As Arctic sea ice continues to diminish, more ships are traversing routes that were once death-defying feats. In the last decade, ship traffic through the Bering Strait alone has more than doubled. The Arctic is home to hundreds of communities and tens of thousands of marine mammals like beluga whales, walruses, and seals. All this … Read more
In this cold weather season, here’s a heartwarming story from the Russian Far East. And while I’m not usually one for watching cat videos on YouTube, this story comes with the cutest footage I’ve ever seen of tiger cubs. Check it out! For the first time ever, four Siberian tiger cubs were caught on camera in … Read more
Grassroots activists are at the forefront of the fight for a just transition to clean energy. This fight has only become more urgent with the recent U.N. report by climate scientists calling for immediate and radical reduction of carbon pollution worldwide to avert catastrophic climate change. To shine a spotlight on the brave grassroots heroes … Read more
Ecologist and indigenous activist Sergei Shapkhaev, who galvanized popular support for the world’s largest freshwater lake and protected it from industrial activities, has died in his native Buryatia in southern Siberia at age 71. Longtime friend and fellow activist Anatoly Lebedev says Sergei was “a symbol, an omen, a shamanic totem of Lake Baikal.” Inspiring … Read more
Something unheard of happened in Siberia last month: A district court canceled a permit for a new open-pit coal mine. The big winner? The environment. In 2016, the provincial government in Russia’s Kemerovo region seized agricultural lands from private landowners to hand over to the private coal mining company Stroypozhservice (SPS). Four landowners refused to … Read more
Not Sitting on the Fence: A Coal Check-in with Vladimir Slivyak of Ecodefense! The people who live near Berezovsky coal mine are fed up. On February 17, local citizens took to the streets near the Siberian town of Novokuznetsk in the heart of Russia’s famed Kuzbass region, one of the largest coal mining areas in the world. For 10 hours, about 80 people blocked the road to the Berezovsky open-pit coal mine. Five protesters … Read more
The most powerful force on Earth is people power. Every day, people around the Pacific Rim who are finding new and creative ways to protect us all from climate breakdown, air pollution, water loss, and plastic waste. Here are five wins that you helped us and our partners on the ground achieve in 2017. We truly couldn’t … Read more
Meet Khorgai—one of just 70 snow leopards left in Russia. A skilled hunter, he uses his long, broad tail to move with balance and stealth across rocky mountaintops. His dense gray and white fur keeps him warm and camouflaged. Khorgai roams the harsh Chikhacheva Ridge which straddles Russia’s Altai and Tuva Republics and the northwest corner of … Read more
I’m sad about—and definitely resisting—the Trump administration’s attack on the environment, social justice, and the rule of law in the United States. But I also have a tremendous amount to be thankful for this year, and I want to share some of my thoughts with you. Because of the support of people like you, Pacific Environment … Read more
Mass demonstrations are popping up all over Russia. Why? Because people are fed up with breathing, eating, and drinking toxic coal dust. Along the way, these protesters are disrupting President Putin’s last-gasp attempt to profit from coal before it lands on the ash heap of global energy history. Last summer, activists and villagers used hundreds … Read more
Do you ever wonder what advocacy at the highest international levels actually looks like? Well, I’ve been working in this field for over 30 years and I can tell you that it’s pretty much all about getting people into a room together so they can listen and learn from each other’s experiences and perspectives and … Read more
Nina Zaporotskaya created an unlikely alliance between park rangers and indigenous groups to protect wild salmon. Nina Zaporotskaya is a salmon defender. And she is one of the reasons we’re witnessing a sea change in our longstanding fight to protect one of Kamchatka’s most iconic creatures: wild salmon. The threat: illegal poaching. Kamchatka is a … Read more
Eduard Zdor protects walruses threatened by climate change and connects indigenous youth with their cultural traditions. Scientists and indigenous peoples noticed a disturbing trend among walrus populations in Chukotka in Russia’s far northeastern corner. During the summer, melting sea ice, caused by climate change, forced walruses to gather onto ever smaller beaches on shore. Eduard … Read more
Aleksei Gribkov defies government pressure and wins landmark legal victory for Russia’s environmental movement. Aleksei Gribkov did not back down when Russia’s state security agencies harassed him and his organization, the Gebler Ecological Society, to drop a lawsuit that ended up becoming a landmark victory for Russia’s environmental movement. Aleksei’s deep love for Altai’s wilderness, … Read more
Sergei Berezniuk’s fight to protect the endangered Siberian tiger helps save an entire ecosystem. In the summer of 2012, eight Siberian tiger skins, including those of little tiger cubs, were seized from a resident of Arseniev town in Primorye in the Russian Far East. The offender was well-known to the local police because he has … Read more
Eugene “Zhenya” Stoma is fighting two of the biggest threats to endangered Siberian Tigers and Amur leopards: poachers and forest fires. Zhenya grew up in southern Siberia, which is home to vast old forests filled with endangered Siberian tigers, Amur leopards, and bears. After leaving the military in the 1990s, Zhenya returned home and took … Read more
People have been searching for gold for thousands of years. It’s an enduring dream that anyone can strike it rich by sieving river mud in search of that big gold nugget that will change their life. Few ever imagine the terrible consequences of mining rivers for gold. In the Altai region in southern Siberia, gold … Read more
From North Dakota to Siberia, indigenous communities are fighting dangerous fossil fuel projects that threaten their water and sacred sites. Valentina Boriskina is a member of the Shor people in Siberia. The Shor people’s ancestral lands are deep within the heart of Russia’s largest coal-mining region—the Kuzbass. Valentina is determined to keep her community in … Read more
Recently in London—10 days before the U.S. election—I had the privilege of hearing my friend Eduard Zdor speak. Eduard is a Chukchi leader from the Russian Arctic who founded an organization of traditional marine mammal hunters. Eduard spoke of his traditions, his parents and grandparents, the challenges his community faces now in a world of … Read more
Six Arctic indigenous leaders from Alaska, Canada, and Russia will travel to London next week to address the International Maritime Organization (IMO) regarding the impacts of shipping in the Arctic on indigenous communities. This is the first time that the IMO, which sets international shipping law and recently adopted the Polar Code, will hear Arctic … Read more