I have never seen so many insects in my life. Tiny black flies, quarter-sized mosquitoes and enormous horseflies competed to distract Tatiana Indanova as she crouched at the edge of a spring-fed creek in the 90-degree afternoon heat, using one hand to collect aquatic insect larvae, or benthos, while swatting the biting insects with her free hand.

Tatiana is a 21 year old college student and member of the Even tribe from the remote, indigenous town of Anavgai, where she is universally known as “Tanyushka.” Many college students Tanya’s age would look forward to spending their summers in dance clubs or at a lakeshore resort or pretty much anywhere but a mosquito-infested wilderness crawling with bears. But for the third consecutive summer Tanya is using her free months to mount one- and two-week expeditions to remote waterways in Bistrinsky Natural Park on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, where she collects samples of aquatic insect life that she later analyzes at her university’s laboratory to detect changes in water quality. Tanya’s project is supported by a grant from the Lach Ethno-Ecological Information Center, which conducts an annual minigrants competition with Pacific Environment aid. I was fortunate enough to accompany Tanya on the first of this year’s expeditions, which had us visit a reindeer herders’ camp, cross high mountain passes, camp at a riverside fishing village, swim in natural hot springs, and twice get chased by bears. (more…)

Kolya is the kind of boss that everyone at once prays they will have and dreads they will end up with. As a leader he is nearly flawless; knowledgeable, experienced, and deadly calm under pressure. As a teacher, he is all of these things, but also impatient, short-tempered, and sarcastic.

Kolya is the indigenous Even hunter and mountain man who led me, Tatiana Indanova, a PE partner who monitors water quality, two Muscovite botanists, his son Zhenya, and a local friend on a week-long expedition through the Kamchatka wilderness to conduct Indanova’s water quality monitoring project, collect samples of Kamchatka’s flora, and find some escaped reindeer.

From day one, I knew what kind of leader Kolya would be: as we packed our belongings into our saddlebags, I found myself standing around, unsure how to pack and not wanting to get in the way. As Kolya packed some of my things, he stopped for a moment to pull off his jacket. “Too hot?” I asked, hoping to strike up a conversation. “Yeah,” he replied with a grin, but looking me dead in the eyes, “because I’m not just standing around.” I still chuckle when I remember how he scolded his son’s friend for pulling in a net too slowly: “Pull harder, dammit, you’re not undressing a girl!” (more…)

Posted by Jon Spaulding

The Russian environmental community won a victory in late May when a Pacific Environment partner NGO, Geblerovsky Ecological Society (GES) successfully challenged the commercial logging company Birch and the government agency that issued the permit to clear-cut a ‘protected’ forest reserve in pristine, remote Altai Krai, in southern Siberia. On May 27, the regional court ruled against the logging company and their government allies, ordering an immediate halt to destructive clear-cutting in the roughly 90,000 acre Zalesovsky Forest Reserve, a rare and ancient taiga ecosystem that is home to bear, moose, and many other species, some of them officially listed as endangered. This victory resulted from Pacific Environment’s funded project work to GES on Public Forest Monitoring.

The decision sets a legal precedent of national significance by using Russian citizens’ constitutionally guaranteed right to a healthy environment to win a court case against a government agency. It also is indicative of the potential power grassroots NGOs have in promoting respect for the rule of law in Russia.

GES executive director Aleksey Gribkov acknowledged that the victory would not have been possible without the legal advice of a growing network of allied NGOs throughout Russia that Pacific Environment has been helping to cultivate over the past twenty years.

With a current grant from Pacific Environment, GES defends critical habitat for protecting endangered species and conserving Altai’s unique biodiversity. The project, Public Forest Monitoring, taps into many Russians’ discontent with government and commercial abuse of public resources, and focuses on recruiting and training regional volunteer activist groups to detect illegal poaching of wildlife and illegal logging of protected forests.

For over ten years, GES has focused on biodiversity issues, conducting conservation activities in nature preserves, assisting in the creation of school-based forest stewardship programs, monitoring conservation lands, conducting environment education, and leading anti-poaching raids.

To learn more about our Russia Program, visit www.pacificenvironment.org/russia.

As the world watches the urgency of oil spill response operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Environment and SF Estuary Partnership hosted a local forum last week that brought this national tragedy a bit closer to home here in the Bay Area. The forum, “Oil Spills in San Francisco Bay: Preparing a Better Response,” for the first time brought together stakeholders of the Bay area community including natural resource managers, local and state agencies, environmental groups, fishing groups and the public to discuss the lessons learned from two recent oil spills in the Bay – the Cosco Busan in 2007 and the smaller Dubai Star spill in 2009 – and how to better prevent and respond in the future.

Oiled Bird

Among the speakers were Pacific Environment’s very own Jackie Dragon, Marine Sanctuaries Program Director; Mike Lynes, Conservation Director, Golden Gate Audubon Society; Scott Schaefer, Deputy Director for the Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR); Zeke Grader, Executive Director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Associations; and Captain Gugg and Lt. Cmdr. Gus Bannan of the U.S. Coast Guard. (more…)

While working with communities is core to Pacific Environment, we also need to build from those efforts and strengthen our support of critical environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act — both of which are currently under threat.

The EPA, which enforces the Clean Air Act (CAA), is under attack from special interests and their representatives in Congress.  Special interests are advocating removal of the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the CAA, which they won in the Supreme Court in 2007. Currently, there are two bills in Congress that would slow or kill the EPA’s new regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Two West Virginia Democrats, Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Nick Rahall, have co-authored a bill that would freeze the agency’s move for at least two years and “protect clean coal state economies.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska introduced a bill that would undo the EPA’s ruling that greenhouse gas emissions pose public harm. The state of Texas is also challenging the EPA’s attempts to regulate greenhouse gases claiming that the agency’s finding that “gases blamed for global warming threaten public health” is “based on flawed science and would harm the state’s economy.”

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Global climate change needs to be addressed on many fronts.  Looking globally in scope, international efforts to stop or slow down global warming are essential.  Communities in Alaska and around the Arctic are being impacted by bigger storm surges, thin or no ice which is impeding seal and whale hunts and creating extremely dangerous conditions for people to practice their subsistence way of life.  Additionally, global warming threatens many species of wildlife including polar bears, Pacific walrus and seals.  We must work together to get commitments from the US and other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 350 parts per million, meaning greenhouse gas pollution from the United States and other developed countries should be reduced by 45% or more below 1990 levels by 2020.

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Our friends at the  Pure Salmon Campaign have launched a new video highlighting the Norwegian Government’s exploitation of salmon in British Columbia.  The launch coincides with campaign events around the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC, Canada – where we are be on the ground to highlight the environmental problems of Norwegian salmon farming operations in British Columbia.  Watch a clip below or click here to watch the full video.

Posted by Cheng Shuling, Program Officer for Dalian Environmental Resources Center (DERC)

Before my trip to Hainan, the most southern province of China, where I was assigned to investigate the shark fin trade, I knew very little about the meaning behind the words “shark fin” and “shark”. I had never seen a  shark fin before, let alone a shark. I had learned from books and films that shark fins are used for culinary delicacies. After I completed this investigation, I learned that behind these dishes there was a shocking and tragic truth.

The  South China Sea is rich in shark.  Fishermen have fishing operations all year round in the Nansha, Xisha and Zhongsha Islands. And sharks are an important species to this region. I did not go to the islands for this particular research project, but I did get to know where shark fins are sold and consumed in Haikou.

In Haikou, the most concentrated places for selling shark fins are in supermarkets and street markets. In these areas, various styles of shark fins are sold at different prices and in various types of baskets or bags. The average consumer often thinks shark fins are highly nutritious.  Sellers will also persuade customers that shark fins are high in protein and worth buying. The seller will also seek to explain to customers the various ways to cook with shark fin. If you buy it, they will even prepare a beautiful gift box so that you can send it to your friends in a nice package. Generally speaking, shark fins are exotic and in demand everywhere, often grabbing the attention of visitors.

In the East Gate market, after talking to sellers about other topics, one seller eventually told me that she sold three shark fin gift boxes immediately before our conversation: each at the price of about 70 dollars and at a weight of 37.8 grams.

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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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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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