OREANDA-NEWS The Ministry of Natural Resources of Belarus has proposed to the Rosatom state corporation a cooperation project with the Polessky State Radiation and Environmental Reserve (Belarusian exclusion zone of the Chernobyl NPP - IF), the press service of the department reported after talks between Minister Sergei Maslyak and Deputy Director General of Rosatom Andrey Nikipelov.

"Promising areas of cooperation: exchange of experience and best practices in the field of environmental radioactivity monitoring and radioecological research in areas affected by the Chernobyl accident, the use of remote sensing, technologies, artificial intelligence in the field of prevention and liquidation of man-made emergencies," the Ministry of Natural Resources listed.

The talks also discussed prospects for deepening cooperation in the design and construction of radioactive waste facilities in Belarus and the development of a joint project to protect the environment from pesticide pollution, including the creation of a neutralization technology and a pilot plant with testing during the liquidation of one of the burials on the territory of Belarus.

The Polessky State Radiation and Ecological Reserve is the largest nature reserve in Belarus and the only radiation and ecological reserve in the world. The reserve occupies 215 thousand hectares on the territory of the three districts of the Gomel region most affected by the Chernobyl accident - Braginsky, Narovlyansky and Khoiniksky. The reserve was established on July 18, 1988 in the Belarusian part of the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. There are 96 abandoned settlements on the territory, where more than 22 thousand residents lived before the accident and evacuation in 1986.