Mr. Putin noted that a comprehensive environmental policy is one of the key conditions for a rapidly developing economy. In this respect, the president said that some serious work has to be done on modernising and bringing order to the country’s environmental legislation. Work must also get underway on putting in place a comprehensive system of state natural environment management, carrying out an inventory of federal and regional environmental programmes and setting up a unified training system for ecologists. Mr. Putin said that Russia must look to international standards in its work on environmental policy.