The project helping Russian reporters speak out about environmental abuse

A new initiative timed with the UN climate summit hopes to inspire journalists – just as their government’s reliance on fossil fuels is on the rise

In a bid to improve environmental reporting in Russia, a group of journalists is attending a training project held to coincide with the UN climate change conference in Paris.

But the participants won’t just report on the summit itself, says Nina Zakharkina-Berezner, who runs D’Est, the organisation behind the initiative. She hopes to open Russians’ eyes to the way environmental problems are reported elsewhere through a series of seminars and exchanges with leading journalists from Le Monde, Radio France Internationale and La Croix.

Today, Russia’s economy has become increasingly dependent on fossil fuels, and the Kremlin has reacted to economic slowdown by cutting green subsidies. At the same time, the chance draw attention to abuses has been severely compromised, with Putin attacking NGOs which campaign to protect the natural world by branding many of them “foreign agents”.

But the ability of civic activists to cry foul in the face of environmental degradation has come under threat. Of the roughly 100 NGOs designated as “foreign agents” by the Russian Ministry of Justice, around 20 focus on the environment. Their aims are many and far reaching: they protect wild pacific salmon in Russia’s far east (Sakhalin Environment Watch), have brought successful legal challenges against illegal logging in the Altai mountains (Gebler Ecological Society) and protect the rights of people suffering the ill-effects of radiation (For Nature – Chelyabinsk).

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/04/russia-environment-reporters-paris-climate-talks