posted by Xiu Min Li

Recently we reported on 34 Chinese NGOs writing to 29 multinational IT companies regarding companies in the supply chain who are found to be in violation of environmental regulations in China. These letters cited specific suppliers to these IT companies and their specific environmental violations according to Chinese government reports. In these letters, we requested that the IT companies, including Apple, IBM and Sony, to verify the information and commit to actions to address these violations.

Among the 29 companies, eight have chosen not to respond. Pacific Environment tried to contact two U.S. companies that did not respond: Apple and IBM. Both have responded without addressing the key questions and concerns raised in the letters.

On June 5^th, these NGOs published a second report regarding the status of these companies’ response. Read the report (English) here and stay tuned for further updates from us.

You can also get updates through our Twitter page here: http://twitter.com/pacenvironment

Water Pollution in China, Ao River

Posted by Galina Angarova

It’s this time of the year when the entire Russia Program team is heading out to Russia’s regions for site visits and program related activities. On June 15-28 my colleague Jon Spaulding and I are conducting a follow-up professional exchange on alternative energy and energy efficiency in Russia. This is a sister visit to our April alternative energy exchange whereby we hosted a delegation of  Russian renewable energy professionals and NGO leaders in northern California to learn about California’s latest technologies and regulatory policies for renewable energy and energy efficiency development.

Next week, we will be bringing a group of five U.S. renewable energy experts to Russia to share their knowledge about contemporary technology and legislative policies on renewable energy sources and energy efficiency in the United States.  One of the trip’s highlights will be meeting with Andrey Yalbakov, a Russian participant who was part of the Russian exchange that we hosted here in April and who recently was awarded the 2010 Young Entrepreneur of Russia Award for his work in solar, wind and mini hydro-generation in the Altai Republic.

Andrey Yalbakov, recipient of the 2010 Young Entrepreneur of Russia Award for his work in solar, wind and mini hydro-generation in the Altai Republic.

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posted by Rory Cox

AN OPEN LETTER TO PETER DARBEE, CEO of PG&E,

On behalf of Pacific Environment, I am writing to thank you for your generous contribution to spreading the word about public power in California. Thanks to your $45 million public education campaign, millions of Californians now know that by working with their local elected representatives, California communities can choose to buy their own energy. This can be done in partnership with your company, PG&E through a Community Choice model, or without, with public power that is owned 100 percent by the community.

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Posted by Evan Sparling

I couldn’t sleep last Saturday night. It was my second night in Anchorage, having arrived the day before to help lead an exchange that brought Evenk people from Russia’s Republic of Sakha-Yakutia and environmentalists from the island of Sakhalin to Anchorage and Barrow to discuss indigenous rights vis a vis oil and gas development.

But all I could think about was Kyrgyzstan, the country that I called home for the year before I came to Pacific Environment last fall. The country had been embroiled in political turmoil since earlier in the week, when soldiers opened fire on a group of protesters that eventually stormed the government’s headquarters. That evening, the mobs tore up much of the city; searching for loot or just looking to smash things. Photos showed bodies lying on streets that I had crossed every day. The supermarket next to my apartment had been looted and burned, and two professors from my university were dead. In the following days I discovered that all of my friends were safe, but the images followed me north.

What bothered me the most on that Saturday night wasn’t so much the actual violence, but rather the coverage of the events in the American media, which focused entirely on the revolution’s potential implications for an American airbase located in the capital. One lead-in to a CNN story illustrated this perfectly. “It’s hard to spell, and hard to pronounce,” announced the smirking journalist as video of Kyrgyz riot police played in the background, “so why should YOU care about political upheaval in Kyrgyzstan? We’ll tell you, after the break.” The implication, of course, was that if it doesn’t directly affect us, we really shouldn’t care about people being shot in the street. But to me those people being beaten in the place with the funny name were potentially my friends, people who are like family to me.

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Posted by Xiu Min Li

This Sunday, after an hour and a half of a typically frantic and heart-stopping taxi ride through the dusty and congested streets of Lanzhou, we arrived at the Lanzhou Business School to participate in an International Youth Environmentalist Exchange Salon, organized by several university-based environmental clubs. I gave a presentation on Pacific Environment’s work, highlighting each program’s unique focus and approach to demonstrate the diverse ways that U.S. NGOs deal with different environmental issues. Simon, a French student and volunteer with Green Camel Bell (GCB) talked about sustainable development in France and Ran Liping, Green Camel Bell’s Water Program Officer presented on GCB’s work.

Although China now has over 3,500 NGOs, most concentrate in big and high profile cities like Beijing and Yunnan. In backwater regions like Western China, the concept of NGOs is still foreign. Being the only registered environmental NGO in Gansu Province and with a growing reputation both domestically and internationally, Green Camel Bell is nonetheless finding it challenging to hire qualified people to join its expansive programs. They hired two people a few months ago through a recruitment event they held at a university; one left after seeing the homey but sparse GCB office located on the ground floor of a residential complex, the other left after a field visit to GCB’s rural project after realizing how difficult the work is. (more…)

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 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 with an opportunity to fully immerse myself into program work and issues faced by indigenous communities in Russia, especially 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 could 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  Soviet times the communists extinguished shamanism and many of the shamans who lived during those days were either killed or sent to gulags. For many years shaman clans had to hide their identity and it was only after perestroika and democracy that shamanism experienced its revival. Nowadays it is not as rare to find a shaman in the remote villages of Altai. Luckily, 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 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.  (Today, there are only 70,000 speakers of Altayan in the world).

Cows in Kosh-Agach region, Altai Republic, Russia

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.

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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 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. (more…)