Abstract
According to legislation, in the case of damage to the soil as an object of the environment, an individual found guilty must carry out reclamation works and compensate for the damage. However, the experience of studying a number of objects in the course of forensic examinations demonstrates that, in the case of a termination of the negative effect on the soil, its self-purification and recovery (complete or partial) occurs quite quickly. In this study, four typical situations in which there was a negative effect on environmental objects have been considered. In the examples considered in the article, the reclamation work itself can cause even more environmental damage, both at the place of the event and at those regions from which natural resources (soils and grounds) will be removed for carrying out reclamation works. In this regard, in the affected territories, it is appropriate either to allow the original objects of the environment to recover themselves (or new sustainable ecological systems to form naturally) or to consider changing the purpose and forms of the use of the land plot in the court.
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All studies were carried out as part of the work of the authors at the Laboratory of Forensic Environmental Examinations of the Russian Federal Center of Forensic Science of the Ministry of Justice of Russian Federation.
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This article does not contain any studies involving animals and human beings performed by any of the authors.
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Translated by A. Barkhash
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Kutuzova, N.D., Rozov, S.Y. Problems of Application of Environmental Legislation in Court Practice on Issues Related to Soil Reclamation. Moscow Univ. Soil Sci. Bull. 77, 356–364 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3103/S0147687422050052
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3103/S0147687422050052