MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/. The Norilsk Nickel mining and metallurgical company jointly with the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch in 2023 will assess the impact from its industrial assets on biodiversity in the Murmansk, Trans-Baikal and Krasnoyarsk Regions, the company's Vice President on Ecology and Industrial Security Stanislav Seleznev told TASS.

In 2023, the biodiversity studies will be conducted at a smaller area than they were in 2022. However, the upcoming studies will include for the first time the industrial impact assessment.

"We are not stopping, and this year we will continue the studies. We refine the studies by the assessment of our impact. We are using scientific methods to assess effectiveness of our actions, and jointly with the Russian Academy of Sciences we have been working on eco technologies to recover the environment in the situations where impacts from our assets have been identified. We continue educational activities, and we attract volunteers to our actions," he said.

The impact assessment will be conducted on the basis of indicators, which experts of the Russian Academy of Sciences have chosen, and which are typical for a certain area - birds, fish, insects, microorganisms and plants, he added. These indicators will evaluate the success of the nature protection and the damage compensation measures. The longer specialists will continue such studies, the more accurate would be the assessment of the company's impact on the environment.

"Given the growing public interest in biodiversity issues, this topic may become a separate direction in activities of mining enterprises," he told TASS.

The basic biodiversity studies continue the work of Norilsk Nickel and the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch, which began in 2020 and has expanded into three regions: the Kola Peninsula, the north of the Krasnoyarsk Region and the Trans-Baikal Region. The current studies' purpose is to identify the company's impact zones and to assess the ecosystem biodiversity in areas of Norilsk Nickel's operations. The studies will form the basis of a corporate system to control the impact on biodiversity and to develop programs for its conservation and monitoring.