Nothing on earth is green – Kommersant

The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation recognized the activities of one of the oldest environmental organizations, Greenpeace, as undesirable. Founded in 1971 in Canada, Greenpeace in Russia since 1992 has been involved in projects for the separate collection of waste, the conservation of forests and the extinguishing of forest fires. The Prosecutor General’s Office explained that the activities of environmentalists threaten “the foundations of the constitutional order” and hinder “the implementation of infrastructure and energy projects beneficial to the country.” “If you think about it, it turns out that it is undesirable to protect nature in Russia,” Greenpeace Russia commented on the situation, announcing that they were forced to close the Russian office.

The recognition of Greenpeace International (Stichting Greenpeace Council) as an undesirable organization in Russia was reported in press service Prosecutor General’s Office. We are talking about an NPO registered in the Netherlands, follows from the explanations of the department, whose activities the prosecutors considered threatening “the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation.” The work of Greenpeace in the Prosecutor General’s Office was described as hindering the “implementation of state programs through the organization of information campaigns” in order to “hinder the implementation of infrastructure and energy projects beneficial to the country.” Prosecutors sent information about this to the Ministry of Justice.

Greenpeace Russia was founded in 1992, but back in 1989 the album Greenpeace. Breakthrough”, which featured U2, INXS, Eurhythmics and other musicians. In Russia, the organization was engaged in projects for the separate collection of garbage, the conservation of forests and extinguishing forest fires, and cleaning the air and Lake Baikal. One of the most notable actions in the Russian Federation became the landing of activists in 2013 from the vessel Artic Sunrise to the Gazprom-owned Prirazlomnaya platform. Environmentalists so protested against oil production in the Arctic, but were detained by special forces. A criminal case was opened against the activists under Art. 227 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on piracy (then it was reclassified as “hooliganism”). In addition, in 2008, Greenpeace Russia protested against the construction of facilities for the Olympics in Sochi, and its representatives defiantly left the public council under Rosprirodnadzor.

Greenpeace’s activities were declared undesirable a month after a similar decision by the Prosecutor General’s Office on the Norwegian NGO Miljostiftelsen Bellona. The eponymous foundations of an international environmental organization in St. Petersburg and Murmansk were included in the register of foreign agents (in 2017 and 2015, respectively) and later liquidated. Greenpeace Russia was never recognized as a foreign agent, although the communiqué of the supervisory authority states that it finances the activities of other foreign agents, and at the same time “requires changes in Russian legislation to the detriment of the interests of society and citizens.”

“If you think about this decision, it turns out that protecting nature in Russia is undesirable,” argued the Greenpeace Russia. The decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office there was connected “precisely with the fact that the organization tried to prevent the implementation of plans destructive for nature and in many cases successfully.”

“To say that the Russian Greenpeace is acting against the interests of Russia is to be completely unaware of what the organization has been doing for 30 years,” the NGO added.

They recalled, in particular, that in 1995, on the initiative of ecologists, the PA “Virgin Komi Forests” became the first object in the Russian Federation under the protection of UNESCO. Greenpeace emphasizes that only in these forests they stopped “11 attempts to start mining gold that is destructive to nature.” “Together with volunteers, Greenpeace employees are planting and guarding forests in the Ugra National Park, putting out fires in the Ladoga Skerries National Park,” the NGO lists. “The Russian branch of Greenpeace has been forced to close,” summed up the representatives of the organization.

The head of the ECA environmental movement, Tatyana Chestina, considers the decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office “a blow to the environmental community”: “High-class experts work in Greenpeace. These are really patriots who defended nature from the encroachment of private interests, standing on the side of the citizens. They did a lot to protect nature reserves and iconic places like Baikal.” As an example, Ms. Chestina cites the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline, which, according to the project, initially passed through a seismically hazardous zone 800 meters from Lake Baikal. According to the expert, the project was changed with the help of Greenpeace Russia. So, in 2006, President Vladimir Putin demanded that an oil pipeline be laid 40 km from Lake Baikal.

It is noteworthy that in 2020, the former head of the State Duma Committee on Ecology and Natural Resources, Nikolai Nikolaev, asked the Ministry of Justice to check Greenpeace for signs of a foreign agent due to the blocking of industrial projects. This is how the deputy qualified Greenpeace’s calls to sign a petition against the adoption of the Russian government’s decree on changing the list of activities prohibited on Baikal (environmentalists believed that the document would weaken the lake’s protection regime, since it would allow spot cutting and development). And the chairman of the Duma Security Committee, Vasily Piskarev, said in 2020 that persons receiving money from Greenpeace must be marked as foreign agents. At the time, Greenpeace itself considered that the State Duma was trying to move them away from discussing the controversial bills.

At the same time, in the same 2020, Vladimir Putin spoke positively about the activities of Greenpeace at a meeting with members of the Human Rights Council.

Thus, the president promised to “be sure to work through” the proposals of the organization’s leadership (Greenpeace expressed concern about the threat of liquidation of specially protected natural areas near Lake Baikal), emphasizing that it is important to hear all parties: “The truth is always somewhere in between. I really need the expertise of both you and your colleagues. We will do it.”

Vladimir Burmatov, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology and Natural Resources, in a conversation with Kommersant, called the decision of the prosecutors expected: “Greenpeace did everything to be recognized as such in Russia. What they were doing here had very little to do with ecology, but looked like work to discredit Russian projects in the energy sector, the development of the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route.”

Alexander Voronov