludes that in the post-Soviet era it was possible to achieve a relative improvement in the environmental situation in Kazakhstan, but many problems remain unresolved.