New Bill Puts Russia’s Lake Baikal at Risk of Deforestation, Harmful Urbanization, 3 August 2023

A controversial new bill seeking to ease logging restrictions along the shores of Lake Baikal could cause irreversible damage to the Siberian lake’s unique ecosystem, experts and activists have told The Moscow Times.

Baikal was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 and recognized as the planet’s most outstanding example of a freshwater ecosystem. The world’s largest freshwater lake by volume, Baikal is both sacred to the indigenous populations living around it and a popular eco-tourism destination.

Russia’s lower house of parliament last month approved amendments to the country’s law on the protection of Lake Baikal in their first reading, which lawmakers say are aimed at developing basic infrastructure in the many remote towns and villages on the lake...

If signed into law, the bill would allow sanitary logging — a forestry management method aimed at minimizing the impact of insect infestation, forest fires and other natural disturbances — on as many as 75 plots of land with a total area of 762 hectares, which Russian lawmakers say will be used for the construction of roads, sewage treatment plants, utility infrastructure, cafes, restaurants and public toilets. 

One of the businesses that could reap large benefits from the bill is Sable Mountain, a ski resort owned by tycoon Oleg Deripaska that stands adjacent to the largest area of forest where logging will be permitted...

Last year, just two weeks after Greenpeace Russia sounded the alarm about the catastrophic consequences the proposed law would have for Baikal, Yakubovsky sought to silence the organization and called on Russia’s Justice Ministry to investigate it for compliance with Russia’s “foreign agent” law....

Among the positive features of the law touted by its backers are provisions for building landslide mitigation structures in cleared areas and “compensating” for each felled tree by planting five others in its place...

Sofronov believes that the arrival of large investors, who have the interest and the means to take appropriate care of shore areas, could, on the contrary, have a positive effect on Baikal....

Simonov said he believes that public hearings on the law are bound to be a nominal procedure, as the government has so far failed to provide required expert assessments and other documents detailing the proposed changes. 

“Unfortunately, this is just a cop-out not backed by valid procedures,” said Simonov.