Soil and Land Categories in the Modern Legislation of Russia

An analysis of existing legislation shows that legal norms are established mainly for soils belonging to the category of agricultural land. The orientation of land legislation to the category of land does not take into account the specific features of the soil as an essential component of the environment. It performs the most important set of ecological functions in both natural and anthropogenic ecosystems. At present, even a few references to soil in the system of regulatory acts are actively supplanted by the category of land. In its legal essence, the category of land is primarily a socio-economic category. The existing in scientific literature and regulatory acts formulations reflect the modern scientific ideas of soil as an independent natural body; however, from the legal point of view, they are extremely vague, uncertain, and do not meet understanding among legislators. In the legal definition of the category of soil, it is reasonable to limit it to several of the most important soil characteristics, among which the humus content and the bulk density should play the major role. Naturally, the restriction of the category of soil to a narrow set of characteristic features will narrow it in some cases and unjustifiably expand the number of natural or human-made objects related to the soil in other cases, but this will move the project of the Federal Law On Soil Protection (no. 83334-3) from the stalemate.