Nedoseka E.V. (2022). Environmental agenda in the consciousness of residents of industrial regions of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. Problems of Territory’s Development, 26 (1), 80–92.

Abstract

The regions of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation represent a special spatial organization, where the environmental agenda is increasingly becoming the object of close attention. This circumstance is largely due to factors that determine the specifics of the region: objective (natural and climatic nature); subjective (historical, associated with the peculiarities of the development of territories in the Soviet era and socio-economic, determining the key role of industrial production in the Russian Arctic). The paper identifies the inconsistency in the management vision of the region, which, on the one hand, is aimed at achieving sustainable development goals, and on the other hand, at consolidating and strengthening the development of the industrial potential of aggressive industries. In a situation where the population does not have access to objective, reliable and timely information about the state of the environment in their places of direct residence and the global environmental situation, the level of trust in official sources (government and business) turns out to be low. This leads to the spontaneous formation of an environmental agenda, which is often of a protest nature. The purpose of the article is to study the substantive component of the environmental agenda of the inhabitants of the Arctic region of the Russian Federation. The theoretical and methodological framework of the study was the theory of norm activation by Sh. Schwartz, who investigated the relationship between values, attitudes and behavior and proposed a theoretical model for the formation of altruistic behavior. In the course of empirical research, the following was revealed: the level of concern about the ecological situation in the structure in different territories; respondents’ assessment of the significance of specific environmental problems; the level of trust in various sources on environmental issues, as well as the degree of awareness of personal involvement and the ability to influence the situation. The object of the study was the inhabitants of the Arctic territories of the Republic of Karelia and the Murmansk region. The number of respondents is 1,505, the sample is carried, quoted.