ANNA NEMTSOVA - Is Russia Ruining the World’s Oldest and Deepest Lake?
For centuries, ancient Baikal has
inspired art and religion among all ethnic groups living peacefully around
Baikal—Shamanists and Buddhists here tie up colorful ribbons to trees in
gratitude, with wishes whispered; Orthodox believers build churches on the
lake’s banks. Some residents pray to the planet’s holy jewel, to preservation
of their Siberian sea.
Others do not care
whether the lake will stay clean for thousands of years, and have taken to
dumping sewage into it. The road to Listvianka ended suddenly at a cliff,
outside a red brick, multi-story hotel called Gold, of dubious reputation. Last
February, locals watched a disgusting scene: yellow liquid was running right
out onto Baikal’s ice from a hose that stretched from the hotel. This time, it
was dirty laundry water. “Washing powder that contains phosphate is very
dangerous for the lake’s species,” Marina Rikhvanova, a senior ecologist from
Irkutsk told The Daily Beast. “The pollution causes overwhelming growth of
Spirogyra algae, which pushes out Baikal’s endemic sponge, the key cleaner of
Baikal’s water, and destroys invertebrate organisms, the main food for Baikal’s
fish.”
Today Lake Baikal,
like a huge mirror, reflects Russia’s core challenges of indifference to human
rights, disregard for a threatened environment, and the power of corruption and
authoritarian pressure on independent voices that are crucial for increasing
public awareness.
Five years ago, the
Russian Justice Ministry listed 29 environmental groups as “foreign agents” for
working on foreign grants and being a threat to Russia’s security.
Conservationists, previously working on increasing public environmental
awareness, became
tied up with solving legal issues, struggling to prove that they were
no harm to Russia’s security. As a result of the new law’s pressure, 14 green
groups labeled as “foreign agents” have stopped their activity, Human Rights
Watch reported last year... read more:
