Altai Assistance
Project
2351 County Rte 10
Wadhams, New York 12993 U.S.A.
518-962-4514
To
Assist Conservation and Development of the Environment and Communities
of Mountain Altai
Working to Establish Nature Parks
To
Assist Conservation and Development of the Environment and Communities
| Working to Establish Nature Parks |
| Home About the Altai Culture Nature Parks About AAP Projects News & Reports Our Partners Other Links Contact Us |
Past Projects 2004
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 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 will therefore represent the best opportunity to put mechanisms in place that can preserve the culture and environment of the Altai mountains. 
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. 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 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 travel
costs of Nature Park personnel and others attending.
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.
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
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 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 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.
|
|
For more information email info@altaiassistanceproject.org. ©2006. The Altai Assistance Project.
|
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
and
understanding of the Altai which they use to plan Altaian visits here.
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. 
The
Committee will oversee the parks and also govern commercial resource
use. 
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
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 of visitors to fragile, high mountain
regions. They trekked from the Lukla airstrip at 9,000 feet to Kala
Pattar, overlooking