Environmental experts have reviewed the events of 2010, from unprecedented natural disasters to important political decisions regarding the environment, and they have taken their conclusions to the government. Like strict parents trying to teach an important lesson to their children, they praise sparingly, offer constructive criticism, and call out bad behavior rather than the individual. It seems they are as intent on preserving the political environment as our natural environment.
Save the tiger
Conservationists praised the International Tiger Forum held in St. Petersburg in November. It was attended by heads of government from 13 countries where tigers are found in the wild. The number of tigers in the world has plummeted from 100,000 to 3,200 in the last century due to "selfish profit seeking, the reckless exploitation of forests and ill-conceived infrastructure projects," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at the forum. This is "a distress signal that nature is sending to us in the hopes of being heard," he added.
The key accomplishment of the forum was the endorsement by participants of the St. Petersburg Declaration of Tiger Conservation, which calls for a doubling of the tiger population by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger according to the Chinese calendar. To achieve this ambitious goal, these nations must create new special protection areas, fight poaching and the illegal trade of tigers and tiger products, and protect the tiger's prey (wild boar and deer).
Tigers are doing relatively well compared to their spotted relatives, Amur leopards, which are also sending out loud distress signals. There are 500 Amur tigers in the wild, but only 35-45 Amur leopards. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov recently called for a national leopard conservation program.
He supports environmentalists' proposal to merge the Cedar Valley and Leopard nature reserves in Russia's Far East, creating the Land of the Leopard National Park.
If we are committed to protecting biodiversity, we must also heed the SOS signals from the snow leopard, the white-naped crane, and other species. Increased funding for protected natural areas in Russia will vastly increase their chances of survival. Until recently, funding was meager, said Rinat Gizatullin, the Nature Ministry official responsible for nature conservation policy. A 35% increase in funding in 2011 will help restore ecotrails.
Vladimir Putin has visited a number of nature reserves in the past few years to show his commitment to conservation. He visited the Ust Lena Reserve in August 2010.
Conservationists have also praised the government's attention to Lake Baikal. There is a federal program in place to preserve its unique ecosystem and repair the damage caused by human activity. However, a January 13 government resolution was met with protests from Baikal activists, as it essentially gave the green light to reopen the Baikal pulp and paper mill, which was temporarily shut down in November 2008 amid environmental concerns.
Natural and man-made disasters
The wildfires that raged across western Russia this summer may be back next year, according to Ivan Blokov, campaign director of Greenpeace Russia. One year is not enough time to overhaul forest management in Russia. Trees will also face serious danger from gypsy moths in the Krasnodar Territory and bark beetles in the Moscow Region.
Humanity seems unimpressed by the recent spate of disasters, but environmentalists warn of more to come.
In January of this year, over 200,000 were killed in an earthquake in Haiti. The eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland in April grounded airplanes in Europe and America and sent markets tumbling. Russia suffered an unprecedented heat wave this summer, while Pakistan was hit by severe flooding. South America saw inches of snow and severe cold.
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon oilrig off the Louisiana coast on April 22 was probably the worst man-made disaster this year. As a result of the accident, 11 people were killed and 4.9 million barrels of oil gushed out into the sea. At the G20 summit in Toronto in June, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed setting up an international prevention and response system to handle oil spills. The system would include environmental risk insurance.
The oil spill has compelled most global leaders to confront this problem, says Igor Chestin, head of WWF Russia.
Raising public awareness
Unfortunately, there is no reason to expect Russia to reduce air, water and soil pollution anytime soon, says Ivan Blokov. November saw an 8% increase in pollution from November last year. Progress on many environmental issues has been negligible. For instance, Russians have so far ignored calls to separate their trash and recycle.
Well-organized public awareness campaigns and environmental education could help improve the situation. Schools need to introduce a course in ecology - something that should have been done a long time ago, Greenpeace and WWF activists maintain. No wonder there is so little awareness of environmental problems among adults.
Yet, environmentalists are optimistic. Public interest in environmental issues has grown, Blokov says, citing an August survey by the Levada public opinion center. The number of Russians concerned about the environment has grown from 17%-24% to 31%. This uptick is largely due to the greater frequency and severity of natural disasters as well as political discourse and current trends in society.
Clearly, many lessons have been learned this year.
The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
