Environmental Development Strategy for Early Developed Regions: Example of Yaroslavl Region

The article shows the results of analysis of the region’s priority problems using the prepared Environmental Strategy of the Yaroslavl Region as an example and taking into account the external context and global Sustainable Development Goals. It also includes the description of the main environmental problems of the Yaroslavl Region, and mechanisms for solving them and selected performance indicators. The article shows that evolution of understanding environmental issues as systemic tasks of spatial development, enhancement of the role of goal-setting and orientation towards the implementation of SDGs and national priorities, inclusion of the region in the transfer of new green technologies should be taken into account when developing environmental strategies of the early developed regions, considered as complex non-equilibrium natural-anthropogenic complexes of various levels of territory organization. All this implies a transition from a sectoral approach to an ecosystem approach. The main attention should be paid to assessing the state and dynamics of natural capital as a value of a geographically specific set of ecosystem services, as well as minimizing environmental risks resulting from economic and other activities. The experience of the Yaroslavl region showed that the most important problems for the environmental development of the early-developed region are: a gradual decrease in the economic value of natural capital; increasing environmental vulnerability of cities; increasing environmental and social vulnerability of rural settlements. These issues are the basis for specific goals and objectives, outlined measures and indicators of their implementation. As an information platform, it is advisable to use the methodology of environmental-economic accounting (SEEA).

Keywords: environmental strategy, green economy, natural capital, early-developed region, sustainable development.