Recently, the environmental agenda in the Arctic has been increasingly discussed due to human impacts on Arctic environment and biodiversity. Some solutions concerning how to make the region safer and sustainable in terms of economic development are proposed by the Clean Arctic federal project.

The participants of the first continental expedition along Russia's land borders called "Russia 360" [Rossiya 360] expect to make substantive input on Arctic-related clean-up activities. They intend to drive through all nine Russian Arctic regions and map the areas of garbage and waste left after years of Arctic exploration.

Part of the Russia 360 expedition will take place in nine Arctic regions of the Russian Federation. The objects of environmental damage are sometimes visible from the air, so everything that will be visible from under the snowdrifts will be recorded by the expedition team and transmitted to us. We will put the data into the map of future clean-ups within the Clean Arctic project, which will start again this year in June, the head of the Clean Arctic project said.

The head added that the contaminated Arctic territories that will be mapped during the Russia 360 expedition could be cleaned up as early as 2024, although much depends on the inaccessibility of the location and the class of debris.

Cleaning is a serious issue that can't be solved in one year. 80 years of Arctic exploration, of course, have left their ecological footprint on 5 million hectares, and I don't know how long it will take us to clean everything up, the head of the Clean Arctic project concluded.

Source: TASS

Also read the publication:
New International Educational Project About the Arctic