Zov Taigi

Vasily Solkin behind the instrument of his art.

Zov Taigi - The Regional Center for the Defense of Wild Nature "Zov Taigi" has been working with Pacific Environment since 1992 to protect forests and wildlife in the Russian Far East (RFE) with a focus on the Primorye region. This small Vladivostok-based NGO works to document and publicize environmental issues using a multidisciplinary media strategy, from newsprint to the PSA to documentary film. It publishes a bi-monthly journal, Zov Taigi, dedicated to the environmental issues of the RFE. Zov Taigi seeks to transform public opinion in the RFE to support conservation initiatives from the efforts to save the Kamchatka wild salmon from the devastation of poachers, to the efforts to stop the destruction of the last habitat of the Amur Leopard by the Russian state oil company's massive Siberia-Pacific Pipeline Project.

Vasily Solkin founded Zov Taigi, and is currently both the director of the organization and editor of its journal.

Solkin and his team are among the region's best wildlife photographers and videographers. Vasily Solkin was a journalist in Russia's navy, leaving the military in the late 1980s to become a wildlife biologist studying tigers, leopards, and endangered salamanders. In the early 1990's he founded Zov Taigi to educate the public about conservation issues. Vasily is a seasoned leader in Russia's growing environmental movement, and can frequently be found out in the field with his equipment and crew, following tiger tracks, or wild rivers, or even his fellow environmentalists.

Zov Taigi has won numerous awards for its videographic works. Its television series "The Russian Far Eastern EcoRegion" was awarded first prize as "Best Mass Media Production on Rare and Endangered Species in Russia" at the All-Russian Environmental Journalist Festival, and received an award for "Best Regional Environmental Protection Program" at the International Eurasian Tele-Forum. Zov Taigi also won an award for "Best Camera Work" and "Best Concept" at the Second International Lake Baikal Film Festival People and the Environment.

Zov Taigi can be translated as Roar or Call of the Taiga. Taiga is the Russian word for the boreal forest that extends from Europe to the Pacific, and again through Canada. The taiga can be said to serve as the lungs and air conditioner for the earth: the protection of the taiga and its biodiversity is a part of the mission of almost every Russian environmental NGO.

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