Olkhon is the third-largest lake-bound island in the world, and the largest in Lake Baikal with an area of 730 square kilometers (280 sq mi). On the evening of July 2nd, I arrived in Khuzhir, the administrative center of the Olkhon Island. I planned to spend the weekend finalizing a grant proposal and meeting with local activists.
I went for a run along the lake when I arrived. The last time I visited the island was in 1998, with a crew of filmmakers who I accompanied as an interpreter and a local chaperone. At the time, the island did not have electricity. In fact, the few people that did live there lived off diesel generators which supplied enough electricity for basic lighting, cooking, and an hour or two of TV in the evening. Back then, there were only a few foreigners who used to stride along the streets of Khuzhir, attracting a lot of attention from local kids. There were one or two grocery stores and a couple of tourist guest houses. One of the most famous guest houses was run by the island’s local interpreter, Nikita Bencharov, who had extra wooden cabins and some sites for tents in his backyard. (more…)
On July 16, an oil pipeline in Dalian, owned and operated by ChinaPetrol Group exploded while loading oil off a Libyan tanker.
The Financial Times reported today, “The disaster began last Friday, when two pipelines exploded as high-sulphur crude was being unloaded from a Libyan tanker. State media said firefighters were on the scene within three minutes and more than 2,000 firefighters were deployed to battle the blaze, which raged through Saturday morning.” According to Chinese media report, the explosion has caused 1500 tons of oil to spill, reaching an ocean area of 50km with pollution likely to spread to 100km. John Amos from SkyTruth made the above satellite image of the Dalian Spill. (more…)
Since late June, almost 1000 American consumers have written letters to Steve Jobs and Apple’s Public Relations Department urging them to address concerns of China’s Green Choice Alliance regarding heavy metal pollution from suppliers in China.
The IT industry is well known for its toxic legacy in its disposal cycle, but little attention has been paid to the environmental impacts of its production. In 2009, more than 4000 people, mostly children, were afflicted with lead poisoning in China inspiring the Green Choice Alliance to initiate a campaign to clean up multinational’s IT supply chains. The Alliance is taking action where the government is unable to, namely targeting brand-conscious multinationals to attract public and media attention to the cause. (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…)
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.
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.
Alexander Vrishch from Russia’s Phoenix Fund at the Rio Vista wind farm
During preparation for last month’s alternative energy exchange, and during the exchange itself, which took place in the Bay area and Sacramento, and with all the hassle and bustle that usuallyaccompanies the process of setting up meetings, finalizing itineraries, booking tickets, and taking care of other logistics, I could not but notice how individuals from all different walks of life – be it the government, businesses, or just individuals – were genuinely interested in energy issues in Russia and incredibly willing to help out. I wondered why this was the case. What was in it for them to spend their time and energy on individuals who came halfway from around the world? (more…)
Xiu and Yang are on a three-week field visit in China. They are currently visiting Green Camel Bell in Gansu Province. Here’s clip of what they’ve been up to. Check it out:
Ran Liping, Green Camel Bell’s Water Program staff is introducing the town of Lingxia, an ethnic Hui-dominated city that is currently listed as Medium Level polluted in China’s Air Pollution Index. We are visiting this area to find out more about five of the polluting enterprises listed by Gansu Environmental Protection Agency and how they are affecting the area people’s lives.
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.
The 40th anniversary of Earth Day provides a great opportunity to look back at the progress of the environmental movement – and how we are doing meeting the growing environmental challenges of the day.
As luck would have it, I am spending the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in Moscow. Since I have spent a significant amount of time the last 20 years working with grassroots environmental groups throughout Siberia and the Russian Far East, reflecting from Moscow seems somehow appropriate.
What have we learned in the last 40 years? First, the environment is about people. To protect the environment, we have to work with people. We have found that building an effective, widespread environmental movement is critical to our success. The environmental movement has been criticized for not reaching out broadly enough. Time and again, we have proven that the environmental movement is not narrow. The environmental movement is not limited to scientists and bird-watchers. The environmental movement is made up of poor people, rich people, everyday people, people from labor unions, journalists, teachers, kids, parents, and many more. (more…)
Olkhon is the third-largest lake-bound island in the world, and the largest in Lake Baikal with an area of 730 square kilometers (280 sq mi). On the evening of July 2nd, I arrived in Khuzhir, the administrative center of the Olkhon Island. I planned to spend the weekend finalizing a grant proposal and meeting with local activists.
s 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.
Posted by Jon Spaulding
