Page 74 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.73, # 1, 2016, pp. 64-77

systems are built in all regions of the country. Since 2007, according to the order of
the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan «On some measures to improve supplies
of clean drinking water» the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources installed
water treatment modular structures aimed at providing safe drinking water to the most
remote settlements in a short time; as a result more than 400,000 people in 222
villages along the Kura and Araz rivers have been provided with clean drinking water.
Work on the development of specially protected natural territory has been carried out
in order to preserve the biodiversity and save the gene pool of rare species of plants
and animals, with the area having doubled over the last 10 years. Currently there are 9
national parks, 11 state nature reserves and 24 state national parks with a total area of
893 thousand hectares. There was not a single national park in Azerbaijan until 2003,
while today the specially protected areas form 10.3 % of the country‘s territory,
including national parks of 3.7%. Special attention is being paid to the historic
reintroduction of some species to their habitat. More than a hundred head of gazelle
have been resettled in their historical habitats as part of the project implemented with
the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. As a result of all these measures there
has been a natural growth of rare species that were in danger of extinction.
Serious progress has been achieved in the field of waste management. A
modern plant for the incineration of municipal solid waste was built in Baku with
the capacity of 500 thousand tons per annum together with a screening plant; in
addition, the Balakhani landfill has been rehabilitated. Special attention is being paid
to the management of hazardous waste. The National Center for the management of
hazardous waste was established at the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources
and the landfill of hazardous waste was built where more than 100 thousand cubic
meters of toxic mercury waste and other industrial waste, including medical waste
has been disposed of. In recent years outstanding results have been achieved in
Azerbaijan in the field of the mitigation of climate change. Despite the fact that
Azerbaijan is not included in the group of Annex 1 of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (i.e. the country didn‘t take quantitative
commitments to reduce waste causing a thermal effect) and these wastes in
Azerbaijan constitute a very small part of the world‘s waste, in the period after
Kyoto concrete measures have been taken aimed at reducing waste; as a result,
despite the rapid development of the economy, this waste has been reduced from 70
million tons in 1990 to 50± 2, 5 million tons per year since 2005.
4. The sustainable energy strategy in Azerbaijan
The State Programme for the Development of the Fuel and Energy Sector
(2005–2015) targets the reduction of losses and prevention of theft and the
inefficient use of energy in order to cover the electric power and natural gas

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