RUSSIAN ENVIRONMENTALISTS STUDY ADVANCED ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES IN SWEDEN AND NORVAY

On 6 March 2005, one could watch 20 Russians walking through the Arlanda airport. These were not just tourists, but representatives of environmental non-governmental organisations from the North-West Russia, who arrived for a one-week study tour to Sweden and Norway.

The Russian delegation included representatives of Ariston Foundation, Association of Karelian Greens, Centre for Environmental Initiatives, Children of the Baltic, Ecological North-West Line, Green World, Karelian Society for Nature Conservation, Kola Centre "Gaya", St.Petersburg Society for Nature Conservation, St.Petersburg Urban Gardening Club, Sustainable Development Information Agency, and Transboundary Environmental Information Agency.

The first part of the trip was devoted to advanced methods of wastewater treatment in Sweden. Its programme was prepared by Coalition Clean Baltic Secretariat (Gunnar Norén and Katrin Hammarlund) in cooperation with Water Revival Systems AB (Ebba af Petersens and Peter Ridderstolpe). The lecture on the first evening, on application of source separating systems, nature-based systems and many other "alternative" techniques in Sweden, was followed by two days saturated with visits to different locations where we had the opportunity to see actual facilities. These included the Uppsala biogas plant, which provides biogas from organic wastes for each fourth of Uppsala's buses, sand filter bed at the sewage treatment for the village Lagga, Velamsund - the permanent exhibition on small-scale sewage treatment facilities, Gebers housing project with urine diverting toilets in apartments, Vagnhärad - treatment plant and wetland for municipal wastewaters, and Bra Små Avlopp with small-scale solutions for sewage treatment in single-family households. Exciting was jumping on the Europe's largest storage for human urine.

The programme in and around Gothenburg, devoted to environmentally friendly energy solutions, was prepared by the Swedish NGO Secretariat for Acid Rain (Reinhold Pape). We had the opportunity to see examples of renewable energy pilot projects in the Gothenburg region. Among them were windpark in the harbour of Gothenburg, energy efficiency and solar heating project at multi-family houses in Gårdsten, solar and biofuel district-heating plant in Kungalv with 800 solar batteries, and petrol station for alternative fuels.

One of the most interesting was the visit to Lindås family-houses with energy efficiency and solar heating project. There, a traditional heating system has been replaced by heater exchanger in combination with an exceptionally well insulated construction. Solar collectors on the roof provide half of energy needed for the supply of hot water.

Especially interesting for us was the visit to Ekocentrum Göteburg, where we learnt about experiences and working methods from building-up a public environmental information centre. This was very important for the activists that are now developing the centre for Environmental Information in St.Petersburg and working on creation of the network of Environmental Information Centres in the North-West Russia.

The programme prepared by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (Helena Norin) was focused on green consumerism. Besides a comprehensive lecture and discussions, we visited a shop near Ekocentrum Göteborg, which has a lot of ecolabelled products. In the end of our trip some of us had the opportunity to take part in the SSNC meeting devoted to ecolabelling.

In Oslo, the initiative was picked up by the Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation (Dag Arne Hoystad and Yngvild Lorentzen). Experts from NGOs and STF (Norwegian Pollution Control Authority) told us about environmental protection, politics and environmental politics in Norway, cooperation of the Government and NGOs, how to be a successful lobbyist, implementation of Kyoto protocol in Norway, and many other interesting things. Our discussions were focused on how the Norwegian experiences and methods can be used in Russia, and on international co-operation in energy, climate, and waster quality issues.

We are very grateful to our Swedish and Norwegian colleagues and friends for such an excellent study trip. The information we got and experiences we learnt about are very useful and inspiring. This visit will help us in our further work for protection of our common environment.

Elena Moreva, Centre for Environmental Initiatives, St.Petersburg