SOCHI, Krasnodar Region – Officials and developers claim they are taking good care of the local flora and fauna as work quickens on new Olympic sites and roads, but local activists are alarmed by effects they see on the environment.
As part of its responsibilities, Gazprom Sotsinvest, the gas firm’s subsidiary in charge of Olympic construction at Krasnaya Polyana, has resettled 288 rare species of animals, including Asia Minor frogs, to protect local wildlife. Or so it says.
"We regularly carry out some compensation activities, resettling rare animals and rare plants from the area of construction, as we recognise the uniqueness of the region’s ecosystem,” Gazprom Sotsinvest said in a statement.
But despite the Sochi Olympic Committee trying to promote the green face of the Games by holding the Green Carnation eco-film festival in the city last weekend, some local residents are not very excited about ecological changes.
Vladimir Kruglov, who was resettled to a newly-built village, Nekrasovka, in the Immiritinskaya district, claims that rare birds which used to fly above the lowlands have now flown the coop.
"Sochi doesn’t need any Olympics, it will only damage the environment and won’t bring anything,” said Kruglov. "They shouldn’t do anything to the environment – just leave it alone.”
Eco-activists claim the Olympic construction sites were not chosen correctly at the outset, as Olympic facilities are being built in places vulnerable to landslides.
The muddy soil is putting construction in danger and ruins the ecosystem, they claim.
"Because of the fast pace of construction, ecology can’t be protected in a proper way. It all will lead to very adverse consequences,” the BBC reported Sergei Volkov, a geological consultant for the Games who left the country after criticising the Olympic construction, as saying.
Volkov told the BBC he had to flee to Ukraine because he feared being arrested after refusing to keep quiet about his concerns.
Tourism hit
The environmental effects of the construction work could also be affecting local tourism. The numbers of tourists to the region have fallen 8-10 per cent over the last year, according to Youth, Sports and Tourism Ministry.
Svetlana Beresteneva, who runs a small hotel in Psoo, a village near to the Olympics sites, says construction on a new cement factory has killed the local tourist trade.
"People don’t want to come here anymore – the dust from the factory is very bad for people with lung diseases, for the locals and tourists as well, let alone the constant noise,” said Beresteneva.
Waste processing concerns
Another controversial project is a waste incinerator plant near Buu, another local village. Residents have gathered some 1,500 signatures against the project, complaining it is damaging the environment and local tourism.
The city claims the plant is necessary to deal with waste and sewage treatment, but ecologists complain that it is not being done in an environmentally-friendly way.
"The realisation of waste treatment projects may remain on paper, as there will be no money left for the ecological sites in the end,” said Igor Chestin, a director of ecology watchdog WWF Russia. "They’ve already run way over budget.”
Chestin says Olympic construction is going ahead so rapidly that Olympstroi, the state corporation responsible for Olympic construction, doesn’t have enough time to take care of ecology, and that most of the so-called "green” measures are just being taken to tick boxes.
Olympstroi’s green rules
Some environmental consultants say, however, that the situation isn’t so black-and-white, and that Olympstroi is in fact paying attention to environmental problems.
"They approached us to draw up a set of green rules for the Olympic construction, so it wouldn’t be right to say they don’t care at all,” said Natalya Davidova, a representative of the Institute of Consulting for Ecological Projects.
Ecologists’ main concern remains the road and railway being built in the mountains and their effects on the Mzymta River.
"The unique box tree forests don’t exist anymore and the Mzymta River, which is a place for Black Sea salmon to spawn, is being completely destroyed,” said Dmitry Kantsov, an activist with local green group Ecology Watch.
Russian Railways, which is in charge of the construction, claims it is doing its best to preserve the natural habitat.
"We have planted some 40,000 trees to compensate for the trees we had to cut down during the construction, and have put more than 2.5 million young fish into the river,” RZD chief Vladimir Yakunin said during a visit by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and a delegation from the International Olympic Committee to Sochi on October 13.
http://www.themoscownews.com/news/20101028/188164728.html
