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Us |
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Past
Projects
2004
| One
of the ways the Assistance Project works is by sponsoring reciprocal
visits of land use professionals between the U.S. and the Altai. Altaian
visitors gain useful expertise, and U.S. participants get experience
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understanding of the Altai which they use to plan Altaian visits here.
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| As
an initial exchange, a US team of seven experts, mostly from the Adirondacks
and Vermont, visited the Altai in July 2004, with each member of the
team having a particular field of expertise relating to parks and
planning. During a ten day circular tour, they met with local citizens
and officials, were |
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immersed in the landscape |
and culture of the Altai, and gained an understanding of local problems
and potentials.
The
return visit from the Altai to the Adirondacks took place in November
2004, with the group |
| composed
of three park employees, an environmental scientist, a tourism entrepreneur,
and the AAP’s Russian Director. Over a two-week period they
met professional planners and governmental officials with administrative
responsibility for public and private land use and parks, as well
as students, environmental group representatives, tourism professionals,
and private citizens. |
| The
Altai visitors went home with a new determination to work as a group
toward putting plans of sustainable land use into effect in the Altai
Republic, both in and outside of park areas, over the next five years.
This particular five-year schedule was determined by the fact that
Russia has begun a process of land privatization that is scheduled
to finish in 2010. The next five years |
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|
will therefore represent the best opportunity to put mechanisms in
place that can preserve the culture and environment of the Altai mountains.
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| People
in the Altai are intensely interested in renewable energy. Most towns
have grid-supplied electricity. Remote villages rely on diesel generators
running a few hours a day, although some of these are being replaced
by the construction of government-funded small hydroelectric plants.
Many rural homesteads lack electricity and, also, many people who
dwell in towns in winter follow their livestock to summer pastures,
living in yurts, cabins, or traditional Altaian dwellings, ails, which
resemble tepees made of hewn larch logs. |
| Rainfall
in remote areas of the Altai is sparse, giving excellent potential
for solar energy, particularly in summer. To demonstrate solar power,
AAP purchased and donated half a dozen Glowstar lanterns, battery
powered portable fluorescent lights which come with a solar panel
for daytime charging. |
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|
The
lanterns have proved popular and useful. In 2005, the government of
Kosh Agach raion (county), which contains some of the sunniest and
most remote parts of the Altai, purchased fifty similar units for
the use of its people. |
| 2005 |
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|
| In
2005, the AAP sponsored three main interrelated activities. First,
to help the previous year’s Altai visitors to continue functioning
as a group, it underwrote the modest cost of holding quarterly meetings
in the Altai and underwriting the
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travel
costs of Nature Park personnel and others attending. The strongest
supporters of protected areas work at the raion (county) level in
widely dispersed geographical areas, and have little money for travel.
Four very successful meetings were held with AAP support. The meetings
were well publicized in the Republic, attendance |
| increased
at each successive meeting, and the group attracted the attention
and participation of the Altai Republic’s government as well
as of |
|
established environmental organizations, such as World Wildlife Fund/Russia.
At the third meeting, an “Association of Parks of the Altai”
was formally established, insuring that the group will continue to
meet and function as a forum for park professionals, their supporters,
and those with reason to deal with the parks as a body. |
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| Progress
toward environmental protection was made in the Republic last year.
The 254,000 hectare Ukok Nature Park was established. Indicative of
a shift |
| and
coalescence of opinion, the year also saw a “Committee on Natural
Resources” set up within the Altai government, which has previously
had no place for parks except within the Ministry of Tourism. The
Committee will oversee the parks and also govern commercial resource
use. |
|
| Second,
an Altai group visited the U.S. in August 2005, and an American group
went to the Altai in late September. Since some members of the Altai
group had visited the year before and the rest of the visiting group
had heard their report, less time was spent on familiarization and
more time was spent on substance and meeting with people who might
be sources of future assistance. As a result, the return American
visit was composed of university faculty members and an NGO vice president
who now expect to establish continuing relationships. |
| Third,
a group of five professionals from the Altai and their U.S.-based
AAP hosts |
 |
spent two and a half weeks in the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest)National
Park of Nepal, where people have been dealing with the environmental
and social effects of tourism for more than 30 years and where locally-based
tourism is now a viable alternative to subsistence agriculture for
many. Guided by U.S. and Nepali staff of The Mountain Institute (TMI),
the group received daily, field-based lectures on the region’s
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settlement, land use, landscape change, introduction of mountaineering
and tourism, establishment of the national park and buffer zone, and
benefits as well |
| as
challenges of large annual numbers ofvisitors to fragile, high mountain
regions. They trekked from the Lukla airstrip at 9,000 feet to Kala
Pattar, overlooking |
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Mt. Everest at 18,000 feet, and back into the lower Thami valley,
where they were able to view a full range of projects that included
two of TMI’s on-going initiatives (the Sacred Trails and Community-Based
Alpine Conservation and Restoration Projects) as well as local hydroelectric
plants, tree nurseries, park headquarters, monasteries, local homes,
and the park museum. |
 |
| 2006 |
|
The
Assistance Project sponsored various people exchanges
in 2006:
In
early May, a group of Altai Nature Park employees, NGO leaders,
and local government officials traveled to adjoining areas of Mongolia
to meet their counterparts, tour protected area just over the border,
and investigate availability of alternative energy equipment such
as solar electric systems.
In
June, a forester from the U.S. went to Onguday Raion (county) to
inspect tree nurseries and forest fire damage.
In
July, a four person group of Americans with expertise in remote
sensing of wildlife (and poachers), Geographic Information Systems
(GIS), small hydro site
surveying, and mountain ecosystems visited the Altai for field work
and meetings with professional counterparts. Joining the group will
be a Sherpa from the Everest
region of Nepal, who manages mountain conservation projects at home.
In
September, a group from the Altai visited Denali National Park in
Alaska and parts of the West Coast, where they concentrated on management
of high
altitude protected areas and native rights. In the group will be
the Directors of the Altai's two high altitude Nature Parks, Belukha
and Argut.
The Project
also offers direct funding for activities in the
Altai:
Ukok
Nature Park purchased GPS units, a set of four two-way radios, and
a woolen yurt (from Mongolia) for field use.
Uch-Enmek
Ethno-Cultural Park bought a router for making wood signs, to be
shared with other parks.
We
also paid all expenses, including salaries, for an office in the
capital city of the Altai Republic, Gorno Altaisk, staffed by a
Director, Chagat Almashev and two assistants, Natalya Yurkova and
Natalya Tokova. Sharing the space are the Foundation for Sustainable
Development of Altai, and the Association of Nature Parks of the
Altai.
For photos and
more complete information, check out our Fall
2006 Newsletter.
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