Greetings from the village of Listvennaya!
I was there attending the 7th annual meeting of the Sosnovka coalition, attended by 28 activists representing 27 of the leading Siberian and Russian Far Eastern environmental organizations. It’s essentially one big pep rally/strategy session/social event.
Listvennaya (population <100, aka Leafy in English) is about 350 km north of Vladivostok, deep in a deciduous forest stretching millions of acres, home to the Siberian tiger, a few remaining Amur leopards, and lots of other wildlife.
During the opening dinner, our host, Vladimir, rose to his feet to welcome us and make a few announcements. I paraphrase:
1. “There are tigers here. They will chew on you, but usually you’ll live.”
2. “There are bears here. Himalayans (the ones with the white collars) are nasty and will eat you. Brown bears, well, respect them too, and they’ll probably leave you alone.”
3. “Electricity is available all but 4 hours daily. Plan accordingly.”
4. “The banya* is available around the clock. It is co-ed and there is no dress code. If the company doesn’t ‘work’ for you, come back later.”
5. “There are no other rules.”
Vladimir Aramilev is founder and director of the Institute for Sustainable Nature Use, as well as creator of the “resort” where we reside. Among other programs, his organization conducts independent surveying and monitoring of key species in the region, mainly salmon, leopards, and tigers. The resort fulfills two central tenets of their conservation philosophy—1) enlisting support from those that would use these lands (hunters, fishermen, local residents), and 2) educating those same people to live harmoniously and sustainably, taking only what can be replaced or regrown.
This meeting, celebrating its seventh year, is always quite the gathering. The conservation community here in Russia is pretty extensive and has existed in one form or another for decades. Most of the participants, who have arrived from places like Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Anadyr, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and even Moscow, have known and worked cooperatively for years. Within minutes of arrival, people are catching up on the latest environmental events, social gossip, and general networking.
Over the next 5 days we discussed everything from oil/gas development, mining impacts, organizational sustainability and fundraising, fisheries management, and forestry management. My eyes only glazed over during a few intensely technical discussions of legal loopholes and wordsmithing on letter-writing. All in all, it was a great event. This year, we even managed to make the time for two “field trips.”
Expedition number one was to visit a nearby river swimming hole. Brrr! Russians are much more cold tolerant than I am, I must say. That said, we were in a beautiful canyon, with nice warm rocky outcroppings upon which to sun ourselves. I have a number of pictures of our group lounging like sea lions in a rookery. We probably made enough noise to sound like them.
Trip number two saw us out to the beach on the shores of the Sea of Japan. There’s a sea in which I’ve never before swum! Not that I swam, but I did wade and narrowly avoided being swamped by several waves. A few of my colleagues were not so lucky, but lived to tell. While there, just over the dunes in a swampy area, we found the fresh tracks of a mid-sized tiger. Very cool and a little nervous-making, as our group’s tiger expert said they were just a few hours old. I spent the rest of my time on the beach, trying not to feel like a hunted deer and earnestly scanning the tree-line for signs of the tiger.
*Banya=bath house extraordinaire
Tags: activists, NGO, Russian Far East, Sosnovka
