Having studied the situation with the help of leading scientists, water professionals and environmentalists, in May 2008 YAKUTIA OUR HOME Coalition held a picket and a meeting in the city of Yakutsk to raise the public awareness of some problems with this most important for the country project. Those events promoted similar actions in the towns of Lensk and Olyokminsk.

Inspired by citizens’ support, the Coalition made a decision to start a republic’s movement – an action to save the Lena River – with the following aim: to demand from state authorities and environmental and regulating bodies of the RF and the SR(Y) to conduct a detailed quality expertise of survey and designing works, as well as construction, and from the ESPO contractor company TRANSNEFT – to take professionals’ recommendations into account and ensure maximum safety of the passage under the Lena River with tunnelling method.

Therefore, from the very beginning the action has not been aimed against the ESPO project but at its enhanced ecological safety. The Action is beyond PR and politics.

The Action First Stage named OUR PROTECTION TO OUR RIVER started on 10 June 2008 with a press-conference for mass media, where various professionals and environmentalists took part. Within first two weeks non-governmental organisations, the city district activists and volunteers posted over 100 announcements of the Action and handed out about 500 leaflets; audio announcement was read out in the Lena cinema theatre; SakhaNews Information Agency organised the initial on-line voting to support the Action. During this stage our volunteers gathered signatures on the streets of Yakutsk; a propaganda team went to the town of Pokrovsk; a lot of signatures were gathered at the republic’s summer festival Ysyakh; they also started coming from different regions of the republic. In the second half of June there were pickets in the city of Yakutsk – on Lenin Square and at the Tsentralny cinema theatre; on June 22 the town of Olyokminsk saw a meeting initiated by SOKOL non-governmental organisation; residents in Lensk saw a poster in the centre of the town, urging to join the Action.

Gaining such an impetus, the Action continued. Its preliminary result – about eight thousand signatures – was sent to President Medvedev and Sakha President Shtyrov along with open letters.

The Action Second Stage took place in July. The Organising Committee was formed and included representatives of Yakutsk environmental institutions: Valentina Dmitrieva, Co-Chair of YAKUTIA OUR HOME Coalition, Yekaterina Yevseeva, Director of EYGE Centre for Environmental Education of the SR(Y), Maria Ivanova, Editor of the Yakutsk Vecherny newspaper, Arsen Tomsky, Director of SakhaInternet Company, as well as Yury Zhegusov and Terenty Yermolaev, full of initiative citizens of Yakutsk. Due to such joint work, the Action gained a wider format: anyone in the world connected to Internet got a chance to support the Action. The Action site contains a lot of interesting information: on the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean pipeline project; impact of oil spills; the Lena River – a unique ecological system of global importance; articles by public figures, independent experts and analysts. The site was officially launched on July 24 at www.savelena.ykt.ru and www.savelenariver.org (English version). Shortly after that we received support from our peers: WWF; the RF Siberia and Far East Coalition of Ecologists; London Zoological Society; prominent people from Ukraine; Andrei I, TV host and traveller; Oxana Vasilieva, the World champion in professional boxing; DRONT non-governmental organisation from Nizhny Novgorod; NASHI Russian Youth organisation, and others.

Volunteer designers contributed by coloured graphics used during the informational campaign: 200 badges, 300 posters, 500 car stickers, over 100 baseball caps, a large-format banner. Volunteers support also resulted in the Action video and a clip about the Lena River.

A great charity concert on Druzhba Square in Yakutsk on 16 August became a significant achievement of the Organising Committee joint activities. Within four hours, there were gathered 1,680 signatures under the address to President Medvedev demanding to change the method of the ESPO passing across the Lena River. The purpose of conducting the concert was to draw the whole society’s attention to this urgent problem just before the Sakha Government session on ESPO.

On August 21 the Organising Committee of the SAVE THE LENA Action and Coalition of non-governmental organisations YAKUTIA OUR HOME sent a letter to Sakha President Shtyrov with a single suggestion to be included into Government Decree: during the second stage of the ESPO project in 2009, to accelerate construction of the backup pipeline crossing the river with the tunnel method and use it as the main one, thus taking into account the opinion of over 14 thousand people having signing this demand at that moment. The Sakha Government session of August 22 went without due representation of the public, however, the recommendation to use a method other from the trench one was included into the final resolution of the session.

In September the Coalition members took part in the Annual Ecologists Conference of Siberia and the Russian Far East. Participants of the Conference wrote an address to the Russian President, which was sent on September 29, emphasising the need to take certain measures to ensure safety when constructing the ESPO crossing under the Lena River. In September we also summed up the results of the photographic contest held in association with the Lena Basin Water Department. The Collation awarded prizes to photographers who managed to reflect the technogenic and anthropogenic impact on water. The winners’ pictures were displayed on the Action site gallery.

High water level, complicated geological conditions at the crossing site, which had been constantly referred to by environmentalists monitoring the construction, as well as climatic conditions and other factors which had not be taken into consideration by the designers – all these did not let TRANSNEFT to trench the ESPO into the riverbed in summer 2008. Huge funds were wasted; the Lena ecosystem was damaged significantly. This only accelerated the course of the Action to protect the Lena River. After an intensive information campaign on the radio, TV, Internet, newspapers, posters and leaflets, in spite of numerous obstacles, on October 11 the central square of Yakutsk – Lenin Square – saw the Action Meeting.

About one thousand citizens and visitors of the capital took part in the meeting on that grey autumn day, demanding from oil companies to abandon the idea of trench-type passage across the Lena River. The audience heard speeches of journalist Mikhail Alexeyev-Dapsy, famous ecologist Nikolay Cheryomkin, Evenk poetess Varvara Danilova, and many others. We announced winners of the children’s drawing competition, who got prizes and the Action souvenirs – baseball caps and badges with SAVE THE LENA logo; their works are presented on the Action site gallery.

Besides the appeal to the country’s leader, the participants of the meeting adopted an address to the Republic’s state authorities to develop the Republic’s laws on oil pollution, environmental insurance, and effective control over all the megaprojects.

On example of one of the first megaprojects to be realised in the Republic under the Scheme of Complex Development of Labour Forces, Transport and Power Industry till 2020, we have done our best to make a contribution into laying foundation for civilised democratic involvement of the society into making decisions on vital questions; promoting implementation of state-of-the-art production technology, ensuring, in accordance with the Russian Law, guaranteed safety of environment and people, imposing stricter requirements on both society and industry with the purpose of further sustainable development of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia).

The major activity of the Action – collection of signatures – showed that a lot of people realise the necessity to save the great Lena River, and that its aim aligns with development of humanity and sustainable development of the republic and Russia on whole. As of October 20, about 20 thousand votes were collected in support of the action.

We are especially grateful to those who collected signatures in the regions of the republic: Verkhoyansky, Amginsky, Zhigansky, Lensky, Khangalassky, Olyokminsky, Neryungri, Yakutsk and the settlement of Magan. We also collected over 200 votes on the phone. Voting in the Internet showed an interesting picture: besides people from different parts of Russia, there were votes from England, Germany, France, South America, the Philippines, and Ukraine. We are pleased to see that all these people – with different colour of skin and religion – recognize the global importance of the Lena River ecosystem, the need for it protection, as well as significance of the Action initiators and other volunteers – journalists, designers, cameramen, people collecting signatures, some companies of Yakutsk which supported the Action with finances and other means.

The Action is also being supported by major non-governmental and environmental initiatives of the Russian Far East, Siberia and Trans-Baikal area, as well as abroad.

But first of all, it is not our distant peers and colleagues; it is us who live on the Lena River banks who can protect it.

The Action is continuing. The Action site is going to update on the construction progress and putting the ESPO oil pipeline into operation. We welcome any publications on ecological problems concerning the Lena River to post them on our site.

Action Organizing Committee