DATE: For Immediate Release: October 8, 2010
TO: Media contacts concerned with the environment, forests, human rights, Russia, effective activism
FROM: Lois Barber, Executive Director, EarthAction, Amherst, MA USA
RE: Russian President Acts to Save Threatened Forest after International Outcry—Global environmental network mobilized support for Moscow activists
Russian President Medvedev ordered a halt to construction of a highway through a critical Moscow forest in response to international environmental concerns and fired the mayor of Moscow, in part, for his role in pushing the project.
More than 2,600 organizations in 150 countries flooded the Russian president with pleas to stop logging and halt highway construction through Moscow's Khimki Forest since July when the EarthAction Network alerted the international environmental community to the situation. EA issued the urgent appeal to its partner organizations across the globe in response to a request for assistance from Moscow-based activists working to save the forest.
Medvedev cited the public outcry from the environmental community when he announced his decision to suspend construction, according to a BBC report.
"Given the number of appeals, I have made a decision,” Mr. Medvedev said in a message on his video blog, quoted by the BBC. "I order the government to halt the implementation of the decision to build this highway and conduct further civic and expert discussions."
Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov had been under pressure from the Kremlin to resign. “Frictions burst into the open in early September," the New York Times reported (9/28) "after Mr. Luzhkov published his official commentary suggesting that Mr. Medvedev had dithered" over plans for the highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
"This has flabbergasted us. It was completely unexpected,” said Sergei Ageyev, a member of the environmental group leading the opposition to the highway. "It is simply a stunning victory for civil society."
Khimki Forest is 2,600 acres of woodlands with 100 year old trees. It’s an urban refuge for people and wildlife—literally an oasis of fresh air in a heavily industrialized region. In November 2009 Russian Prime Minister Putin made a ruling that transferred the Khimki forest from protected land status to lands zoned "for transport and infrastructure". This ruling made it possible and profitable for the French company with the road building contract to put the road through Khimki Forest so that it could also cut down and sell its valuable timber.
The Khimki Forest is one of 26 road construction projects that are currently proposed for public conservation lands in Russia. Organizers against the projects claim that construction of these roads are being allowed to proceed by corrupt politicians for the benefit of their for-profit construction company partners which stand to make enormous sums of money. Transparency International-Russia recently conducted an analysis of the Khimki project that provides documented evidence of corruption.
Lois Barber, EarthAction's Co-founder and Executive Director said she was gratified that the global network she and her colleagues had built was critical in bringing about this all-too-rare triumph for the struggling environmental movement in Russia. Earlier this year, environmentalists working to protect this forest physically defended the trees with their bodies while they, along with journalists, were attacked by thugs and arrested and jailed by police.
EarthAction, based in Amherst, Massachusetts, is a global network of environment, peace, and justice organizations launched in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The partner organizations in the network have taken action together on 83 global campaigns and, according to Barber, “have helped to find solutions to many of the world’s most serious problems.”
Evgenia Chirikova and Mikhail Matveev, leaders of the Save Khimki Forest movement wrote to the EarthAction Network, “Thank you very much for your support of our efforts in defending Khimki Forest... it was great to see we are not alone. We are sure that your numerous emails were essential in making that happen.”
President Medvedev is expected to make a decision on the route for the highway on October 12. It is believed that he is only considering two routes, both of which go through the Khimki Forest. EarthAction is joining Russian campaigners in urging Medvedev to select a third option that bypasses the Forest completely.
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Contacts:
Lois Barber, EarthAction Co-founder and Executive Director
[email protected] Tel: 413 549 8118 www.EarthAction.org
English speaking activists leading Ekooborona, the Movement to Defend Khimki Forest. Based in the Khimki, Moscow area:
Mikhail Matveev
[email protected] +7 965 392 28 14 Mobile
Yaroslav Nikitenko
[email protected] +7 916 743 37 59 Mobile
Russian website: http://www.ecmo.ru
English website: http://is.gd/fPZm2