The Association of the Greens of Karelia

The Association of the Greens of Karelia is a public nongovernmental organisation. It integrates intellectual potential and material, financial, organisational, and other abilities and resources of its members for Nature protection, and for achieving the following purposes: 1) preservation and recovery of natural and cultural heritage, physical and spiritual health of the people; 2) rendering assistance to victims of polluting activities; 3) assistance to ecological education and enlightenment, openness, freedom of obtaining and dissemination of information about quality of the habitat and health of the people, about measures on environmental sanitation and their efficiency; 4) support to priority of universal values, human rights and sustainable development of living and future generations and to solution of economical, political and other problems.

The Association was founded on 7 April 1990. The main successful environmental activities and achievements of the Greens of Karelia (in cooperation with friendly organisations and scientists) were:

1. Participation in international ecological movement (Association is a member of International Social-Ecological Union), Russian thematical NGO-networks (antinuclear, on problems of oil-gas complex).

2. Participation in public councils at the Chairman of Karelian Parliament and the Administration of Petrozavodsk.

3. Counteractions to building large (about 1 million tons of oil per year) oil harbour in the Naismery Gulf of the Ladoga Lake (1990-1993).

4. Counteractions to building the Karelian nuclear power plant and hydroaccumulative power station on Paanajarvi Lake (1990).

5. Creation of two national parks, including one (Vodlozerskiy) in the basin of the Baltic Sea (1991-1992).

6. Preparation of list of original decisions for decreasing of environmental strain in Petrozavodsk (1998) and proposals on municipal environmental strategy to 2005-2010 (local agenda - 2010) for Petrozavodsk (2004).

7. Implementation of public environmental and legal examination of documents justifying licensing to Nevskgeologija state enterprise on prospecting and a mining of uranium-vanadium ores of Srednyaja Padma deposit in Zaonezjie (the North of Onega lake) with the negative conclusion of the expert commission (1999). The deposit has not been designed.

8. Preparation and publication of the Public Programme for Alternative Social-Ecologo-Economical Development of Zaonezjie (2000).

9. Initiation and creation of the Regional Ecological Network of NGOs of the Republic of Karelia - REN (15 NGOs and Karelian Ecological Newspaper Green Leaf). The REN activities supported by Association/NGO-CENTER and Milieukontakt Oost-Europa have allowed achieving the consent of Karelian government on creation of the Kaleval'ski national park (2001-2002).

10. Preparation and publication the Proposals in the Field of Health Maintenance of the Population by the Solution of Regional Ecological Problems (by results of a civil discussion in 2002-2003) in the Green Leaf newspaper and on the site of the Association (http://greens.krc.karelia.ru) (the project was supported by IOS - Soros Foundation). Assistance in issuing the Green Leaf newspaper.

11. Implementation of the project on transport and environment, supported by the Swedish NGO Secretariat on Acid Rain (2004-2006).

12. Implementation of the project on the Local Water Policy and protection of drainage basins in Petrozavodsk area, supported by CCB, Russian Resources Ecological Centre and Milieukontakt Oost-Europa (2005).

Members of the Association may be the persons, who are citizens of the Russian Federation, and foreigners (who live in Russia - according to recent amendments on the Russian legislation) and stateless persons who have reached 18 years old, and NGOs recognising the Chapter of the Association and making contributions to reaching its objectives. The admittance of the persons to members of the Association is implemented by the Coordinate Council by the application, and the admittance of NGOs - by the General Meeting. Two organisations and more than 100 persons are members of the Association.

The supreme body of the Association is the General Meeting. The General Meeting approves the Charter, introduces changes to it (if necessary), approves priority areas of activities for the Association and its budget, elects Coordinate Council and Revision Committee, controls activity of end-effects, hears the reports of their activities. Executive working bodies of the Association between general meetings are Coordinate Council and Revision Committee. The Coordinate Council now consists of 6 persons, including three women and one person under 30 years old.

The Association participated in two meetings of NGOs in St.-Petersburg together with the CCB representatives. In March 2005, representatives of the Association took part in the study trip to Sweden and Norway organised by CCB, the Swedish NGO Secretariat on Acid Rain, and the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation. We took part in the Annual CCB Conference in Kaliningrad (2005) and in the "Our Common Baltic" Summer Course in Stensund (2005). The Association has submitted its application for participation in CCB as an observer.