Ecologists re-address UNESCO on threats to "Western Caucasus"

Five ecological organizations have sent a letter to the World Heritage Centre with description of the facts of defaulting by Russia of recommendations of UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) on ensuring safety of the object of the World Natural Heritage "Western Caucasus".

Among the signatories are the Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus, Greenpeace of Russia, the International Social-Ecological Union, NABU-Kavkaz and Sochi Branch of the Russian Geographic Society.

"During the five and a half months elapsed after the Government of Russia received the report of the UNESCO/IUCN mission with the said recommendations, none of them was fulfilled in full, and some of them were totally ignored," says the letter. "The vast range of problems evidences that Russia has not undertaken comprehensive steps to preserve the object of the World Heritage."

The first one among the main unsolved problems is the continued construction of the "Moon Meadow" mountain-skiing complex in the territory of the Heritage object in Adygea.

Ecologists believe that a new threat to the Heritage is the construction of Guzerupl-Lago-Naki Highway in the territory of the Heritage object in Adygea. It was launched this summer already after the visit of the UNESCO/IUCN mission and continues directly within the borders of the Heritage - within its component, the security zone of the Caucasian Reserve.

The "Greens" also find inadmissible the plans to build a biathlon complex and an access road thereto in Sochi on the Grushevoy Ridge. This construction is run illegally - without any positive opinion of the state ecological expertise, they explain.

Ecologists have also voiced against the plans to build a trans-Caucasian highway across the valleys of the Shakhe and Azhu Rivers in the territory of the Caucasian Reserve, assumed in the draft general plan of the city of Sochi.

Special points in the letter indicate such problems like wood felling in the territory of the World Heritage in Adygea, construction of the road to the Moon Meadow in the Krasnodar Territory and Adygea, and the restoration of legitimate defence of the buffer zone around the object of the World Heritage.