The main purpose of the environmental policy of the Republic of Belarus is to assure environmentally safe conditions for people's living, rational use and protection of natural resources, elaboration of legal and economic grounds for protection of the environment in the interests of the present and future generations.

The main direction of work for implementation of the state environmental policy are: improving the environment-protection legislation with a view of creating a more precise regulatory basis in the environment-protection sphere, introducing effective economic methods of management of and control over environment protection; creating an integral system for financing environment-protection actions; improving the system of bodies of management and of environmental control; implementing a programme for ecological training of specialists and increasing ecological culture of the population; developing international co-operation and a more active use of the world experience related to the solution of environmental problems. All these provisions are fixed in The Concept of State Policy of the Republic of Belarus in the Sphere of Environment Protection (approved by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus on 6 September 1995).

In conformity with the principles and recommendations of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) shared and fixed by the Republic of Belarus in The National Strategy of Sustainable Development (1997), it is projected to base the environment-protection activities on the conceptual prerequisite that protection of environment and rational use of natural resources potential should be considered not as a goal in itself isolated from production but rather as an inalienable part of the process of general social and economic development and that the use of nature must be effected by such methods and on such a scale that would assure equal opportunities for conservation of a favourable environment and for using natural wealth for future generations as well.

The fundamental regulatory act in the sphere of nature protection is the Law of the Republic of Belarus On Protection of the Environment (1992). This Law fixed the objectives, the principles and the legal basis for environment-protection activities, the range of natural resources, facilities and complexes to be protected, the rights and duties of citizens and public associations on environmental protection, the system of ecological information and education, the state regulation and management in this sphere, the economic mechanism for protection of the environment, the state system of observation over its condition and of cadaster account of natural resources. It defines issues of regulatory and technical as well as scientific support of environment-protection measures. The Law also stipulates the performance of ecological expertise and participation in such expertise of independent groups of specialists at the initiative of public associations and citizens. Conclusions made by a public ecological expertise are to be taken into account by authorities performing state ecological expertise. Belarus has also passed laws on protection of land, forests, water sources, atmospheric air, wildlife, etc.

The leading role in the system of state environment-protection regulators is played by environmental standards. This is first of all the permissible levels of content of harmful substances in natural environments that are reflected by maximum permissible concentrations for air and water environments and are regulated through release (discharge) limits. Quality of atmospheric air is constantly regulated for 543 pollutants, quality of water sources for 1,373 pollutants.