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ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRODUCING ECONOMY IN RUSSIA
Abstract
Based on the analysis of literary and cartographic material, zonal-landscape characteristics of the development of a producing economy and the emergence of the first environmental challenges in the territory of Russia are assessed. The first environmental problems were caused by a change in the climatic conditions of the life of the earliest settlers and by the peculiarities of the emergence and development of their producing economy. The emergence of the first centers of producing economy in the territory of Russia is associated with the tribes of the Maykop culture settling across the plain landscapes in foothills of northern Caucasus, where they engaged in and developed hoe farming and near-house cattle raising. With the development of the producing economy in the Eneolithic age, along with the formation of a permanent, long-existing settlement and agricultural structure, the valley complexes in the foothills of northern Caucasus were subjected to severe anthropogenic impact. At the end of the Eneolithic period, the resource base of the ‘inclosing’ landscapes was severely depleted, and local tribes had to start exploring and developing the areas of steppe landscapes of the interfluves. Later on, in the Bronze Age, the productive economy, and with it, various kinds of environmental problems, depending on the local landscape conditions and methods of farming, spread to the steppe, forest-steppe and forest landscapes of the vast expanses of Russia. In the Bronze Age, in the forest zone, the extensive forest cattle-breeding by the tribes of the Fatyanovo-Balanovo cultural-historical community led to the deforestation in the floodplains of rivers and lakes. Within floodplain natural boundaries and territories, the first stable elements of anthropogenic origin – floodplain meadows – appeared in the morphological structure of landscapes. At the turn of the II-I millennium B.C., in the steppe zone, dramatic climatic desiccation occurred, followed by partial insiccation of the steppe lakes, overdrying and disappearance of minor rivers. The forced reduction of agricultural land area led to a significant environmental crisis. A surge in the grazing pressure on riverine landscape complexes led to severe pasture degradation of psammophytic steppes within floodplain-terrace complexes, in several areas accompanied by soil drifting. The outbreak of the environmental crisis, caused by the climate change, led to the ‘great migration of people’.
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