Lake Baikal - 10 years on the list of World Natural Heritage Sites (december, 2006)
The Right to Know: Irkutsk Citizens Want to be Consulted (december, 2006)
No Chernobyls at Baikal! Join the protest! (april, 2007)
Baikal Environmental Wave: statement (jule, 2007)
Close the Baikalsk Pulp Mill! (march, 2008)
Friends of Baikal Competition (May, 2008)
This year’s flag expedition of “Artists for conservation fund” lead to Baikal (September, 2008)
Russian community leaders, journalists arrested for delivering letter to Putin (October, 2008)
Russian community leaders, journalists arrested for delivering letter to Putin (October, 2008)
Police detained three journalists and seven local citizens in Irkutsk while the group delivered a letter to Prime Minister Putin at the United Russia Public Comment Office on October 10. The letter, written on oversized paper, called on Putin to close the controversial Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill on the shores of Lake Baikal. The group, organized by local NGOs Baikal Movement and Baikal Environmental Wave, was charged with "unsanctioned participation in an unsanctioned picket." Two of the detained journalists were released immediately. The authors of the letter to Putin were released late in the evening, more than six hours later.
"We are disappointed, but not surprised by the police's actions" says Marina Rikhvanova, co-chair of the Baikal Environmental Wave and 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize winner. "Of course we will continue our work protect Lake Baikal and to close the paper mill."
When the group of journalists and private citizens arrived with the letter to Putin, workers at the Public Comment Office immediately closed the office and called the police. Police officers were ordered by their superiors to detain everyone involved. Ten people were taken to a local police station. The incident was not covered by any local or national television stations.
The Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill was temporarily shut down on October 2, 2008, to allow for the mill to be converted to a closed cycle system. According to environmentalists and local leaders, it is easier to hide illegal pollution with a closed cycle system and air pollution will continue to affect the local population and pollute Lake Baikal.
Contacts:
Leah Zimmerman, Russia Program Director, Pacific Environment
lzimmerman@pacificenvironment.org , +1-510-495-4923
Marina Rikhvanova, Co-Chair, Baikal Environmental Wave
rimarka@yandex.ru , +7-904-144-9584
This year’s flag expedition of “Artists for conservation fund” lead to Baikal (September, 2008)
“The Artists for Conservation Foundation (AFC) - formerly the Worldwide Nature Artists Group (WNAG) - is a non-profit, international organization dedicated to the celebration and preservation of the natural world.” This is how the AFC defines itself.
Sending chosen artists on so-called flag expeditions to protected areas or habitats of endangered species the organization tries to draw people’s attention around the world towards rare and special elements of nature. Nature artists do artistic field research and gather information about the species or the region by getting in touch with local environmental organizations. Thus they contribute to a worldwide cooperation in nature conservation. Furthermore they support the appreciation of nature protection by leaving behind their artwork, a symbol of international interest in the species or habitat.
Terry Woodall, sculptor from Oregon, was chosen to be in fellowship of the seventh flag expedition. It lead to Lake Baikal, object of main interest was the Baikal Seal, also known as Nerpa. Being the highest consumer of the lake’s food web the animals are effected of pollution more than other organisms of the lake, due to accumulation of toxins. Additionally, hunting has been impacting the Nerpa for a long time. Now global warming is being a potential threat for the population counting 60000 animals as their reproduction is dependent on the ice cycle.
During his four-week stay on Lake Baikal from mid-June to mid-July 2008 Terry Woodall spent most of his time with staff of the Sabaikalskii National Park. They enabled him to observe the Nerpa in their summer habitat on the Ushkanii islands.
Besides his field work Terry also supported an art project in Ust-Bargusin that is connected with environmental education.
Back home in North Bend, Oregon, part of the proceeds of his sold artwork on the Nerpa will be donated to a project of Zabaikalskii National Park and the Baikalmuseum Listwjanka. This project aims to install a webcam powered by wind energy on the Ushkanii Islands that enables visitors to watch the animals from within the Zabaikalskii National Park visitor’s centre without disturbing them. Already two years this project has been worked on but due to a lack of money it could not be finished until today.
To say ‘thanks’ for the logistic support of his journey and to show appreciation of the work for Lake Baikal’s protection Terry gave his sculptures, wooden Nerpas, to the organizations “Baikal Environmental Wave” and “Great Baikal Trail” and to the Tahoe-Baikal Institute. In the Irkutsk museum of nature one of his sculptures will be exposed constantly from now on.
More information on the AFC and Terry Woodall’s blog: www.natureartist.com/flagexpeditions
Friends of Baikal Competition (May, 2008)
On the 15th of May at 12 00 a press conference was held at the news agency ‘Interfax Siberia’ to announce the oppening of the competition ‘Friends of Baikal 2008’, organized by Baikal Environmental Wave. The following people were invited to the press conference; director of the department of environment and natural resources of the Irkutsk region, Olga Gaikova; assistant head of the Irkutsk region tourist agency, Agnia Shangina; committee chairman of the Siberian-Baikal association of tourism, Sergei Perevoznikov; and the competition’s committee of experts.
The NGO ‘Baikal Environmental Wave’ (BEW) announced the opening of the competition for the most ecological tourist establishment, ‘Friends of Baikal 2008’, in the presence of the representatives from the regional tourist industry. Around 20 tourist centres and hotels, situated on the shore of the lake, are expected to take part in the competition.
The following criteria of assessment will be used to measure how ecological the establishments are: sanitary conditions in the hotel’s surrounding area, methods of waste utilisation, the maintenance of water protection areas standards and the up-keep of specially protected natural areas. The architectural style of the establishments will also be taken into account – how they fit in with their surrounding environments and how much they comply with the cultural traditions of the Baikal area. Hotels can receive additional points for organising eco-excursions and for thinking up any innovative new ideas for the protection of the environment.
Baikal Environmental Wave will be taking applications for participation in the competition from the 15th of May to the 20th of June. The panel of expert’s first tour of the participating establishments (visits to hotels and tourist centres in the villages Listvyanka and Bolshoye Golousthoye) will begin on the 1st of June. The second tour – around the shores of Moloye Morye and Olkhon Island – will start on the 11th of August.
Representative of Baikal Environmental Wave, Yana Ogarkova, has reported that the jury will include specialists from Greenpeace Russia, NGO Great Baikal Trail, representatives from the Pribaikalskii national park, the Institute of Geography and the Irkutsk branch of the Russian Union of Architects.
Participants who meet the standards of the expert’s inspections will be awarded with a ‘Green Leaf’ sign. “It’s the equivalent of being a 5 star hotel” explained Yana Ogarkova. “The Green Leaf signs are given one by one for the compliance of hotels with a particular set of requirements – sanitation, social responsibility, culture etc. Each establishment can receive up to five leaves”. The winner of the competition will receive the title “Friend of Baikal”.
“How environmentally friendly an establishment is considered in the tourist industry is considered more and more often as a sign of prestige. In Western Europe, the quality of a hotel is often assessed by the number of guests it brings in” said Yana Ogarkova. “At the moment we tend to do the same. Tourists from the central part of Russia who come to Baikal are becoming more and more interested, when choosing tourist centres, in how much they conform to ecological standards.”
The “Friends of Baikal” competition is taking place in the Irkutsk region for the second time. Last year 15 hotels and tourist centres took part. The title “Friends of Baikal” and three green leaf signs where awarded to the small tourist village “Crystal Well”, on the Baikal main road. The tourist centre received PR support from the newspaper ‘Oblastnaya’; the Austrian magazine ‘Travel 4 you’; a Baikal tourist guidebook; 20 internet portals, including one on the GreenPeace Russia website; Baikalplan (Germany); the Centre of Ecological Travel (Moscow); and the Irkutsk websites ‘Irk-Info’ and ‘Babr.ru’.
Green flag signs were awarded to a further four participants in the competition – the tourism and holiday centre ‘Talovskoye’ (a ‘Grand Baikal’ company), Nikita’s homesteads in the village of Khuzhir, the open joint stock company ‘Imeniye Zarechnoye’ (Bugul’deyka) and a family-run B&B in Port Baikal.
The competition is supported by Greenpeace Russia, The Siberian Baikal Tourist Association, Pribaikalskii national park, the Institute of Geography of Academy of Science and Ford Fpundation (USA).
Any questions concerning the running of the competition and participation should be addressed to:
NGO “Baikal Environmental Wave”
Telephone: 52-58-70, 52-59-82
Co-chairwoman of ‘Baikal Environmental Wave’ was awarded the prestigious ‘Goldman Environmental Prize’! (April, 2008)
Co-chairwoman of NGO “Baikal Environmental Wave”, Marina Rikhvanova was awarded the Goldman prize – the world’s largest prize for grassroots environmentalists – for her on-going achievements in the protection of Lake Baikal.
The Goldman Fund awards international prizes to “individuals who demonstrate exceptional courage and commitment, often working at great risk to protect our environment and, ultimately, life on earth”. Awarded annually since 1990, the prize has been awarded to 67 people from all around the world – each time six winners are chosen from each of the planet’s inhabited continental regions. This was the 19th year that the prize has been awarded.
The other winners this year included an elderly grandmother from Puerto-Rico, whose work on the protection of marshlands has been of enormous value in her area; a native Mexican farmer who leads a land renewal programme that employs ancient indigenous practices to transform depleted soil into arable land; a Belgian environmentalist who organized a campaign to establish the first and only national park in Belgium.
“The winners of this year’s prize are examples of the striking efforts in environmental protection being undertaken all over the world by ordinary people” said founder of the award, Richard H. Goldman. “Their devoted efforts to improve both the living standards of local populations and their surrounding environments make them worthy of our attention and high standards”.
Marina Rikhanova is the seventh member of the International Social-Ecological Union (ISEU) to win this prize. The prestigious award has been awarded to Russians in the past: Chairman of ISEU Svyatoslav Zabelin (Moscow), lawyer Vera Mishchenko (Moscow) and human rights activist Alexander Nikitin.
The prize was presented at a closed ceremony on Monday the 14th of April 2008 in a private suite of San-Francisco Opera Theatre. The celebratory party was held in the headquarters of the National Geographical Society in Washington (Columbia Region) on the 16th of April.
Below is the speech Marina Rikhanova gave at the prize giving ceremony:
'I would like to thank the Goldman family for recognizing my work on the protection of Lake Baikal, the pearl of Siberia, and one of the great wonders of nature. I am accepting this prize on behalf of many people in Russia: environmentalists, scientists, students, journalists, pensioners and everyone else who united their strengths for the protection of Baikal against the construction of the oil pipeline. Without these combined efforts, the largest supply of fresh water in the world would now be in permanent danger.
However, our struggle is not yet over. The Russian government recently decided to build an international “uranium enrichment centre” in Angarsk (90 km away from Baikal). We fear that the thousands of tons of radioactive and chemical waste stored at this centre could cause an environmental catastrophe in our region. We can’t let it happen. Our local campaign against the building of this centre has been met with furious opposition from the regional and federal authorities and Rosatom (Nuclear Energy Agency). The federal security service led a search of our office with the requisitioning of computers. Last summer there was a thoroughly planned and organized attack on an anarchistic environmental camp. Unfortunately my son was one of the attackers. He was arrested and the Office of Public Prosecutor spread information in the media about it to try to undermine our movement. I believe that there is a connection between his arrest and our opposition to the nuclear centre.
Our struggle is difficult, but it is not in vain. President Putin publicly ordered the Siberian-Pacific oil pipeline to be rerouted away from the lake's watershed. Thanks to our movement, Putin was forced, in the end, to listen to the voice of the people.
Now we are leading the struggle against the Pulp and Paper Mill on the southern shore of Baikal. It is polluting the air and water and has been threatening the unique animal and plant life of Baikal for more than forty years. Our governor Tishanin recently wrote a letter to President Putin with an appeal for the removal of the Pulp and Paper Mill from Baikal. However, he is under pressure from the Russian Oligarchs who want him to retire.
We should unite our strengths to support those who, in spite of all risks, strive to protect their surrounding environment. We hope that the Russian government will once again listen to the voice of the people.
I hope that this award will be able to help our movement to continue to protect our earth, air and water from dangerous industries, which use our natural resources without considering the consequences on future generations.
Thank you very much for your attention.'
Close the Baikalsk Pulp Mill! (march, 2008)
On the 9th of March, 2008 around 150 people from the Irkutsk area hiked 10 kilometers across the frozen lake Baikal in protest against the Baikalsk pulp and paper mill, situated on southern shore of the lake.
Members of the NGO ‘Baikal Environmental Wave’ and the ‘Baikal Movement’ group, local activists, journalists, families and groups of young people all turned up to participate in the lake crossing, either on skis or on foot. Everyone followed the same track across the lake and the long line of people, all carrying the same blue protest flags, crossing the bright white snow made a very striking image.
Background history - The history of the pulp and paper mill dates back to the 1950s and construction was finished in 1966 amid strong opposition from the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences. One mill was installed right on the Baikal shore and another near the river Selenga, Baikal’s largest tributary. During the first year of operation, the plant exceeded its projected discharge levels of industrial waste water more than 100 times. Two years later, a commission of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences concluded that discharges of pollutants from the mill exceeded those projected by 10 to 200-500 percent. There were also discharge "bursts" when the concentration of pollutants was as much as 20-30 times greater than those planned. Despite these figures, the commission chose both not to close the mill and not to divert the waste water into the river Irkut. Opposition to pulp production on the shore of Baikal was compared with opposition to "the mighty plans of the Party for building Communism”.
Opposition today is not viewed in quite the same light, however the factory is still running and sightings last summer of large amounts of pulp in the lake show that the factory’s wastewater treatment system is not fully effective and unrefined water is still being discharged into the lake.
Furthermore, around 30 thousand tons of atmospheric pollution is emitted into the surrounding forests every year, which will eventually also have a major effect on Baikal.
The high turn out of this protest shows that the people living on and around Baikal really do care about the wellbeing of their lake and the owners of the factory and local politicians cannot and should not continue to ignore this fact.
Baikal Environmental Wave: statement (jule, 2007)
Irkutsk regional NGO Baikal Environmental Wave regards the information that has appeared in the media on the detention of the son and search of the flat of a co-chairperson of Baikal Environmental Wave with the allegation that the organisation knew about preparations for an attack on an environmental camp near Angarsk, run by “Autonomous Action,” as provocation with the aim of defaming Baikal Environmental Wave and damaging its reputation.
The fact that some details from the investigations were released in the media before they became known to relatives of the detainee, their lawyers, and the organisation itself confirms this belief.
We assume that these statements in the media are connected with Baikal Environmental Wave’s opposition to the establishment of the International Centre for Uranium Enrichment at the Angarsk uranium enrichment plant.
We intend to address the public prosecutor’s office with the request that those responsible be called to account for allowing such information to be released before the completion of investigations.
No Chernobyls at Baikal! Join the protest! (april, 2007)
RosAtom (the state agency for Russia’s nuclear industry) has plans to establish an International Uranium Enrichment Centre (IUEC) at the Angarsk uranium enrichment plant (AUEP) to supply fuel to Russian and other nuclear power stations.
AUEP is within the boundaries of the town of Angarsk, 30 km. from Irkutsk and 100 km. from Lake Baikal, with neither a buffer safety area nor radiation-control zone. For RosAtom this is an experimental project for the development of new technologies.
RosAtom is planning to set up this nuclear centre in Angarsk without knowledge of the possible consequences such a decision could have for the people of Irkutsk region and Lake Baikal (or concealing this from the general public). At present, waste in the form of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUH), produced as a result of uranium enrichment, is kept at the Angarsk plant in storage casks in the open.
RosAtom fails to answer critical questions:
- How much depleted uranium has already been amassed at the plant? (they describe this information as being a “commercial secret”)
- How long is it planned to store DUH?
- What would be the possible consequences if all the containers were to become depressurized (as in the case of an accident or terrorist attack)?
- How much waste will be accumulated at the plant with the establishment of the International Centre?
Space images show that already hundreds if not thousands of DUH containers have been accumulated at the plant. However, calculations of the maximum possible consequences are based only on an accident involving 7 containers. It is assumed that AUEP would be able to cope with any accident without outside assistance.
On the basis of answers by the Emergency Services and the Regional Administration to enquiries, one can judge that NO ONE in Irkutsk region would be ready to deal with a serious accident as the result of an earthquake, fire, terrorist attack or plane crash at the Angarsk plant.
It pays RosAtom to call DUH raw material rather than waste so as to import it from other countries and in order not to have to reprocess it into a safer form for storage. This raises some questions:
- why doesn’t RosAtom pay the company URENCO (Germany & the Netherlands) for this raw material and not the other way round?
- Why is DUH kept in casks designed to contain the material for 100 years?
In fact, it is cheaper for foreign companies to pay RosAtom to take the DUH than for them to keep it in their own storage yards. It suits RosAtom to get money for allowing the storage of imported radioactive waste in Siberian cities far from Moscow. What is more, if RosAtom is going to supply foreign nuclear power stations with fuel, it will have to accept depleted uranium for storage in perpetuity. Where is it all going to be stored? This is not known.
RosAtom is planning to expand existing and build new nuclear power stations in Russia, to build and rent out such stations to South-East Asian and African countries, and to supply fuel to the nuclear power stations of Japan and Australia.
RosAtom is acting in the interests of the international nuclear industry that will be making profits while we get the waste…
We call on all people to join the campaign “No Chernobyls at Baikal!”
There is still the chance to stop the development of events before RosAtom takes the final decision!
Write or send telegrams to:
President Putin:
4, Staraya Ploshad, Moscow, 103132, Russia.
www.president.kremlin.ru president@kremlin.ru
Telephone: (495) 925-3581
(495) 206-8900
The Prime Minister, Mr. Mikhail Fradkov,
2, Krasnopresnenskaya embankment, Moscow, 103274, Russia.
www.government.ru
Telephone:(495) 925-3581 (495) 205-8153
The Head of the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, Mr. Sergei Kirienko
24/26 Bolshaya Ordynka, Moscow, 101000, Russia.
Headquarters of the Emergency Services for Irkutsk Region, The Acting Head, Colonel A.I.Kuznetsov,
15 Krasnoarmeiskaya St., Irkutsk, 664003, Russia.
Telephone: 25-79-48, 26-52-46, 25-79-19
Fax: 20-37-51
The Governor of Irkutsk Region, Mr. Alexander Tishanin,
1A Lenin St., Irkutsk, 664027, Russia.
You can send a letter from the Governor’s web site:
http://tishanin.govirk.ru/qa/request
Keep up with the news on www.baikalwave.eu.org
The Right to Know: Irkutsk Citizens Want to be Consulted (december, 2006)
The question of enlargement of a uranium enrichment plant in Angarsk, an industrial town not far from the Region’s capital, Irkutsk, has disturbed local environmental organisations and citizens.
Plans are to create an international Centre for uranium enrichment there. “Baikal Environmental Wave” questions the legal foundations for such a decision and has written to the Region’s Governor and RosAtom (the Russian agency for nuclear energy) on the subject. Marina Rikhvanova, one of Baikal Wave’s Co-Chairs, has also written to the Public Prosecutor of the German town of Gronau to examine the legality of the export of depleted uranium hexofluoride to Angarsk. According to a number of publications in Russian media the Angarsk Electrolysis Plant is receiving 130-290 tonnes of depleted uranium hexofluoride a year from Urenco Deutschland Gmbh.
One public demonstration has already been held at the monument to Tsar Alexander III on the embankment in Irkutsk at minus 12 degrees centigrade and a second is planned for December 16th in the same place. Similar temperatures are forecast for the day.
The organisers of the demonstrations, Baikal Wave and the Baikal Movement, are demanding that RosAtom disclose information to the general public on the International Centre, the amount of dangerous material envisaged and its storage time, and about the possible consequences for local inhabitants and the environment if an accident were to occur at the Plant.
Most depleted uranium produced up till now is stored as uranium hexafluoride in steel gas cylinders in the open air close to enrichment plants. Long-term storage presents environmental, health, and safety risks because of the material’s chemical instability. Regular inspection of storage cylinders for signs of corrosion and leaks is essential. In the United States there have been several accidents involving uranium hexafluoride.
Lake Baikal - 10 years on the list of World Natural Heritage Sites (december, 2006)
Ten years ago, in December 1996, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee entered Lake Baikal onto the list of World Natural Heritage Sites.
I could list all the things that haven’t been done on the part of the Russian government and its agencies at all levels to ensure protection of the lake, but, although informative and very telling, such a list misses the main point of World Heritage – and that is to help us preserve our humanity, basic human values and principles, against the odds of our lesser selves that are threatening true civilisation everywhere with disaster.
The concept of World Heritage was devised by the international community to protect cultural and natural heritage from ourselves because of the increasing destruction being caused to the world’s treasures by wars and the ever-expanding human economy that fails to acknowledge the limitations of a single planet.
In his introduction to a resource pack for young people, the then Director-General of UNESCO, Frederico Mayor, wrote that the task of preserving the natural and cultural heritage of our ancestors “goes far beyond the simple preservation of landscapes and monuments. By preserving our tangible world heritage, we can contribute also to the preservation of the world’s intangible and … its ethical heritage, which is by far the most important.”
In the rush of the modern world, World Cultural Heritage can be for us a ‘teaching aid’ to remind us of the highest human aspirations, and the World’s Natural Heritage to remind us of the wonder of life itself, of our foundations in the Earth’s biosphere.
Without these reminders, we are capable of impoverishing life on Earth for future generations.
Here, 2006 once again illustrated the power of Lake Baikal to inspire the good in people. Pressed to the limits of their tolerance and patience by brazen plans to build an oil pipeline through the Lake Baikal watershed right next to the lake, people of Irkutsk of all ages came out onto the streets to form three mass meetings in protest.
“Baikal is behind us and we will not retreat!” one placard asserted.
There had not been similar meetings in the region nor in Russia as a whole since the time of perestroika and the putsch of 1991.
So long as the dignity of the human spirit has not been broken, so long as it has not been ignored in the rush to possess, conquer, and exploit the gifts of the natural world, there is still hope that we can find the collective willpower to preserve a home on earth that children of the future can enjoy and wonder at.
list all the things that haven’t been done on the part of the Russian government (december, 2006)
- the Baikal inter-departmental Commission, whose job it will be to oversee questions concerning the lake at a high level, has not been formed;
- state monitoring is not sufficiently adequate to show the true extent of the impact of human activities on the lake’s ecosystem;
- wastewater treatment facilities for the town of Baikalsk, without which the pulp mill cannot close its water cycle, have not been completed;
- the national parks and nature reserves directly bordering the lake are not being adequately supported, meaning they cannot fulfill their function properly;
- practical measures to protect the lake such as stations for the collection of waste from the lake’s fleet are not receiving finance from central government;
- there is no legal basis for the setting up of regional environmental funds that could receive fees for land use and support practical measures to reduce impact and support the local economy;
- the lack of plans and projects of the borders of settlements enables officials to allocate land along Baikal’s shores;
- in several of the more accessible parts of the lake the last five years has seen an onslaught of uncontrolled, often, illegal building for tourist and recreational purposes that threatens the lake with erosion, additional waste, and destruction of unique terrestrial ecosystems;
- a town-planning codex is looming on a federal level that can annul the present requirement for environmental impact assessments for new projects;