Russia: Putin chooses ecology

On 26th April, President Putin decided the ongoing quarrel about the route for the East Siberian-Pacific Ocean Pipeline. This pipeline is of extremely high importance for Russian energy politics as it will provide Eastern Asia and Chine with Russian fuel and gas. Initially it was planned to pass the pipeline only 800 meters from the north cost of the Baikal lake ? the world greatest water reservoir – through a zone at risk from earthquake. After the President?s order the 4200 km pipeline route will now be shifted 40 km to the north. Ecologists as Igor Chestin, the Director of WWF Russia or Andrei Petrov from Greenpeace Russia estimate that this decision is mostly a succes of the nationwide protests of citizens and NGOs against that project. Still an important argument for the president?s decision may have been the fact that the consortium of foreign banks which should provide credit for the project was alerted through the latest risk assessments and threatened to change financial conditions for the project commented Svjatoslav Sabelin, Director of the Social-ecological Union Russia. www.seu.ru