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The Newsletter of
the
Socio-Ecological Union
A Center for Coordination
and Information
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Moscow, Russia -- Issue 4(26),
April, 2002
IN THIS ISSUE:
GRIGORY PASKO 40 YEAR'S ANNIVERSARY FREE!
LEGEND OF RUSSIA WILL BE CLUED
CRANBERRY CAN'T RAISE THE ECONOMY
"SNOWDROP" IN VOLGOGRAD REGION
GRIGORY PASKO SHOULD MEET HIS 40 YEAR'S ANNIVERSARY FREE!
The action of "The Journalist" magazine to support Grigory Pasko.
April 9, by initiative of "The Journalist" magazine a letter with requirement to
exempt Grigory Pasko was directed to Russian authorities.
Among them are the President of Russia, the Chairman of Government, the
Minister of Defense, the Director of FSB (Russian Security Police), the
Minister of Justice, the Chairman of the Supreme Court, the General Public Prosecutor.
Under the letter there are more than 50 signatures of leaders of Russian and
CIS influential public organizations. It says:
"The Russian citizen Grigory Pasko was publicly humiliated, deprived of an
officer rank, state awards and arrested. And again it was on the ground of
quite far-fetched pretext. Pasko was accused because of exercising
constitutional right and publication of an important information about
environment, which is certainly open according to the Constitution of
Russian Federation.
Instead of finding and punishing those who has neglected the right of the citizens
to live in healthy environment, the courageous journalist who has told the truth
about infringers of the law is punished.
Grigory Pasko is already acquitted by the society, for rights of which he struggled. But not by they
ones, who rescue him for the truth. Now the authorities want
to subject him to one more humiliation.
This journalist and ecologist, who recently worked in presidium of the Civil
Forum together with the President of Russia and the Chairman of Government, where he has acted
excellent on behalf of journalistic community, will meet his
40-year's anniversary (May 19, 2002) in prison.
We can't allow that!
We demand Grigory Pasko to be realeased from the prison.
We demand a fair and independent court for Grigory Pasko.
We demand to hold responsible those who organized prosecution of the journalist.
From "The Mass-Media and Society" department of "The Journalist" magazine:
Dear colleagues! We are still collecting signatures in support of Grigory. April 9
we have send this letter to the addressees and we don't know, how will they
react and whether Grigory will be free by his 40-year's anniversary. But in
any case you can celebrate the anniversary of Grigory Pasko by the
actions of support.
To support the action you can send your messages to:
Russian President Vladimir Putin - president@kremlin.ru
fax +7(095)206-07-66
Pressidental Press-service - prespr@gov.ru,
Presidental Administration - +7(095)206-31-78
Supreme Court of Russia - fax +7(095)293-55-84
You can also direct your congratulations for Grigory on the electronic address of Anna Selesnjova,
Vladivostok:
annsel@mail.primorye.ru
All messages will be handed to Grigory Pasko.
LEGEND OF RUSSIA WILL BE CLUED
The legendary Russian taiga - the world's largest forest- is not the
virtually endless wilderness it is often thought to be. Only about a
quarter remains in large roadless areas that are undisturbed by modern
land use, says a new report released today in Moscow and Washington by
Global Forest Watch (GFW).
The Atlas of Russia's Intact Forest Landscapes will be presented to
international public in April was produced by GFW Russia, a
country-wide non-governmental network of major environmental and
research organizations. GFW Russia has carried out a systematic and
detailed inventory of Russia's entire forest zone, looking for
disturbances such as logging, mining, and associated roads and fires.
Thousands of satellite images were used along with hundreds of ground
observations to verify the result. Some field expeditions spent weeks
in roadless territory in search of intact wilderness.
"If you don't map it you can't manage it", says Dmitry Aksenov of the
Socio-Ecological Union International, one of the authors of the atlas,
"Governments and corporations don't collect this information.
This is why Global Forest Watch has to do it."
The result is a practical guide to precaution. More than a hundred
detailed maps (mostly in the scale of 1:1500000) are used to
present the precise boundaries of Russia's remaining intact forest
landscapes.
A total of 289 million hectares (26 percent) of Russia's forests
remain in areas that have no signs of infrastructure or modern land,
and are at least 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) in size (intact
forest landscapes).
Approximately 5 percent of the intact forest landscapes have special
protection at the Federal level. The system of protected areas in most
administrative regions and ecological regions of Russia is inadequate
in representation and size to reflect the conservation needs of intact
forest landscapes.
Eastern Siberia is the most pristine with 39 percent of the forest
zone in intact forest landscapes, followed by the Russian Far East (30
percent) and Western Siberia (25 percent). European Russia is by far
the least pristine with only 9 percent intact. Anthropogenic fire
regimes affect large areas in northern Siberia and the Far East.
A belt across southern Russia is the most affected by modern land use.
Temperate broad-leafed and mixed conifer-broad-leafed forests are at
special risk. Intact forest landscapes may disappear within whole
ecological regions or even vegetation zones without decisive action
during the next few years.
"This Atlas breaks new ground," says author Alexander Isaev, member of
the Russian Academy of Sciences, forest minister of the USSR in the
Gorbachev administration, "Russia is the first country to document its
forest heritage in this way. Other countries must follow, so that we
get a global picture."
The organizations behind Global Forest Watch Russia include
Socio-Ecological Union International, Biodiversity Conservation Center, Greenpeace Russia,
International Forest Institute, R&D Center
ScanEx, and Transparent World (all Moscow), the Fund for 21st Century
Altai (Barnaul), the Friends of the Siberian Forests (Krasnoyarsk),
and the Bureau for Public Outreach Campaigns (Vladivostok).
Global Forest Watch is an initiative of the World Resources Institute in
Washington, DC.
The work has been supported by the home furnishing company IKEA, the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Turner
Foundation, and the World Resources Institute. The work has benefited
from software donated by Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc.
and ERDAS Inc.
GFW Russia was founded in 1999 in Krasnoyarsk.
Atlas of Russia's Intact Forest Landscapes:
http://www.forest.ru/eng/publications/intact
For more information:
Dmitry Aksenov, picea@online.ru
CRANBERRY CAN'T RAISE THE ECONOMY OF WHOLE PSKOV REGION.
The campaign to support Polistovsky reserve.
In the Pskov region the state natural reserve Polistovsky is under threat.
The authorities of the region attempt to the part of reserve territory. They wish
to remove border and to withdraw 2000 hectares of its land.
Almost each reserve during the history collided with problem that the local
residents don't accept a reserved mode in protected territory.
In Polistovsky reserve this conflict has arisen since its creation.
7 years passed but local residents still can't accept prohibition to harvest
cranberry in the reserved territory.
The social and economic situation in the region is worse than ever:
picking cranberry became one of main sources of existence for local population.
But instead of ensuring worthy existence to local
people, the local authorities are ready to destroy valuable reserve.
April 19 - 28 the ecological public organizations are holding fax-campaign to support the
Polistovsky reserve. The campaign is dated to the Earth Day,
its aim is to affect the opinion of region authorities and not to give to
destroy the reserve.
The reserve Polistovsky (36 thousand ha) - the one of the first marsh reserves is located in the
eastern part of Pskovskaya Region and was founded in 1994.
The reserve is located within the southern taiga bog complex of the
Polistovo-Lovatskaya system of high muskegs (moss bogs), one of the
greatest in Europe.
The relief is lowland valley between the rivers Lovat and Polist with several large lakes Russkoye,
Krugloye, etc. The main area (31 thousand ha) is
occupied by bogs, high sub-shrub muskegs mainly made up of brown bog moss, Chamaedaphne calyculata,
heather and cranberry. Forests (4.1 thousand ha)
are present, with grass aspen forests and birch forests with an additional mixture
of lime, maple and oak. Parts of the spruce and pine forests remain.
Elk, alpine hare, wood grouse, black grouse are usual.
Of rare species in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation there are:
golden eagle, fish hawk, white-tailed eagle and black stork.
The large cranberry fields on the territory of the reserve are the apple of discord between the
local residents and the management of reserve.
Despite of this uneasy situation, the employees of reserve trying to solve this problem. They have
offered to local authorities to restore the drained bogs
and to set them by cranberry. The reserve employees will do what they can
to help. But it is impossible to permit the gathering of cranberry
in reserved territory, it is unlawful and contradicts the sense of creation of reserve.
Cranberry fields of reserve are not unique near Tsevlo village. There are other
fields where the local residents able to reach. The local administration, which is
so alarmed with convenience of the voters, can deliver the cranberry collectors
in not reserved territory, to more remote places of the gathering of berries.
Besides it's necessary to solve social and economic questions, first of all to
create workplaces.
You can support the campaign by sending your messages to the SEU
Press-service -seupress@seu.ru
"SNOWDROP" IN VOLGOGRAD REGION
Illegal picking and sale of rare plants, blossoming in spring is the very sore
problem for all southeast of Russia, and in particular, for Volgograd and
Volgograd region.
Annually in the markets of city it is possible to observe the same picture: brisk
sale of spring primroses (snowdrops) begins in February - March (usually in the period from
February, 14 till March, 8). Local dealers offer wild-growing
plants, first of all, brought of Krasnodar and Stavropol territory (cyclamens, snowdrops,
hellebores). Hardly later - by the end of March, in April -
the assortment is sharply increased due to local wild-growing kinds
(goose onions(bows), bulbocodium multi-coloured, a tulip two-floral,
tulip of Gesner, tulip of Birberstain, a hazel grouse Russian, low iris,
a glade Siberian, a lily of the valley May, and others).
To stop this situation it's possible only with the joint coordinated actions of the regional state
and public ecological NGO's. First it's necessary to improve the regional legislation in the field
of wildlife conservation. Now there is no
Red book of the Volgograd area, there are no special laws and the decisions
of Regional Duma regulating use of wild-growing plants, there is no
appropriate mechanism of the control of execution of these laws.
Therefore suppression of illegal gathering and trade in wild-growing colors
is extremely complicated.
But there isn't time to wait for acceptance of laws. Therefore, since 2002
members of NGO "The Regional centre of biodiversity studying and conservation" and "The Green Orbit"
with assistance of Volgograd regional administration's Committee on preservation of environment have
developed regional
operation "Snowdrop".
They have prepared a package of information materials: the reference to
citizens, the poster with the image of local kinds of the plants listed in the Red book. All these
materials were distributed on city schools, in large shopping centers
and supermarkets of the town.
It is important to note, that "Eltonsky" national park created recently in territory
of the Volgograd region has active participate in the operation "Snowdrop".
At the territory of the park were kept the unique dry-steppe sites which avoided
of total ploughing up in the Soviet times. At the end of April the tulip fields
blossom there.
To see the pictures of the rare plants, go to
www.seu.ru/projects/eng/snowdrop
Back to SEU Times home page
This issue was written and complied by
Sviatoslav Zabelin - the SEU Council Co-Chair, svet@seu.ru
Olga Berlova, Victoria Kolesnikova seupress@seu.ru
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