Nexus - 0110 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

of: he "Eeology and Peace" gi ergei Golubchikov, an eminent professional ecblagist at Moscow State University, gave the following statistics, which are corroborated by many other scientists and activists, and most have appeared in the prestigious M.S.U. science journal, ‘Energia’. As hard as it is to believe, they only provide an overview of a vastly complex ecological nightmare... 1. To produce forest products like construction lumber or paper, 90% of the USSR forests are clear-cut from old growth virgin forest with an incredible 70% waste factor. That is, 50% of the trees and brush lie on the forest floor without going to the mill, and the mill in turn produces the other 20% waste. Figures in the USAare about 35-50% clearcut of virgin forest with 10% waste. 2. There are 545 thousand hectares of forest dying due to acid rain in the Norilsk area (north western Siberia) alone. (Also, Zhores Medevedev, in “Ecologist” (Jan/Feb 1990), stated that the Soviet Union is losing its forests at the same rate as Brazil!) 3. The majority of agricultural land outside of the Ukraine is undergoing progressive erosion. Also, these lands have seen a 450% increase in chemical fertilizers & pesticides since the 60s. 4. 40% of the children in Leningrad have intestinal disorders due to the poor drinking water. Many other industrial cities in the USSR are experiencing similar problems. 5. There is widespread contamination of European USSR due to radioactive and other toxic wastes, with toxics showing up unexpectedly on land and at sea. Incredibly, “school children wandered unwittingly into a forgotten and unguarded nuclear waste dump near Khabarovsk.” The northwestem Ukraine is still heavily contaminated by fallout from the Chernobyl accident, far worse than initial estimates. Also, various communities are threatened by oil and gas exploration. 6. The Aral sea is drying up and producing lethal dust storms to plant life over an area of 200,000 square kilometers. These storms, sometimes 100 km wide, can be seen from space. Finally, Professor Golubchikov states that 26% of people in 123 cities in the USSR live in areas that could be called ‘extremely hazardous’ due to the full range of chemical and bacterial pollutants. Until five years ago, most of this information was known only to a select few, but due to increasing democratization, many green groups are actively trying to reverse this critical situation. Our group of specialists in different areas of the environmental movement met with some of these Russian greens. It is important to point out that the information distribution in Russia is about thirty years behind the West. There are virtually no copy machines, the telephone lines are of sporadic quality, there are very few personal computers, and to top it off, this largest of forested countries has a paper shortage! Additionally, Mikhail Galyatin, a Soviet environmental lawyer whose remarks were repeated frequently in the USSR stated that “environmental law is in its infancy”. He said that since the state is both regulator and polluter, enforcement is minimal at best, and it is difficult, if not impossible to sue the state for: damages due to environmental pollution. The first, and largest, group we met with was the Social- Ecological Union, based in Moscow, who are completely non- governmental and respected by everyone we talked to. They are comprised of 120 groups throughout the USSR. Ina discussion onagriculture, one of their leaders, Svetoslav Zabelin, stated "if everyone owns the land then no one really owns the land." Zabelin thinks that private ownership of the land by farmers and peasants is the only way to counteract chronic food shortages. Asmaller group, Ecology and Peace, also based in Moscow, comprises 100 respected scientists who were mainly responsible for stopping the planned reversal of over 15 northern Siberian rivers in the early 80’s. Despite the heavy hand of Breznev’s last years, they were able to pressure the Supreme Soviet to abandon the project. Sadly, they work out of a few rented rooms at the Soviet Peace Fund and are only now ready to move intoa larger space where they will still be in need of all the office essentials (computer, copier, printer, etc). Due to the respect given to persistent, truthful scientific analysis in the USSR, Ecology and Peace has the potential to be the Soviet version of the Worldwatch Institute. Our next stop was Riga, Latvia, where environmentalism and independence go hand in hand. Vak, the group we met with most frequently, is convinced that Latvia will not be able to make the necessary changes toward a sustainable future without breaking out of the Soviet Union. We were very impressed with their organizational abilities and were told they had some help from a number of Latvian-American associations. They have a newspaper, an office, and possibly one of the only Macintosh computers in Latvia. One chilling fact they kept reminding us about was that Riga, acity of 1 million, has no sewage treatment facility, All this waste just empties into the bay! Our last stop was Leningrad. This Venice of the North is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful cities in world. It’s also one of the most polluted. The source of its drinking water is Lake Ladoga, at one time the largest source of fresh water in Europe. Three pulps mills without effluent control devices, along with their accompanying towns, pump heavy metals and raw sewage directly into the lake. Interestingly, the environmentalists we spoke to were even more incensed about the almost completed Damba, a huge sea dam designed to prevent the once-in-100-year flooding of the city. They claim that the floods only destroy property, but that the dam will trap the entire range of bacterial and chemical contaminants leaching out of Leningrad. This trapping effect 450 Nexus *10