Russian biotechnologists propose to implement a project in the country to create a network of thousands of modern bio-settlements in uninhabited territories, deputy head of the Kurchatov complex of NBICS-nature-like technologies for scientific work of the Kurchatov Institute Research Center, President of the Society of Biotechnologists of Russia Raif Vasilov said on Tuesday.
In his speech at the OpenBio Russian Biotechnology Forum in the Novosibirsk science city of Koltsovo, Vasilov noted that the main challenge for Russia in the 21st century is to ensure the uniform sustainable development of a huge, virtually uninhabited two–thirds of the territory, in the current conditions of population decline and underdeveloped infrastructure. According to him, this can be done with the help of biotechnology and bioeconomics.
"There is a very interesting project that many are currently working on, which they are talking about – the creation of high-tech small settlements that use the most modern achievements of technology, science, and so on, in order to ensure a high quality of life for people in remote areas. We are talking about the construction of space stations on various other planets for their habitation. Why not start with your territory as such," the scientist said.
Vasilov noted that the problem of depopulation of the territory is not only a problem of the Trans-Urals, but fewer people now live on the Central Russian plain in Central Russia than before 1913. People leave rural and remote areas due to underdeveloped infrastructure and low standard of living, and young people tend to cities where there is an opportunity to develop.
"The creation of such high-tech bio-settlements, based on modern biotechnologies and bioeconomics, solves the problems of embedding humans into the biosphere ... It is clear how this can be organized. The urban planning idea of how to develop it is bioeconomics, the use of local resources to provide people with everything they need. Off-road or off-road transport. This should not be a separate settlement. It should be a whole network that will cover the whole country," he said.
According to the presentation of the scientist, the bio-settlement will be a small-scale settlement (400-1000 people), largely providing itself with food, electricity and heat energy and disposing of its waste using nature-like technologies. The main requirements are practicality, repeatability, and scalability. All this should ensure the formation of a balanced sociobiotechnosphere (noospheric development). Settlements are supposed to be located on allocated areas from 1 to 10 thousand square kilometers. In total, it is advisable to create a network of 1,000 such settlements in the territories of Russia that require development.
"In fact, it is possible to provide a modern standard of living, quality of life there and combine the advantage of the city in terms of quality of life with the advantages of the village in terms of proximity to nature and integration into nature. That is, to make something modern that meets the opportunities provided by modern science and technology… This is not an alternative to urban development. This is their complement, their development. What is called the development of the country's territory," he added.
