Russia
In the Russian Far East and Siberia, where traditional ways of life have survived in remote areas for centuries, new forces of development threaten both fragile landscapes and people. Local communities face the expansion of large-scale infrastructure, oil and gas exploration, and polluting industries. Although grassroots groups are have begun to organize, the obstacles they face are many: lack of government transparency, weak social networks, limited institutional capacity, and severe lack of funding, just to name a few. Despite these challenges, our Russia Advisory Board is leading the way to a more sustainable and robust environmental movement in the region.
Visit the Russia Advisory Board’s website
Grantmaking Strategies
- Indentify and support activist individuals and groups working on the most urgent issues and in the various regions of Siberia and the Far East
- Support networks and coalitions that expand access to information and cooperation among groups
- Use active forms of environmental rights protection, including the pursuit of legal actions, the development of public expertise, and the holding of public hearings
- Increase the ability of local people to manage their natural resources sustainably
Board Priorities
Protection of human environmental rights, including those of indigenous populations
Biodiversity preservation
Reforestation
Sustainable land use
Creation and maintenance of Specially Protected Nature Territories
Protection of rivers, lakes, and seas
Raising awareness and educating local communities about sustainable development
Countries
Baikal Environmental Wave
Grant #: 54-170
Amount: $4,000
Country: Russia
Focus: PollutionAfter the offices of Baikal Environmental Wave were raided by Russian police and the group lost their computers in a controversial search and seizure, the Russia Advisory Board recommended a small grant to provide general support of the organization through their recovery. The group has been working for years to protect Lake Baikal against the toxic dumping of a nearby paper mill. After a hard-fought battle to close the plant, the group succeeded in winning a ban on dumping in 2008. However, the Russian government has recently lifted the ban, and the group has resumed its fight. The funds from this grant are also being used to establish monitoring over the re-opening of Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant and to initiate public discussion over this issue.
Center for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North
Grant #: 52-504
Amount: $5,000
Country: Russia
Focus: EnergyThe Yamal gas exploration is the world’s biggest energy project. On the remote Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic terrain of northern Russia, this energy development project threatens the thousand year-old traditions of the Nenet people and the vast, uncorrupted lands they depend on. The Center for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North (CSIPN) is working to address this threat with the support of a $5,000 grant from Greengrants. The organization helps indigenous peoples of northern Russia participate in decision-making and management of regional economic activities and adapt to the market economy of the Russian Federation. As an advocate for indigenous rights, CSIPN investigated the failure of the World Bank to uphold benefit-sharing commitments to the Nenets from the Yamal gas projects.
Yury Shirokov
Coordinator
Yuri is the current President of ISAR-Siberia (ISAR – Initiative for the Social Action and Renewal in Eurasia). He has more than fifteen years of environmental experience working in the Siberian region. He is a prolific writer and has authored more than twenty articles on current ecological conditions in Siberia, including studies of emission sources in Novosibirsk, the monitoring of atmospheric pollution, the influence of power supply sources on the concentration of pollutants, and the development of a unified system to monitor the Siberian environment, population and health.
Tanya Daukhanova
Administrator
Tanya was born in Lesosibirsk, Russia. She was first introduced to the international grassroots movement in 1993, when she volunteered for Angara Yenisei Rescue, a Siberian environmental group. At a young age she also participated in a number of international conferences held in Siberia and the Upper Angara Region. Tanya has been working for the Global Greengrants Fund as the Russia Board Administrator since 2001, and has worked as a Grants Administrator in our Boulder office since 2009.
Aleksandr Arbachakov
Tiaga Research and Protection Agency
Aleksandr is an expert in forest ecology and wildlife conservation. He graduated from the Forestry Department of the Technological Institute of Siberia in 1986. He helped found the non-governmental Agency for Research and Protection of Tiaga (AIST), and worked as an information coordinator for the “Sacred Earth Network” (SEN) in Southern Siberia. Aleksandr is currently working on the Russian-British joint project, “The Elaboration of the Concept of the Ecology Policy in Kemerovskaya Region.”
Sergei Bereznuk
Phoenix Fund
Sergei is an advisor in the Far Eastern region of Russia. He is also the Director of the Phoenix Fund. Under his leadership, the Fund’s budget has grown from $10,000 up to $500,000 and has become a prominent and well-known organization at both the domestic and international levels. In 2006, Sergei received the prestigious Whitley Award for Nature for outstanding achievements in his nature conservation work.
Ekaterina Evseeva
Center of Ecological Education “Eige”
Ekaterina was born in Yakutsk, Russia. She is currently a director of the Center of Ecological Education “Eige” in the Sakha (Yakutia), which now has projects on public monitoring on sustainable forest use, and public control over industrial projects in Southern Yakutia and raising network of indigenous and ecological initatives. She has worked as a university teaching assistant, organized summer ecological youth camps, and consulted for local nonprofits on grant proposal writing, organizational development, and leadership. She graduated from Yakutsk State University, Foreign Languages Department, in 2003, with honors.
Natalia Kovalenok
Dauria Public Ecological Center
Natalia is an assistant professor in the Ecology Department at Zabaikailskyi State Teachers Training University. She also coordinates the ecological program at the Public Ecological and Educational Center “Dauria”. The Center promotes ecological education and public awareness by organizing various environmental campaigns and by disseminating information through local mass media. It also carries out a series of ecological seminars and training sessions at local universities, schools, and voluntary organizations.
Natalya Aleksandrovna Lisitsyna
Sakhalin Environment Watch (SEW)
Natalya is the deputy chairman of the Sakhalin Environment Watch (SEW), which works to preserve the unique environment of Sakhalin Island through public ecological control, monitoring, and protection of the environmental rights of the local population. She has worked with SEW since 1998, and in her current position, she performs the duties of the organization’s lawyer. As a certified environmental auditor, she is a member of the nonprofit Partnership for Environmental International Audit Community. For her training, Natalya attended professional development courses in the Russian State Hydrometeorological University, in the Atmospheric Protection program. In 1996, she graduated with honors from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Forestry College, specializing in Economics and Accounting.
Elena Repetunova
Independent Consultant
Elena graduated from the Biology Department of Altai State University in 1989 and became the President of the Ecological Club of Altai State University in 1994. She participated in the founding of the Tigerekskii Nature Preserve. She also organized and managed the following ecological projects in the Altari Region: Young Ecologists of Altai Unite, a summer ecological camp in the Katun Nature Preserve; the publication of informational materials on the natural heritage of the Altai Region; and Earth Day 2002 activities in Western Siberia.
Nina Zaporotskaya
Ethno-Ecological Information Center of Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North “Lach”, Kamchatka
Nina a director of the Ethno-Ecological Information Center of Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North “Lach”, Kamchatka. She helped start “Lach” (which means “sun” in the Itelmen language) in 2001 as an information center for indigenous peoples in Russia. She is a member of Itelmen’s Council of Kamchatka (Itelmens are Kamchatka indigenous small people). Nina graduated from Khabarovsk State Pedagogical Institute with a specialty in math and physics in 1984. She is currently studying Ecology and Nature Use at the Baltiskyi Institute of Ecology, Politics and Law, Department in St. Petersburg, Russia.
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