Открой Байкал!

On March 10, 2010 a group of Russian environmental NGOs announced launch of a Coalition and a sign-up campaign to send a petition to UNESCO to protect Lake Baikal.

For now Coalition “For Baikal!” includes the Baikal Environmental Wave (Irkutsk), Greenpeace Russia (Moscow and Saint Petersburg), Movement of Civil Initiatives (Saint Petersburg), Environment Protection Teams of the Moscow State University (Moscow), Green Wave (Saint Petersburg), Social and Ecological Union (Moscow), Biodiversity Conservation Center (Moscow), Expert Center “ECOM” (Saint Petersburg), WWF Russia (Moscow) and other non-governmental organizations across Russia.

The Coalition has the following goals:

- Stop discharges and emissions from the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill (BPPM) and consequently abolish the Russian Government’s Decree No.1 of 13 January 2010;

- facilitate creation of alternative jobs in Baikalsk through development of environmentally safe and socially responsible industries.

The Coalition calls on everyone who can’t stay indifferent to the future of Lake Baikal to join these demands.

NGOs are ready and willing to maintain a dialogue with the authorities. However, the Government does not seem to be ready to follow suit. That is why Coalition plans include national days of protest, further collection of signatures under a petition to President Medvedev who can cancel Decree No.1. The first protest is to take place in Irkutsk on March 20.

In 2006, to a large extent, due to public protests the oil pipeline “Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean” was moved away from Lake Baikal. Recent oil spills that took place as soon as the oil pipeline was commissioned have proved that the public was right!

Also today the Coalition announced that it started a sign-up campaign to collect signatures under a petition to UNESCO. People may leave their signatures on the Coalition’s web site www.savebaikal.ru as well as on internet pages of Coalition members. www.savebaikal.ru also provides a possibility to send a personal petition to President Medvedev.

“Lake Baikal is a UNESCO World Heritage property, which is why we believe that international community and international organizations will not step aside and will help find a solution. We are going to appeal to UNESCO and demand that they take urgent steps to stop contamination of Lake Baikal”, says Andrey Petrov, Head of the World Heritage Program of Greenpeace Russia.

An independent analysis of the situation shows that the decision to re-start the Baikalsk PPM was made in momentary interest of the mill’s owners. All other reasons for that look, to put it softly, farfetched. Baikalsk does not need the outdated BPPM, although the mill still enjoys the status of a “city-forming” enterprise. The future of Baikalsk lies with tourism and alternative industries based on local natural resources. For that, the town has all chances and possibilities.

“It is difficult to imagine a more irresponsible decision than that to permit pollution of Lake Baikal. It cannot be justified in any way, it just does not make any sense unless Russia wants to demonstrate its suicidal tendencies”, comments Aleksey Zimenko, General Director of the Biodiversity Conservation Center.

To operate stably and safely the Baikalsk PPM needs to go through a serious and costly update. Launch of the mill with discharges into Lake Baikal violates both Russian and international laws including the Federal Law “On Protection of Lake Baikal”, the Russian Constitution and the International Convention for Protection of the World Natural and Cultural Heritage.

In April 2006 Vladimir Putin declared: “If there is even a minor share of possibility that Lake Baikal may be contaminated, it is a must for us to not just minimize, but to totally eradicate such a threat”.

If the Baikalsk PPM is launched, let alone in open water cycle mode, contamination of Lake Baikal will become irreversible. That is why the Coalition calls on all Russians to make everything possible to “not just minimize, but to totally eradicate such a threat”.

The Coalition is open to all non-political and non-extremist non-governmental organizations that may want to joint the effort to protect Lake Baikal.

Greenpeace Russia