By bikes around Lake Peipsi - for Sustainable Development

Alexander Fedorov, Centre for Environmental Initiatives, Russia

This summer environmental activists from Russia, Finland and Estonia continued the tradition of Moving Environmental Conferences - bicycle campaigns in the region of the Gulf of Finland. The route of the campaign went this year around Lake Peipsi, the Europe's forth largest lake. Therefore, this summer the campaign title was "Lake Peipsi Circle". The campaign was organised by the Centre for Environmental Initiatives, Dodo-the Living Nature for the Future, Friends of the Baltic, Estonian Green Movement, Lake Peipsi Project, and the Centre for Applied Ecology in Sillamae.

The main goal of the campaign was promotion of sustainable transport solutions and public participation in municipal planning. Environmental activists started on 1 July in Ivan-Gorod, biked around Lake Peipsi, and finished on 15 July in Narva. Along the entire route - Slantsy, Gdov, Vetvenik, Seredka, Pskov, Izborsk, Pechory, Ruusa, Räpina, Tartu, Mustvee, Kauksi, Jõhvi, Sillamae - they had meetings with local activists, journalists, and local residents. The meetings gave opportunity to shared experience in solving transport-related environmental problems and experience in public participation in decision-making.

Besides the meetings, the environmentalists took part in cleaning the territory of the museum-fortress in Izborsk. This ancient Russian village and fortress near Pskov is not only a piece of cultural heritage, but has unique landscape and nature, and really needs care.

One of the most impressive was the meeting in Tartu, the seminar on sustainable transport solutions. The campaign participants were happy to meet there Rein Lepik, the author of Estonian bike routes. Rein also gave an interesting tour along bike paths in Tartu.

In Estonia, Russian participants were impressed not only by the network of nice bike routes. The system of collection of used plastic bottles there is also the experience Russia urgently needs.

The bicycle campaign has shown the necessity for uniting efforts of the public and all other actors to provide the balance between economic development and the need to care for the environment in the Baltic Sea Region for the sake of those who live here. The Lake Peipsi Circle gave a lot of information and experience to be used by activists in their future work.