18 April 2008, 13:39
Ecologists ask to change the agenda of UNESCO mission to Krasnodar Territory and Adygea
Local ecologists think that the agenda of the Mission of the UNESCO's Centre of World Heritage and International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in Krasnodar Territory and Adygea should be amended. In this context, they sent letters to the Mission and the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia.
"At the first stage, the Mission should work in Sochi and deal mainly with threats to World Nature Heritage from the plans to erect Olympic objects," said Andrei Rudomakha, head of the Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus. "The main of them are the erection by Gazprom of the Reception House for Official Delegations and the 'Laura' cottage district in the valley of the Achipse River, as well as deforestation by the same Gazprom at construction of a mountain-skiing complex on the Psekhako Ridge."
At the second stage, in his opinion, the Mission should work in Adygea, where the point is the illegal construction of the elite mountain-skiing complex in the Moon Valley and a road thereto, the territorial claims of the Republic's authorities for the Lago-Naki Plateau, and mass deforestation of virgin forests in the Heritage lands.
Mr Rudomakha has noted that these days on the eve of the arrival of the Mission, certain forces in the state bodies of Russia are actively working towards prohibiting the experts from detailed acquaintance with the problem of territories and objects.
Judging from the official agenda, as he added, the experts would not visit the object named "The Presidential Mountain-Skiing Complex in the Moon Valley", and the agenda excludes any examination of the situation with mass deforestation in the territory of the "Western Caucasus" reserve in Adygea.
Author: Aslan Shazzo, CK correspondent
