posted by Galina Angarova

My colleague Evan Sparling and I recently traveled to Altai to touch base with our partners in the field, meet with regional stakeholders, and participate in a conference on sacred sites organized by one of our partners – the Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai. As I have now fully transitioned into my new position as Program Associate for Community-Based Initiatives for Pacific Environment, the trip provided me an opportunity to fully immerse myself into program work and issues faced by the indigenous communities in Russia in the current economic and political climate. This was my second trip to Altai since I started working for Pacific Environment, and I was very excited to visit the sacred land and meet with our partners once again.

Sacred mountain in Chui Oozy Nature Park, Altai Republic, Russia

For centuries sacred sites served people as places where they would come to pray, cleanse themselves, and recover from the hardships of life. For some nations, sacred places are Catholic monasteries, Orthodox cathedrals, Muslim mosques, and Buddhist temples. For indigenous cultures, and specifically shamanists, these are places or objects created by nature: mountains, healing springs, mountain passes, plants and animals.

Altai has also always been the heart of Shamanism in Siberia. During the Soviet times communist extinguished shamanism and many of the shamans who lived those days were killed or sent to gulags. For many years shaman clans had to hide their identity and only after perestroika and democracy shamanism experienced its revival. Nowadays it is not as rare to find a shaman in remote villages of Altai. The traditional knowledge was kept and passed onto new generations.

One of the trip’s most memorable moments was meeting a local shaman by the name of Slava Cheltuev in Kosh-Agach, a region bordering Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan.

Kurai Village, 60 km from the Russian-Mongolia border

Upon our arrival, Slava greeted us at his home with traditional tea with milk, salt, butter, and cracked wheat. It has been only three   years since Slava was chosen by his community to be a shaman and a keeper of

Cows in Kosh-Agach region, Altai Republic, Russia

traditional knowledge. As a relatively young shaman at the age of 41, he feels responsible to learn from elders about his land, sacred places, and traditions so that he can pass this knowledge on to younger generations. As Russian is not his first language, most of his words were translated from indigenous Altayan into Russian by our partner Chagat.  Although some of what Slava said was revealed in a very simple language, his words carried a very deep knowledge and understanding of his roots and his role within his community. He talked about being close to the land and local sacred places, talking to spirits – guardians of their lands – and the meaning of dreams. (Today, there are only 70,000 speakers of Altayan in the world).

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Posted by Zhang Yadong, Executive Director of Green Longjiang

I am almost done with the research survey that I was assigned to do on the shark trade in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China. Except to update some photographs, I would not normally walk into a shop full of shark fins, open the menu of an Abalones and Fins Restaurant or even have a look at the body of a shark in a commodities market.

I still remember my initial doubt on conducting this shark trade research survey in Harbin when Wen Bo told me to do so: Isn’t it (shark fins) a traditional custom for southern China? Is it even a good idea to do such survey in Harbin, a place thousands of miles away from the ocean and without a traditional consumption custom? However, today, I know the answer.

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Posted by Evan Sparling

My recent trip to Altai is proof that life imitates art. Just a few days before leaving the US I watched the film “Everything is Illuminated.” Even if you’ve never seen it, you know the plot: a mismatched cast of characters (an octogenarian Ukrainian anti-Semite, his hip-hop obsessed playboy grandson, a shy young American Jew, a deranged dog) embark on a road trip to an unlikely place (the Ukrainian countryside) and adventure (and illumination) ensues. In my case, the characters include an American GIS expert visiting Russia for the first time, two native-rights activists from Kamchatka, and a flamboyant military veteran turned professional driver. We have spent our days crammed into a van with all of our luggage and supplies, traveling across windswept tundra and over frozen mountain passes, spending our evenings in a three-room cabin with no running water and no heat beyond a wood stove. In between work-related discussions and meetings with local conservationists, we have had adventures ranging from a visit to an Altai shaman who interpreted our dreams to a swimming excursion in weather more fit for skiing.

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posted by Wen Bo, China Program Co-Director, Pacific Environment

The third and final day of the conference was titled “Pondering Gaps and Needs of Stakeholders in Taihu Basin. How to Build New Clean Water Networks?”

Jun Bi, the local organizer from Nanjing University was the first to speak. In his presentation, he noted that NGOs in China are very weak and that they need to work with researchers and governments more.  He also stated that NGOs often lack funding and the necessary knowledge to be effective. He acknowledged that he also belongs to an NGO called PACE, whose members are mostly Ph.Ds, and have access to governmental officials. He indicated that no matter how hard an environmental NGO tries, there is no single comment that could be made in front of governor of Jiangsu province that would actually influence a government’s decision making.

Jun Bi made the point that most people in the Lake Tai region seem to care more about their own interests than collective interests such as environmental improvements. And, that like it or not, the economy of Lake Tai region would have to first double to keep up with the demand of the people’s wishes to develop their economy; and, that similarly, China, would have to develop first even if to some extent at the price of the environment.

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Posted by Wen Bo

On the first night during the conference I saw a CCTV- 2 documentary film on water pollution in China. When I turned it on, it was presenting on Lake Tai pollution. Then the program reported more about a series of other toxic pollution problems. Ma Jun, founder and director of Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), was interviewed as well as a retired director of Yangtze River Water Resources Management Bureau. The retired official stated that each year the amount of polluted water carried into the Yangtze is nearly the amount of the entire amount the Yellow River itself.

Ma Jun showed up on the morning of the second day of the conference and was the first one to present. Unfortunately all the governmental officials, provincial and local, had all left the conference the previous day.

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Posted by Wen Bo

This week, I attended a conference in Nanjing, China on Taihu Lake water pollution. The event was organized by the Woodrow Wilson Center, Japanese Institute of Developing Economics (IDE-JETRO) and Nanjing University.

Several of my colleagues from partner organizations based in China were there as well as several from U.S. based organizations, including one from Great Lakes Office of National Wildlife Federation. On the Japanese side, there were five to six institutions, including professors, researchers and one NGO, Japan for Sustainability.

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Posted by David Gordon

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of impressions for anyone who cares about the global climate.  As we post this blog, we still do not know the outcomes of the Copenhagen negotiations.  Will countries come to agreement on anything that can move forward?  Will that agreement be fair, ambitious, and binding?  Will the agreement help keep us within 350 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere?

I am impressed by all the people who traveled to Copenhagen to have their voices heard.  Indigenous peoples, environmental activists, and others are doing what they can to speak up.  Kudos to Faith Gemmill from REDOIL, who confronted Secretary Salazar about his decision to allow offshore drilling in the Arctic:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N49WoIecsLU.  And kudos to Brendan Cummings of Center for Biological Diversity, who as a polar bear challenged Obama’s leadership:  http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/polar-bear-warns-obama-about-climate-failure/.  Most of all, kudos to the youth who made their voices heard during the climate talks.  Check out this inspiring video documenting a youth sit-in at the Bella Center:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re11HDMdf_E

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Posted by Evan Sparling

Last Sunday, the penultimate of our ten days in Kamchatka, was ostensibly a rest day. Everyone was eager to relax and enjoy the glorious surroundings that we had spent the last week helping to preserve in countless meetings, seminars, and strategy sessions. We initially planned to spend the entire day traversing a local park on Nordic skis, but two of our local colleagues suggested over dinner on Saturday that we instead try our hands at dog sledding at the home of two members of a local native community organization. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by David Gordon

Many people have asked me about the Russian Government’s position in Copenhagen.  I have spent so much time in Russia over the years and have seen, myself, the impacts of climate change in Russia.  We are seeing forests dry out, die from disease and burn.  Historically, some in Russia’s elite have thought that climate change will be positive for Russia, since it will lead to more agricultural land.  However, the Russian Hydrometeorological Service – a Russian government agency – recently issued a report detailing climate change’s likely impacts on Russia.  The report clearly stated that climate change will have far-reaching negative impacts.

Yet the Russian government position in Copenhagen unfortunately appears to be self-serving. Russia wants to use existing carbon credits in the future.  This seems reasonable, except that Russia earned those credits due to a collapsing economy after the fall of the Soviet Union, not due to efforts to become energy efficient or reduce emissions.  The Russian Government wants to be allowed to increase emissions in the future.  That is the wrong direction.

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Posted by Xiu Min Li

Click here to read this on the Huffington Post

In the weeks leading up to Copenhagen, the Chinese government made a surprising move. After refusing to publicly commit to any numerical target all along, China suddenly announced it would reduce its carbon intensity by 40% to 45% by 2020, base on 2005 levels. It basically means China will continue to grow but will do so more efficiently and in ways that will emit less greenhouse gas. Other developing countries scrambled to catch up by announcing their own commitments to reduce carbon intensity. India followed with an announcement of 24% reduction by 2020.

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