Implementing Agenda 21

Russian NGOs: Searching for a Sustainable Future

Olga Ponizova

Four years have passed since the Earth Summit in Rio, the event which capped the gigantic preparatory efforts for policy coordination among different national governmental bodies, business structures, non-governmental organizations, research centers, financial organizations and international institutions.

There was no experience before UNCED in facilitating such a significant process for integrating international and national NGOs into intergovernmental negotiations. The time has come to evaluate the initial results of these efforts.

Disseminating UNCED Ideas

The process of disseminating information in Russia about decisions made at the Earth Summit was weak and ineffective. The country was involved in a political struggle between the president and Parliament, radical economic reforms caused severe social distortions, and the idea of sustainable development looked very abstract to a disintegrating society. Neither governmental institutions, nor mass media paid much attention to disseminating ideas that came out in UNCED. (LA??) All the information about Rio decisions were contained in just a few interviews, which Russian participants in the Earth Summit gave to newspapers. Only one overview of this remarkable event was prepared by representatives of academic circles;in this case, by Academician Koptyug V. of Novosibirsk, a research Russian center in Siberia. Although in some parts of his paper he presents a subjective communist-type interpretation of the content of the Earth Summit, his efforts should nevertheless be recognized. We should also stress his role in organizing a set of regular conferences and discussions on sustainable development issues over the last two years. He was later awarded a place on the High Level Commission on Sustainable Development set up by the UN General Secretary.

Under such conditions of 'information hunger,' several foreign organizations played an important role in supplying Russians with UNCED materials. Among them the now-defunct Centre for Our Common Future supported translation into Russian and publication of the layman's version of Agenda 21. Written in a simple language with clear illustrations this small brochure has become a manual for those organizations who share the ideas of Rio. Unfortunately, full packs of Rio documents are still not accessible, even to specialists.

NGOs arranged several meetings dedicated to Rio results and follow-up. One such activity is an annual forum entitled 'For Peace, Environment and Development' organized by the Independent Peace Service, since 1992. A significant contribution to the dissemination of UNCED decisions has been made by youth organizations. The sustainability topic has also become a regular one at the International Youth Forum 'Interweek' which takes place annually in Novosibirsk. A set of special publications and youth workshops was provided by the NGO 'Rainbow/Youth for Environment and Sustainable Development.' In 1992, this organization created a network of youth organizations in the Newly Independent States, based on sharing the principles of sustainable development, and fueled by UNCED and Global Forum events. In fact it became the first Russian non-governmental organization to include the guideline for 'sustainable development' in its charter. This caused trouble with registration as the Ministry of Justice resisted for about a month because of Rainbow had such "a strange meaning of aims."

UNCED raised gender issues and so facilitated the birth of women's organizations. In November 1993 in Moscow, the congress 'Women for Environment' took place, during which the Environmental Women's Assembly was formed. Achieving sustainable development was formulated as one of its main priorities. Another new development in Russian environmental movement, initiated by the Earth Summit and its follow-up are the environmental centers in the business sector. The Committee on Environment has been formed under the aegis of the Russian Chamber of Commerce. It tries to integrate ideas of sustainable development into business policy elaboration. It also formulates recommendations for the government on the development of "green entrepreneurship."

NGO Participation in National Sustainable Policy Elaboration

UNCED confirmed the need to search for new models of development and proclaimed sustainability as a guideline. Pushing aside the experience of a consumer society and the so-called 'socialist' road to development; both of which caused exhaustion of natural resources and environmental degradation;participants at the Earth Summit approved Agenda 21 as a global manual to help humankind overcome ecological crisis and move towards a sustainable future.

For the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in transition challenging new development options, the idea of sustainability has become the most urgent. To make it more concrete the CEE governments stimulated discussion on the content of sustainable development.

In this way, in 1994 in Russia, the Ministry of Environment announced a competition for the elaboration of a concept for Russia's transition to sustainable development. About 50 NGOs, groups of independent researchers and top individual experts participated in this event. Ideas varied from very radical suggestions totally ignoring the market economy to proposals combining a market-based economy with an active state regulatory role. Russian NGOs used this opportunity to disseminate their views on the urgent political and social reforms needed in Russia, which they considered relevant to the principles proclaimed in Agenda 21. A member of the NGO Eco-Accord, as winner of the competition, was included in the official task force set up by the government to prepare a report for the president on Russia's transition to sustainable development. The final draft of the report has now been adopted by a governmental commission mostly made up of representatives from nature exploiting ministries such as oil and energy, water, or forestry. However, some principle positions concerning the role of NGOs, decentralization of environmental policy, and strengthening international cooperation have been kept.

The initial conception was discussed at the First Russian Congress on Nature Protection held in June 1995, and a month before at the NGOs preparatory conference. These two events helped air sustainability issues publicly and yielded a number of changes and improvements, which were submitted by participants to the task force.

The Russian president approved the concept of the Russia's transition to sustainable development in Decree N 440 on 1 April 1996, and recommended to the Russian government that it use the key statements and concepts of the document when preparing legal and normative acts, programmes. He ordered that this work be continue through preparing a strategy for sustainable development to be reviewed by the government in 1996. From our viewpoint, the time has come to form a working group to carry out the strategy for sustainable development with equal representation from governmental and non-governmental sectors.

NGOs also took actions and actively participated in discussions on some key issues of sustainable development in Russia. One of the most important issues formulated in the UNCED resolutions were those which concerned the protection of wildlife and biodiversity. Russia, with its huge practically untouched territories, lacks legislation regulating the creation of new reserved areas. On the government apparatus side, it also lacks willingness to cooperate with neighbouring countries, Finland and especially China, in creating joint reserves and national parks.

A final but most impressive result of NGO activities in this area was a well-organized protest campaign against the construction of a high-speed railroad from St Petersburg to Moscow across natural reserves. In the end, based on the results of an independent environmental study, Russia's Ministry of Nature Protection backtracked and gave up this "project of the 21st century."

Another major problem for Russia, one stressed in practically all the Rio documents and participants' reports is the need develop public participation in the elaboration of environmental and sustainable development policy. Disclosure of information should be the first important step in this direction, and one can only imagine how difficult is to make this move in a country with such totalitarian traditions.

Still there is a war of laws. Some like the Basic Law;the Russian Constitution and the law on environmental protection;guarantee the right of Russian citizens to know the truth about environmental quality. Others, such as the law on state secrets, virtually denies this right. However, the period after Rio marked by active non-governmental campaign against military and civil threats to environment. Russian NGOs called for disclosure of information on the nuclear tests which take place regularly on Novaya Zemlya Island. Although the official representatives from the Ministry of Defense deny dumping of military chemical substances in the Barents, White, Kara and Baltic seas, NGOs have demanded that the government conduct special investigations on these issues.

A number of positive changes have taken place in people's awareness of these issues through a combination of propaganda campaigns, direct actions in regions affected by military toxics or nuclear tests, and workshops. This interest in turn increased the attention paid by the media to environmental problems in general. In addition, it should be noted that despite the low level of investment in the economy, the inflation rate has stabilized during the last year and unemployment rates are not very high. These positive changes are rekindling interest in environmental problems, which was already high at the end of 1980s before radical economic reforms were launched).

Becoming a Part of the Global Commons

As sustainability becomes a focal point for development into the 21st century and nations and their governments unite in their willingness to move towards a sustainable future, it becomes urgent for Russia to find her place in this process. Russian NGOs are paving the way towards global partnerships by strengthening international cooperation in environmental protection. Assisting international organizations and funds, which put Rio decisions as a priority (LA: orig: prioritis--this is not Latin, is it?), helped a lot in this process.

In the 1990s NGOs participated in several large-scale projects dealing with biodiversity protection. Some were jointly implemented with international organizations such as IUCN-World Conservation Union, WWF and others. Others were initiated by Russian NGOs and have been supported recently by international financial institutions. For example, the Wild Nature Center in Moscow is publishing information materials concerning biodiversity issues and is involved in the development of a Global Environmental Facility project on biodiversity protection in Russia. Regional members of the Social Ecological Union, one of the largest Russian environmental NGOs, coordinate their activities on saving the Amur tiger in the Russian Far East with the US Agency for International Development, which assists the Russian government by implementing an ambitious project on the sustainable management of forest resources in the region.

Less attention, from our viewpoint, is paid to cooperation on climate change. First, this could be explained by the historically technical approach used in the former USSR to deal with these issues, which may discourage many ' humanitarian oriented' NGOs from becoming involved in this issue. Second, donor support on this particular issue appears lower than for others. Also, it is very difficult to stimulate use of alternative energy sources as possible solutions to a climate change problem where there is a huge financial deficit and a regular practice of non-payment for energy consumption in the Russian economy. Some Russian NGOs (ECO-Defense, Center of Nuclear Safety and Energy Policy) took part in the Berlin Summit on Climate Change and related events and work on public awareness on energy issues importance, but in general activity in this field is rather low. (LA??? Am I missing something?)

It is hard to understand and explain the low participation of Russian NGOs in the NGO Network of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), as well as the weak attempts to attract Russian (and NIS) NGOs to play active role there. Lack of information about the activities, tasks, and aims of the CSD is one problem. To solve this problem, the Russian Association for the Untied Nations and ECO-Accord is starting GLOBAL-Info project to facilitate access to international information on sustainable development to Russian organizations. On the other hand, unfortunately, Russian NGOs don't express much interest in the activities of the CSD. They often concentrated only on their national or local problems, and ignored the fact that to achieve sustainable development, action at all levels is needed.

There is also tremendous potential in the development of East-South cooperation. Countries in transition and developing countries have a lot in common: underdeveloped national economy, unstable national currency, weak democratic institutions and so on. Non-governmental organizations may initiate a process of strengthening cooperation with the South in favour of sustainable future.

Brainstorming effect

It is now very clear, that the Rio conference was a major influence on Russian society. It considerably raised public awareness on sustainable development problems, stimulated discussion and debate on concrete ways for its realization, contributed to breaking old stereotypes on intensive exploitation of natural resources as the only way to economic wealth and political power, and thus raised the intellectual capacity of society. Russian NGOs played their own important role in promoting these changes. Since Rio sustainable development has become an integral part of overall national policy in Russia. Russian NGOs contributed to a large extent in elaborating the basic text for Russia's transition to sustainable development, and initiated a number of concrete projects based on sustainability principles. Still, a lot of work remains to be done in order to involve the different sectors of Russian society in the sustainable development process.