WILD

Controversy in the Altai Republic

When I visited the Altai Republic in 2005, I talked to local ranger, Volodya Yantiev, who had been featured in the local press for apprehending and issuing fines to visitors from Moscow who had been hunting in the nearby Shavlinsky Sanctuary and shooting goats from a helicopter. One person on board was Alexis Saurin of the Department of Conservation and Hunting Resources in the national Ministry of Agriculture back in Moscow.

The press in Russia, as well as environmental groups, have tried to shed light for several years on the scandal of outside, wealthy people or even high-up government officials conducting illegal hunting exercises by helicopter in Russian nature reserves. The issue was brought to a head tragically in January of this year when a helicopter crashed in the Altai region, killing seven people of the hunting party. What has made the event of interest to conservation groups is the fact that among those killed was an envoy to the Russian parliament from President Dmitry Medvedev’s office and Viktor Kaimin, Chair of the Committee on Protection of Fauna for the Altai. At first, it was argued that those aboard had licenses to legally take certain species, but journalists’ photos from the crash scene showed evidence of dead argali- endangered high mountain sheep, illegal to kill in this region and certainly illegal to take by helicopter hunting.

Jennifer Castner and Alyson Ewald reported the event in the current issue of Earth Island Journal and Voice of America also has an account. Photographs are also available at this Russian press website.   WWF-Russia is pressuring the local prosecutor to follow up the incident. I note that the helicopter was owned by the firm Gazpromavia, associated with Gazprom, the Russian mega-company that deals with natural gas. Gazprom was chaired in the past by now-President Medvedev.

I applaud the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, who issued a March, 2006 report on U.S.-Russian relations (”Russia’s Wrong Direction”) and recognized the need for cooperative work to end corruption in dealing with all Russia’s natural resources, including wildlife and resources in nature reserves (pp. 57-58). The unfortunate helicopter accident seems to confirm the need for outside pressure to stop this heinous activity by the very people who are in power and charged with protecting the biotic resources of their country.

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