Penza, 21 November 2017. PenzaNews. Penza occupied the 31st position in the rating of the environmental development of Russian cities in 2016 prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation together with the All-Russian People's Front.

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The leaders of the rating are Naberezhnye Chelny, Kazan, Voronezh, Magas, and Vologda. The leading group also includes Gorno-Altaysk, Orenburg, Yoshkar Ola, Vladikavkaz, Orel, Yaroslavl, Kursk and Kirov.

The group second to leaders includes Podolsk, Moscow, Khanty-Mansiysk, Ufa, Izhevsk, Novokuznetsk, Yakutsk, Murmansk, Barnaul, Krasnogorsk, Kaluga, Saint-Petersburg, Tula, Mytishchi, Perm and Krasnodar.

Penza headed the group of cities with a bad level of environmental development. It is followed by 23 municipalities such as Tolyatti, Samara, Chelyabinsk, and Abakan.

The group of outsiders includes 15 cities such as Volgograd, Ulyanovsk, and Saratov.

As it was reported by the press service of the All-Russian People's Front, the rating was based on information provided by the authorities of large municipalities in all regions of the country.

Seven key categories were taken into account; these are air, transport, energy and water consumption, waste management, biotic environment, and environmental impact control.

Results of the project "General Cleaning" carried out by APF, current conditions of "green shields" around the cities, the state of forests and specially protected natural areas were also considered.

Commenting on the rating results, the head of the regional public monitoring group under APF on issues of ecology and protection of forests Alina Mozhachkina-Gribanova noted that the situation in the Penza region was largely favourable.

"The Penza region is covered with forests by over 20%. This creates the most important environmental, economic and natural framework of the region. The total forest area of the Penza region makes up 965,000 hectares. Since the Soviet times Penza has been known as one of the greenest cities of the country. All guests of the region notice how carefully residents treat 'the green lungs' of the city. However, the region can easily lose its positions if the issue on adopting the 'green shield act' is prolonged," she noted.