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.
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.
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.
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.
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…)
Like many of us around the world, I am keenly watching events unfold in Copenhagen. I keep wondering whether our diplomats will be able to pull themselves together to come out of Copenhagen with a strong, binding agreement that truly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
Today’s big news focused on developing countries walking out of the talks due to concerns about developed countries abandoning the binding targets of the Kyoto Protocol. This reminds me of the famous WTO negotiations in Seattle ten years ago. At those negotiations, developing countries brought down the talks because they saw too much back-room dealing. Oh, and they also saw the incredible protests on the streets calling the entire WTO into question.
Developing countries have every reason to be concerned. Watching U.S. senators introduce “climate” legislation that allows more offshore oil drilling – such as Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham did last week – does not instill me with confidence that the U.S. can be a leader on climate change issues. It appears as though we are allowing Senator Imhofe – a notorious climate change denier – to control U.S. legislation and, through it, the outcome of the negotiations in Copenhagen. We need the U.S. and other developed countries to step up to the plate and commit to significant, binding reductions in emissions.
Developing countries also need to do their part to reduce emissions. This is why we are helping to build a grassroots environmental movement in China. Grassroots voices can change China towards a low-carbon path. We need these voices to speak up loudly and clearly.
It’s the 14th day of my 28-day trip backpacking around China to help seek out, investigate, and report on sources of water pollution. I’m in a village in Bengbu, trying not to breathe as factories around me belch black smoke into the air. With me is Zhouxiang and Zhangjun, Executive Director and Operations Director of Green Anhui, respectively. Next to us a group of local construction workers are in the middle of re-plastering the walls on someone’s decrepit looking house.
I arrived in Hong Kong thinking that I had packed a perfect amount of clothes. The weather was warm and humid but also slightly breezy at times. Weather.com was once again reliable until the Chinese government decided to shoot some silver iodide and dry ice into the sky, to induce rain to relieve the drought in the north. It set off a snow storm and extreme weather conditions across the country that was to claim 40 lives and billions of dollars in lost agricultural and industrial productions. Luckily, all it gave me was a cold that lasted for weeks. When I arrived in Guangzhou it was as if I had walked into a freezer. I scrambled to a nearby mall and filled up my suitcase with new winter clothes. By the time I sat down at Green Eyes’ office near Zhongshan University, I was appropriately bundled up.
On 16 November 2009 a panel of Kamchatkan activists from the Lach Ethno-Ecological Information Center awarded first, second, and third prizes in a photography contest held during this summer’s salmon spawning season. The panel selected 34 finalists from 70 entries addressing the topic “The salmon in the life of the native peoples of Kamchatka” before whittling the group down to three winners. The top three submissions are displayed after the jump. All 34 finalists can be viewed here.
I looked around, and through the grey fog of cigarette smoke I could just make out an outline of the man who was talking at me in a gruff voice with a dialect of Chinese I couldn’t understand. He gestured animatedly, not noticing in his excitement that I was nodding without comprehension. The smoke swirled around him like incense. A few feet away another man was also talking at me, giving his version of whatever story was in the works, talking over and under the first man in that same incomprehensible dialect. I didn’t know who to pay attention to so I bobbed my head at each in turn, to keep them talking. A dirty lightbulb hung between us, slightly above our heads, illuminating the dirt walls and the dirt floor. I was in a dirt house on the side of a dirt mountain in the frozen winter of a small village in China’s Gansu Province. Outside was the kind of primordial silent black that only still exists in places where people continue to wake and sleep with the sun. I should have been a bit scared, freshly plucked as I was from my apartment in downtown San Francisco, now wading through the developing world with my developed-world ways and thoughts and expectations of what life should be; but Zhaozhong was with me, so was Liping and Chenyang, and sandwiched between my Green Camel Bell friends I felt safe enough to enjoy the delicious strangeness of the situation. (more…)
Posted by Zhang Yadong, Executive Director of Green Longjiang
Posted by Evan Sparling
Posted by David Gordon
Posted by Yang Chu
me belch black smoke into the air. With me is Zhouxiang and Zhangjun, Executive Director and Operations Director of Green Anhui, respectively. Next to us a group of local construction workers are in the middle of re-plastering the walls on someone’s decrepit looking house.
Posted by Xiu Min Li
