Robert Moiseev

In recent weeks, we have lost two shining stars of Russia’s conservation movement.  On Thursday, Robert Savelievich Moiseev passed away, one day after his 70th birthday.  Robert Savelievich was the director of the Kamchatka Branch of the Pacific Institute of Geography, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  

Robert Savelievich’s vision of sustainable development for Kamchatka and the North Pacific was truly extraordinary.  Meeting with Robert Savelievich was always a pleasure that would result in expanding my worldview.  He had a deep and complex understanding of sustainable development, based on his background as an economist and a patriot of Kamchatka and the North Pacific.  He immediately understood the value of international connections; his vision was truly North-Pacific wide, as he understood the ties between Kamchatka and Alaska.  He was one of the primary drivers behind the ideas for the International Bering Sea Forum, which brought together community members from both sides of the Bering Sea.  

Robert Savelievich believed that Kamchatka could prosper only if it could sustainably manage its renewable resources, particularly its fisheries.  He worked with us to demonstrate the value of Kamchatka’s salmon economy.  He thought that Kamchatka’s economic priorities – which now appear to favor oil over fisheries – were terribly misplaced.  His vision, though, was always frustrated by government officials who failed to have the long-term vision that Robert Savelievich championed.  It’s particularly tragic that proposals to drill for oil off of western Kamchatka are moving forward at the same time that Robert Savelievich has passed away. 

Most of all, though, I will remember Robert Savelievich as a mentor with an incredibly keen wit, golden tongue, and sharp mind.  I remember once attending a public hearing on mining issues in Kamchatka, at which Robert Savelievich spoke.  He spoke directly after a representative from the mining company.  Robert Savelievich had the amazing ability – well-developed through the Russian scientific dialectic – to “dress down” whoever had spoken immediately prior to him.  With an amazing economy of words, he showed the gaping flaws in the arguments of the mining company and went on to offer a vision for Kamchatka far beyond what anyone could imagine.  I remember thinking to myself that I never wanted to speak directly after Robert Savelievich! 

Robert Savelievich’s vision and leadership will be sorely missed, but I am hopeful that his vision for Kamchatka and the North Pacific will live on through his writings, his colleagues, and his family – and through those of us who will continue to promote a vision of sustainable development for the North Pacific. 

Another shining star of the Russian conservation movement who passed away in late November is Boris Konstantinovich Shibnev, at the amazing age of 89.  Boris Konstantinovich led an incredible life, having been born just a year after the Russian Revolution.  He had read the works of Arseniev (the Russian analogue of John Muir) who wrote about his travels through the amazing nature of the Russian Far East (for those interested in his work, I recommend the Akira Kurosawa film “Dersu Uzala”).  After being demobilized from the Russian Navy in 1939, Boris Konstantinovich moved to the Bikin River watershed in northern Primorsky Region. 

Boris Konstantinovich was a fierce defender of the Bikin, a roadless area of 3 million acres with an amazing collection of subtropical biodiversity that is rare to find in such a northern area.  He led scientific expeditions, was a teacher who gained great respect among the indigenous Udege people, and led early non-governmental efforts.  I met Boris Konstantinovich in 1992 during my first visit to the Russian Far East.  He had created a natural history museum in his home in the village of Verkhny Pereval.  His passion and commitment to the Bikin watershed was contagious.  At the time, the Bikin was under threat from Hyundai Corporation, which wanted to log the upper headwaters.  We helped launch an international campaign that helped protect these forests from loggers. 

These two stars of the Russian conservation movement will be warmly remembered – and our partners will be working to continue their traditions by protecting Russia’s most important wilderness areas and by promoting a sustainable vision for the region.

Sakhalin’s economy depends on fishing.  Take Aniva District, for example:  one fish inspector told me that 70-80% of the local economy is tied to fishing.  And most of that is for salmon. 

So it’s no surprise that one of the major concerns for people on Sakhalin about oil and gas development is its impacts to salmon.  Shell has been roundly criticized by environmentalists and even the Russian government for the impacts to salmon spawning streams from its pipeline construction. 

Under Russian law, companies have to pay for damages to natural resources.  So Shell provided $11 million to the Sakhalin Fisheries Agency as compensation for its damage to salmon.  Regardless of the fact that this amount is too low, I was most amazed about how the Sakhalin Fisheries Agency then decided to use this money.  The Fisheries Agency used the compensation to reconstruct an enormous fish hatchery on the Taranai River.  The reconstruction included building a barrier that blocks fish from going upriver so that all the salmon can be taken at the hatchery.  Essentially, this will destroy the fisheries in the upper part of the watershed.  

Shell and the Sakhalin Fisheries Agency should know better.  It’s much smarter to spend money to protect healthy wild salmon habitat than to build hatcheries that just lead to more threats to wild salmon.  Instead, they’ve just doubled the damage to salmon from Sakhalin-II and oil and gas development.  In the indigenous Ainu language, Taranai River means “Fish River.”  Too bad this fish river is being killed. 

Our Executive Director is a real stick-in-the-mud

Sakhalin Island, Russia – Today I had the opportunity to accompany our partners at Sakhalin Environment Watch on one of their trips to inspect pipeline construction for the Sakhalin-II project, which is being led by Gazprom and Shell.  What I saw was shocking – even to me, and I’ve seen a lot of pretty bad places!  Despite an enormous amount of public concern about how the pipeline will affect salmon streams, pressure from international banks to clean up the river crossings, and a huge crackdown by the Russian government on the project’s environmental violations, the pipeline is just causing more and more damage.

We visited a slope that was a focus of the government crackdown against Shell last year.  And it’s now looking even worse.  You can see a hole forming in the middle of the slope from erosion – erosion that’s all going downstream into salmon spawning rivers.  Those are our partners Dmitry Lisitsyn and Zhenya Konovalov at Sakhalin Environment Watch that you can see in the photos.  

They think the problems with the pipeline are because Shell failed to complete a good project design.  Shell clearly still isn’t doing enough – it isn’t planting the slope, for example, which would increase slope stability.  But the problems will continue to get worse – they picked a bad route in mountainous conditions with very poor soils prone to erosion.  Following the construction, it’s even more likely that after strong rainstorms (as we’ve had the last couple of days) we will see landslides and debris flows that could destroy sections of the pipeline.  One geologist told us today, “I pray that the pipeline will be destroyed in a landslide before they put oil into it.  Because once they put oil into the pipeline, and the landslide happens, it will be much worse.” 

Our inspection of the pipeline had its own adventures. We’d had a lot of rain in the last day, which made the roads bad and the mud worse.  At one point, as I was trying to get close to a severely eroded area on the pipeline route, I stepped into some mud and sank up to my knees!  It just goes to show how bad the conditions are in Sakhalin – and clearly the conditions are too difficult for the engineers at Shell.