Mineral resources of the earth. Environmental impacts of mining

In the process of mining and processing of minerals, a person affects a large geological cycle. Man transforms mineral deposits into other forms chemical compounds. For example, a person gradually exhausts combustible minerals (oil, coal, gas, peat) and eventually converts them into carbon dioxide and carbonates. Secondly, a person distributes over the surface of the earth, dispersing, as a rule, former geological accumulations.

Currently, about 20 tons are mined annually for every inhabitant of the Earth. raw materials, of which a few percent goes into the final product, and the rest of the mass turns into waste.

Most mineral deposits are complex and contain several components that are economically viable to extract. In oil fields, associated components are gas, sulfur, iodine, bromine, boron, in gas fields - sulfur, nitrogen, helium. Currently, there is a constant and rather significant decrease in the content of metals in mined ores. Obviously, in 20–25 years, to obtain the same amount of non-ferrous and ferrous metals, it will be necessary to more than double the amount of mined and processed ore.

Mining affects all spheres of the Earth. The impact of mining on the lithosphere is manifested in the following:

1. Creation of anthropogenic forms of mesorelief: quarries, dumps (up to 100-150 m high), waste heaps (up to 300 m high), etc. More than 2,000 waste rock dumps with a height of about 50–80 m are located on the territory of Donbass. As a result open mining minerals, quarries are formed with a depth of more than 500 m.

2. Activation of geological processes (karst, landslides, talus, subsidence and displacement rocks). During underground mining, subsidence troughs and dips are formed. In Kuzbass, a chain of sinkholes (up to 30 m deep) stretches for more than 50 km.

3. Change in physical fields, especially in areas permafrost.

4. Mechanical disturbance of soils and their chemical pollution. Within a radius of 35 - 40 km from the existing quarry, crop yields are reduced by 30% compared to the average level.

Mining affects the state of the atmosphere:

1. Air pollution occurs with emissions of CH 4 , sulfur, carbon oxides from mine workings, as a result of burning dumps and waste heaps (release of N, C, S oxides), gas and oil fires.

2. The dust content of the atmosphere increases as a result of burning dumps and waste heaps, during explosions in quarries, which affects the amount of solar radiation and temperature, and the amount of precipitation.

The impact of mining on the hydrosphere is manifested in the depletion of aquifers and in the deterioration of the quality of ground and surface waters.

Comprehensive measures for the rational use of minerals and protection of subsoil include the following:

1. Ensuring the completeness of the extraction of minerals during mining:

a) improving the quality of exploration work;

b) expansion of open pit mining;

c) introduction of mining systems with goaf backfilling;

d) separate extraction of minerals and rocks;

e) re-development of sites and deposits;

f) development and use special methods and measures to reduce losses. For example, increasing the recovery of oil reservoirs is carried out by various methods: physicochemical, thermal, waterflooding. With the help of steam-thermal impact on the reservoirs, the oil yield exceeds 40%. Enhanced oil recovery lengthens the exploitation of fields.

2. Ensuring the completeness of the extraction of minerals during processing:

a) increasing the degree of extraction of minerals by improving the technology of processing. Such technologies include underground leaching, microbiological, physicochemical, hydrometallic and combined methods.

b) use of pre-enrichment methods;

c) processing of dumps and waste;

d) additional extraction of useful components;

e) purification of mine and waste water;

f) development of economic incentives for a more complete recovery from enrichment.

3. Rational use of extracted mineral raw materials and products of its processing in national economy:

a) saving resources is one of the ways rational use.Each percentage of savings in fuel and energy resources is 2-3 times more profitable than increasing the production of a rolled product resource by hardening it, applying coatings that protect against corrosion

b) recycling of products of processing of mineral raw materials. Large reserve in use secondary resources is the recycling of scrap metal;

c) maximum reduction of losses during the transportation of mineral raw materials, coal, etc.

The set of measures to radically improve the use of energy resources includes three main aspects:

ü reduction of energy consumption to meet energy needs;

ü increasing the range of use of energy resources by improving the technology of extraction, processing, distribution and use of fuel and energy resources;

replacement of expensive and limited types of energy resources with cheaper energy sources.

6 Mineral resources of Belarus, their use and problems of protection natural complexes in the development of minerals. In the bowels of B. more than 30 types of mines. raw materials. According to the degree of readiness for use vyd. field: 1. With detailed explored reserves of the miner. Raw materials 2. Not yet prepared for industrial development, 3. Promising areas. Fuel resources .Oil. According to comp. in 2008, 71 deposits were discovered in Belarus, 68 in the Gomel region. and and 3 in Mogilevskaya. Developed about 38 deposits. The largest: (Rechitskoye, Ostashkovichskoye (Svetlogorsk district), Vishanskoye (Svetlog. And Oktyabr. districts), Tishkovskoye (Rech. district), Davydovskoye (Svetlog. district). Gas. In the development of oil fields mined associated gas, deposits on ter. Borshchevsky, Krasnoselsky and Zapadno-Aleksandrovsky deposits. Peat. Stocks located. in all areas. Field Svetlogorsk, Vasilevichskoe, Lukskoe (Gom. Region), Berezinsky, Chistik, Smolevichskoe (Minsk. Region), Rare Horn, Dnieper (Tomb. Region), Berezovsky (Grodno. Region), Dobeevsky moss, Usvizh Buk, Vitebsk (Vit .region). It is used as local fuel, it is also possible to use. For production of organomineral fertilizers, filters, prod. For household chemicals, wood dyes, in mud therapy. Brown coals. There are 3 deposits in Gomelskaya. brown coal: Zhitkovichskoe, Brinevskoe and Tonezhskoe. To the industry The Brinevskoye field and two deposits at the Zhitkovichi field were prepared for development: Severnaya and Naidinskaya. oil shale . 2 cereals Deposit: Luban (Minsk region) and Turov (Gomel and Brest regions). Gor. sl potential raw material for the development of energy, chemical. prom-ti, pro-va builds. materials. Nonmetallic Potassium salts 3 deposits. Starobinskoe in Mins. region, Petrikovskoe and Oktyabrskoe in Gom. region). Republican Unitary Enterprise "PO" Belaruskali "at the Starobinsky field. Potash ores, from which potash fertilizers are produced. Rock salt. 3 deposits: Starobinskoye in the Min. Oblast, Davydovskoye and Mozyrskoye in the Gom. obl.) Salt is mined at the Mozyr deposit. And in last years mining of rock salt (food, fodder and technical salt) was started at the Starobinsky deposit. Dolomites. Field Ruba in Vit.reg., developed by Dolomit JSC. The raw material is used for the production of dolomite flour, crushed dolomite, asphalt concrete coatings, as a refractory material, etc. Cement raw materials. Chalk. - more than 30 deposits. The largest is Kommunarskoye (Kostyukovichsky district). Margel - deposit. Kommunary and Kamenka (Mogilev region), Ros (Grodno region). Fusible clays (ceramic raw materials) Gaidukovo Minsk. district. Refractory and refractory clays . 6 deposits, 4 of which are in operation, the largest ones are Gorodokskoye (Loevsky district), Stolinskiye khutor and Gorodnoye (Stolin district). Used for the production of refractories, refractory bricks, facing tiles. Glass and molding sands . 3 deposits. Molding Peskov: Lenino in the Dobrush region, Zhlobin and Chetvernya in the Zhlobin region.; Location glass sands: Gorodnoe (Brest region), Loevskoe (Gom. region) Building stone. Mestor. Mikashevichi, Glushkovichi, Sitnitsa, in the south of Belarus. Ore. Iron ore. 2 iron ore deposits: Okolovskoe deposit. ferruginous quartzites (Stolbtsovsky district, Minsk region) and Novoselkovskoye ilmenite-magnetite ores (Korelichsky district, Grodno region). Sapropels. 85 deposits, located. in all regions of the country, Sudable, Holy. Use In quality Fertilizers, additives to livestock feed, light building materials, for medicinal purposes. Mineral water . 63 sources, according to chem. comp. vyd: sulfate, chloride, sulfate-chloride, radon. Metalliferous brines . Nah. Within the Pripyat woodlands. They retain bromine, strontium, cesium, boron, magnesium, etc.

Influence of production p / and on the environment. environment is manifested in the following: the creation of anthropogenic forms of mesorelief: quarries, dumps; activation of geological processes (karst, landslides, screes, subsidence and displacement of rocks), mechanical disturbance of soils and their chemical pollution; depletion of aquifers and deterioration in the quality of ground and surface waters, etc. There are more than 40 thousand hectares in the country. lands requiring reclamation and restoration. Reclamation- restoration of industrially disturbed territories - provided for by law. Mining companies. resources are required to provide opportunities for the restoration of the disturbed landscape even before the start of work. After the cessation of open-pit mining, the surfaces of the dumps are leveled, terraces are made on the walls of the quarries, and toxic and barren rocks are covered with soil on which plants can live. Often used fertile soils, which were removed from here at the beginning of the development of the field. Reclaimed areas are used for planting forests and creating recreation areas.

The nature of the relief, the level of occurrence of groundwater are taken into account when designing a mining system. They also affect the environmental consequences of mining: the placement of dumps, the spread of dust and gases, the formation of depression funnels, karst, the behavior of dump waters, and much more. The methods and extent of extraction of ores change over time.
Industrial mining, starting from the 18th century, was carried out with the help of vertical mine workings: deep pits (up to 10 m), mines. From a vertical working, if necessary, several horizontal workings were passed, the depth of which was determined by the level of groundwater occurrence. If they began to fill the mine, the pit, the extraction was stopped due to the lack of drainage equipment. Traces of old mine workings can be observed today in the vicinity of Plast, Kusa, Miass and many other cities and towns of the mining zone of the region. Some of them remain unclosed, not fenced off until now, which poses a certain danger. Thus, the vertical amplitude of changes in the natural environment associated with the extraction of mineral raw materials hardly exceeded 100 m until the 20th century.
With the advent of powerful pumps that carry out drainage from workings, excavators, heavy vehicles, the development mineral resources more and more often it is carried out in an open way - quarry.
In the Southern Urals, where most of the deposits lie at depths of up to 300 m, open pit mining prevails. Quarries produce up to 80% (by volume) of all minerals. The deepest mine working in the region is the Korkinsky coal mine. Its depth at the end of 2002 was 600 m. There are large quarries in Bakal (brown iron ore), Satka (magnesite), copper ore), Upper Ufaley(nickel), Magnitogorsk and Maly Kuibas (iron).
Very often, quarries are located in the city, on the outskirts of villages, which seriously affects their ecology. Many small quarries (several hundred) are located in countryside. Almost every major rural enterprise has its own quarry with an area of ​​1-10 hectares, where crushed stone, sand, clay, limestone are mined for local needs. Typically, mining is carried out without observing any environmental standards.
Underground mine workings - mines (mine fields) are also widespread in the region. In most of them, mining is no longer being carried out today, they have been worked out. Some of the mines are flooded with water, some are filled with waste rock lowered into them. The area of ​​worked-out mine fields in the Chelyabinsk lignite basin alone is hundreds of square kilometers.
The depth of modern mines (Kopeysk, Plast, Mezhevoi Log) reaches 700-800 m. Individual mines of Karabash have a depth of 1.4 km. Thus, the vertical amplitude of changes in the natural environment in our time, taking into account the height of dumps, waste heaps in the territory Southern Urals reaches 1100-1600 m.
Placer deposits of gold in river sands have been developed in recent decades with the help of dredges - large washing machines capable of taking loose rock from depths of up to 50 m. Mining at shallow placers is carried out hydraulically. Rocks containing gold are washed away by powerful jets of water. The result of such mining is a "man-made desert" with a washed away soil layer and a complete absence of vegetation. You will find such landscapes in the Miass Valley, south of Plast. The scale of extraction of mineral raw materials is increasing every year.
This is due not only to an increase in the consumption of certain minerals, rocks, but also to a decrease in the content of useful components in them. If earlier in the Urals, in Chelyabinsk region polymetallic ores with a content of useful elements of 4-12% were mined, now poor ores are being developed, where the content of valuable elements barely reaches 1%. In order to get a ton of copper, zinc, iron from ore, it is necessary to extract much more rock from the depths than in the past. In the middle of the 18th century, the total production of mineral raw materials per year in the region was 5-10 thousand tons. At the end of the 20th century, the mining enterprises of the region processed 75-80 million tons of rock mass annually.
Any method of extracting minerals significantly affects natural environment. The upper part of the lithosphere is especially affected. With any mining method, there is a significant excavation of rocks and their movement. The primary relief is replaced by man-made. In mountainous areas, this leads to a redistribution of surface air flows. The integrity of a certain volume of rocks is violated, their fracturing increases, large cavities and voids appear. A large mass of rocks is moved to dumps, the height of which reaches 100 m or more. Often dumps are located on fertile lands. The creation of dumps is due to the fact that the volumes of ore minerals in relation to their host rocks are small. For iron and aluminum it is 15-30%, for polymetals it is about 1-3%, for rare metals it is less than 1%.
Pumping water from quarries and mines creates extensive depression funnels, zones of lowering the level of aquifers. During quarrying, the diameters of these funnels reach 10–15 km, and their area is 200–300 sq. km.
The sinking of mine shafts also leads to the connection and redistribution of water between previously separated aquifers, breakthroughs of powerful water flows into tunnels, mine faces, which greatly complicates mining.
The depletion of groundwater in the area of ​​mine workings and the drying of surface horizons strongly affect the condition of soils, vegetation cover, and the amount of surface runoff, and cause a general change in the landscape.
The creation of large quarries and mine fields is accompanied by the activation of various engineering-geological and physico-chemical processes:
- there are deformations of the sides of the quarry, landslides, mudslides;
- settling occurs earth's surface over worked-out mine fields. In rocks it can reach tens of millimeters, in weak sedimentary rocks - tens of centimeters and even meters;
- in the areas adjacent to the mine workings, the processes of soil erosion and gully formation are intensifying;
– in workings and dumps, weathering processes are activated many times over, intensive oxidation of ore minerals and their leaching are taking place, many times faster than in nature, migration is taking place chemical elements;
- within a radius of several hundred meters, and sometimes even kilometers, soils are contaminated with heavy metals during transportation, wind and water spread, soils are also contaminated with oil products, construction and industrial waste. Ultimately, a wasteland is created around large mine workings, on which vegetation does not survive. For example, the development of magnesites in Satka led to the death pine forests within a radius of up to 40 km. Dust containing magnesium entered the soil and changed the alkaline-acid balance. Soils have changed from acidic to slightly alkaline. In addition, quarry dust, as it were, cemented the needles, leaves of plants, which caused their impoverishment, an increase in dead cover spaces. Ultimately, the forests perished.

Intrusion into the bowels can have a general, sometimes very tangible impact on nature. In a number of cases, agricultural land is withdrawn from use, forests are damaged, the hydrogeological regime of the regions, the terrain and the movement of air flows are changing, the surface of the earth, air and water basins.[ ...]

Vegetation, animals, soil are destroyed at the site of open pits, centuries-old geological strata are turned over, “shoveled” to a depth of hundreds of meters. Rocks brought from the depths to the surface can be not only biologically sterile, but also toxic to plants and animals. This means that large areas of the territory are turning into lifeless spaces, the so-called industrial deserts. Such lands, leaving economic use, become dangerous sources of pollution.[ ...]

Significant changes made to natural landscapes by industry often cannot be restored by nature itself in the foreseeable future. short time, especially in areas with extreme conditions(permafrost regions and arid regions).[ ...]

During the processing of minerals, the vast majority of the mined rock mass goes to dumps.[ ...]

For many years, losses in the bowels of the underground method of coal mining (23.5%), including coking (20.9%), chromium ore (27.7%), potash salts (62.5%), have remained at a high level. %).[ ...]

The state suffers serious damage from the loss of valuable components and non-complex processing of already mined mineral raw materials. So, in the process of enrichment of ores, more than a third of tin and about a quarter of iron, tungsten, molybdenum, potassium oxides, phosphorus pentoxide from phosphorite ore are currently lost.[ ...]

Unsatisfactorily used in the production of petroleum gas, which in Russia (mainly in Tyumen region) in 1991 alone, more than 10 billion m3 were flared.[ ...]

In many cases, the extracted mineral raw materials are used in an uncomplex way, they are not subjected to deep processing. This is especially true of valuable associated components, the reserves of which are redeemed from the bowels in proportion to the extraction of reserves of the main minerals, but their extraction from the bowels of ores lags far behind the main minerals. Losses occur mainly at the stage of ore dressing and metallurgical processing due to the imperfection of the applied or lack of necessary technologies.[ ...]

Significant changes are taking place under the influence of mining natural landscapes. In areas of mining, a specific relief is formed, represented by quarries, waste heaps, dumps, tailings and others. technogenic formations. With the underground method of mining, the rock mass decreases towards the mined area, cracks, ruptures, dips, funnels and subsidence of the earth's surface are formed, at great depths in the mine workings rock bursts, emissions and radiation of rocks, the release of methane, hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases are manifested , sudden breakthroughs of groundwater, especially dangerous in karst areas and in zones of large faults. Landslides, screes, landslides, mudflows and other exogenous geological processes develop with the open method of mining mineral deposits.[ ...]

Mining waste pollutes the soil, underground surface water, the atmosphere, adversely affect the vegetation and animal world, exclude significant areas of land from agricultural turnover, construction and other types of economic activity. At the same time, a significant part of mining waste contains valuable components in concentrations sufficient for industrial extraction, and is a good raw material for the production of various building materials. However, their use for this purpose does not exceed 6-7%. Increasing the use of waste from mining and metallurgical industries will undoubtedly give a great economic effect.

The nature of the relief, the level of occurrence of groundwater are taken into account when designing a mining system. They also affect the environmental consequences of mining: the placement of dumps, the spread of dust and gases, the formation of depression funnels, karst, the behavior of dump waters, and much more. The methods and extent of extraction of ores change over time.
Industrial mining, starting from the 18th century, was carried out with the help of vertical mine workings: deep pits (up to 10 m), mines. From the vertical working, if necessary, several horizontal workings were passed, the depth of which was determined by the level of groundwater occurrence. If they began to fill the mine, the pit, the extraction was stopped due to the lack of drainage equipment. Traces of old mine workings can be observed today in the vicinity of Plast, Kusa, Miass and many other cities and towns of the mining zone of the region. Some of them remain unclosed, not fenced off until now, which poses a certain danger. Thus, the vertical amplitude of changes in the natural environment associated with the extraction of mineral raw materials hardly exceeded 100 m until the 20th century.

With the advent of powerful pumps that carry out drainage from workings, excavators, heavy vehicles, the development of mineral resources is increasingly carried out in an open pit way.

In the Southern Urals, where most of the deposits lie at depths of up to 300 m, open pit mining prevails. Quarries produce up to 80% (by volume) of all minerals. The deepest mine working in the region is the Korkinsky coal mine. Its depth at the end of 2002 was 600 m. There are large quarries in Bakal (brown iron ore), Satka (magnesite), Mezhozerny (copper ore), Upper Ufaley (nickel), Magnitogorsk and Maly Kuibas (iron).
Very often, quarries are located in the city, on the outskirts of villages, which seriously affects their ecology. Many small quarries (several hundred) are located in the countryside. Almost every large agricultural enterprise has its own quarry with an area of ​​1-10 hectares, where crushed stone, sand, clay, and limestone are mined for local needs. Typically, mining is carried out without observing any environmental standards.

Underground mine workings (mine fields) are also widespread in the region. In most of them, mining is no longer being carried out today, they have been worked out. Some of the mines are flooded with water, some are filled with waste rock lowered into them. The area of ​​worked-out mine fields in the Chelyabinsk lignite basin alone is hundreds of square kilometers.
The depth of modern mines (Kopeysk, Plast, Mezhevoy Log) reaches 700-800 m. Individual mines of Karabash have a depth of 1.4 km. Thus, the vertical amplitude of changes in the natural environment in our time, taking into account the height of dumps, waste heaps in the South Urals, reaches 1100-1600 m.
Placer deposits of gold in river sands have been developed in recent decades with the help of dredges - large washing machines capable of taking loose rock from depths of up to 50 m. Mining at shallow placers is carried out hydraulically. Rocks containing gold are washed away by powerful jets of water. The result of such mining is a "man-made desert" with a washed away soil layer and a complete absence of vegetation. You will find such landscapes in the Miass Valley, south of Plast. The scale of extraction of mineral raw materials is increasing every year.

This is due not only to an increase in the consumption of certain minerals, rocks, but also to a decrease in the content of useful components in them. If earlier in the Urals, in the Chelyabinsk region, polymetallic ores with a content of useful elements of 4-12% were mined, now poor ores are being developed, where the content of valuable elements barely reaches 1%. In order to get a ton of copper, zinc, iron from ore, it is necessary to extract much more rock from the depths than in the past. In the middle of the 18th century, the total production of mineral raw materials per year in the region was 5-10 thousand tons. At the end of the 20th century, the mining enterprises of the region processed 75-80 million tons of rock mass annually.
Any method of mining has a significant impact on the natural environment. The upper part of the lithosphere is especially affected. With any mining method, there is a significant excavation of rocks and their movement. The primary relief is replaced by man-made. In mountainous areas, this leads to a redistribution of surface air flows. The integrity of a certain volume of rocks is violated, their fracturing increases, large cavities and voids appear. A large mass of rocks is moved to dumps, the height of which reaches 100 m or more. Often dumps are located on fertile lands. The creation of dumps is due to the fact that the volumes of ore minerals in relation to their host rocks are small. For iron and aluminum, this is 15-30%, for polymetals - about 1-3%, for rare metals - less than 1%.

Pumping water from quarries and mines creates extensive depression funnels, zones of lowering the level of aquifers. During quarrying, the diameters of these funnels reach 10-15 km, the area is 200-300 sq. km.

The sinking of mine shafts also leads to the connection and redistribution of water between previously separated aquifers, breakthroughs of powerful water flows into tunnels, mine faces, which greatly complicates mining.
The depletion of groundwater in the area of ​​mine workings and the drying of surface horizons strongly affect the condition of soils, vegetation cover, and the amount of surface runoff, and cause a general change in the landscape.

The creation of large quarries and mine fields is accompanied by the activation of various engineering-geological and physico-chemical processes:

There are deformations of the sides of the quarry, landslides, mudslides;

There is a subsidence of the earth's surface over the worked-out mine fields. In rocks, it can reach tens of millimeters, in weak sedimentary rocks - tens of centimeters and even meters;

In areas adjacent to mine workings, the processes of soil erosion and gully formation are intensifying;

In workings and dumps, weathering processes are activated many times over, there is an intensive oxidation of ore minerals and their leaching, many times faster than in nature, there is a migration of chemical elements;

Within a radius of several hundred meters, and sometimes even kilometers, soils are contaminated with heavy metals during transportation, wind and water spread, soils are also contaminated with oil products, construction and industrial waste. Ultimately, a wasteland is created around large mine workings, on which vegetation does not survive. For example, the development of magnesites in Satka led to the death of pine forests within a radius of up to 40 km. Dust containing magnesium entered the soil and changed the alkaline-acid balance. Soils have changed from acidic to slightly alkaline. In addition, quarry dust, as it were, cemented the needles, leaves of plants, which caused their impoverishment, an increase in dead cover spaces. Ultimately, the forests perished.

In the process of mining and processing of minerals, a person affects a large geological cycle. First, a person converts mineral deposits into other forms of chemical compounds. Secondly, a person distributes over the earth's surface, extracts former geological accumulations from the depths. Currently, about 20 tons of raw materials are mined annually for every inhabitant of the earth. Of these, 20% goes into the final product, and the rest of the mass turns into waste. Up to 50-60% of useful components are lost.

The impact of mining on lithosphere :

1 - creation of quarries, dumps;

1 - air pollution occurs with methane, sulfur, carbon oxides as a result of gas and oil fires;

2 - the dust content of the atmosphere increases as a result of burning dumps during explosions in quarries, which affects the amount of solar radiation, temperature, precipitation;

3 - depletion of aquifers, deterioration of the quality of ground and surface waters.

For the rational use of reserves of irreplaceable mineral raw materials necessary:

1 - to extract them from the bowels as completely as possible (flooding of oil-bearing formations significantly increases the return of oil; water is pumped in. It increases inter-layer pressure, as a result of which lighter oil rushes into production wells),

The protection of insectivorous birds and red forest ants is the simultaneous protection of the forest from pests.

Often in nature, relations of an opposite nature develop, when the protection of one object harms another. For example, the protection of an elk in some places leads to its overpopulation, and this causes significant damage to the forest due to damage to the undergrowth. Significant damage to the vegetation of some national parks Africa is brought by elephants, which inhabit these territories in abundance. Therefore, the protection of each natural object must be correlated with the protection of others natural ingredients. Therefore, nature protection must be comprehensive.

The protection and use of nature are, at first glance, two oppositely directed actions of man. However, there is no contradiction between these actions. These are two sides of the same phenomenon - the relationship of man to nature. Therefore, the question that is sometimes asked - to protect nature or use it - does not make sense. Nature must be used and protected. Without this, the progress of human society is impossible. Nature must be protected in the process of its rational use. What is important is a reasonable ratio of its use and protection, which is determined by the amount and distribution of resources, the economic conditions of the country, region, social traditions and culture of the population.