Posted on 20 January
2010 - Russia has opted to reopen a notoriously
polluting paper mill on Lake Baikal, reversing
long-time protections to the UNESCO World
Heritage Site.
Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin last week issued a new decree
on the inclusion of “corrections” to the
List of Banned Activities in the Central
Ecological Zone of Lake Baikal, which contained
environmental safeguards to protect the
lake. This list was first adopted in 2001,
a major environmental victory at the time.
According to the new
resolution, the discharge of sewage waters
into Lake Baikal is now allowed. In addition,
the decree allows for the storage and disposal
of hazardous waste on the lake’s shores.
“Restart of the mill
is being regarded as a necessity to preserve
the jobs,” said Igor Chestin, WWF Russia
Director. “However, the resumption of its
work will mean that Russia violates its
obligations as one of the signatory party
of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.”
“The new resolution
weakens the protection level of the World
Natural Heritage site. It means that when
a mission of the World Heritage committee
could come to Russia and in the future Lake
Baikal would be given a status of a World
Heritage site under threat”.
Russian environmental
organizations, including Greenpeace and
WWF, have demanded that the government cancel
the resolution. Environmentalists have also
addressed The World Heritage Centre of UNESCO
with a request to raise the Baikal problem
at the soonest session of the UNESCO Committee.
“The resolution that
allows the resumption of work of the Baikal
paper mill was adopted against the opinion
of the Irkustsk research center of the RAS
(Russian Academy Of Sciences) Siberian branch
and numerous environmental organizations,
and without a proper public discussion -
which is the violation of the main principles
of sustainable development,” said Dr. Evgeny
Shvartz, WWF's director of conservation
policy in Russia. “Therefore, we reckon
that this resolution must be cancelled and
a negotiation process on this problem should
be started between all the stakeholders
to find an optimal and balanced solution
that will ensure the protection of the unique
Baikal Lake nature”.
Baikal’s paper mill
was built in 1966. It is situated in Baikalsk
(Irkutsk region), on the South-Western shore
of Lake Baikal. The paper mill is a principal
employer and mainstay of the entire town.
It employed more than 2,300 people, out
of the town’s 17,000 inhabitants.
In autumn 2008, a closed-loop
water system was introduced at the mill,
which helped to prevent Baikal Lake from
the industrial wastes. In the beginning
of September of that year, the mill stopped
the production of the brown/unbleached pulp.
According to a factory’s director, there
is no technical solution that will allow
to produce bleached pulp without any waste.
Brown pulp production is not as profitable
as the bleached one, and the mill became
unprofitable, loss-making factory and suspended
its work in October 2008.
The 3.15-million-ha
Lake Baikal in Siberia is the oldest and
deepest lake in the world, according to
UNESCO’s website. It contains 20 percent
of the world's total unfrozen freshwater
reserve. Lake Baikal first received UNESCO
designation in 1996.
According to environmentalists,
Baikal paper mill’s activity is the main
threat to a unique nature of the Lake Baikal.
