Gold diggers threaten Russian national park
Campaigners say rezoning protected wilderness to allow mining will inspire similar moves across world
RUSSIAN officials are planning to rezone the largest national park in Europe to allow gold mining in a move activists say could put all nature reserves under threat.
At more than 1.9 million hectares, Yugyd Va national park in northwestern Russia is even bigger than the reserve around Iceland’s Vatnajökull glacier and forms part of the country’s oldest Unesco natural heritage site, the “virgin Komi forests”.
It encompasses some of the most extensive untouched boreal forests in the world, the highest peak in the Ural Mountains and tributaries of the Pechora River, the lifeblood of the indigenous Komi people.
But, according to documents seen by The Daily Telegraph, the Komi region is now working with the federal government to remove protections from areas containing the Chudnoye (“Wonderful”) deposit, which holds an estimated 80 tons of gold long coveted by mining companies.
In a letter to the natural resources minister in October, the head of Komi claimed that rezoning part of the park for mining would create jobs for those made unemployed as the region’s coal industry dies out.
The region suggested “expanding” Yugyd Va by adding 183,000 hectares of new forest land while removing 48,000 of existing territory, including Chudnoye and a former stone quarry.
But this appears to be a sleight of hand as the territory earmarked for exclusion holds unique foothills, springs and lakes that draw most visitors.
“They’re not equal. They’re cutting off an interesting mountainous part and want to add chunks of taiga forest in the south, but tourists don’t go there,” said Valentina Semyashkina, who helped gather 20,000 signatures to demand a referendum on creating Yugyd Va in 1992. Mining at Chudnoye would contaminate tributaries that flow into the Pechora, where the smallscale fishing on which locals depend has already been decimated by oil spills, she added.
The Russian Academy of Sciences’ Komi biology institute has opposed the mining plans as a threat to 70 protected species of plants, while Greenpeace said it could harm animals including the golden eagle, gyrfalcon, Eurasian otter, sable, wolverine and elk.
The summer migration route of indigenous reindeer herders also passes through the area.
The natural resources ministry would only tell The Telegraph that the “question of changing the boundaries of Yugyd Va national park is in the development stage”.
The natural resources ministry has already tried twice to rezone Chudnoye, allowing the company Gold Minerals to start exploratory digging and blasting there in 2010. But the supreme court declared both attempts illegal, as Russian law forbids removing territory from national parks.
Unesco has demanded that Russia cancel Gold Minerals’ licence to mine in the park.
But Greenpeace fears that this time the project could have the backing of wealthy foreign investors.
Fosun International, a Chinese investment company, is reportedly in talks to buy a majority stake in GV Gold, which previously owned Gold Minerals and, according to a letter seen by The Telegraph, organised a meeting about Yugyd Va with representatives of the natural resources ministry in May.
Us-based Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, also owns a stake in GV Gold.
The company is well-connected, as records show one of its shareholders was previously in a joint venture with the son of the head of the state defence holding Rostec.
GV Gold declined to comment, referring The Telegraph to Gold Minerals, which could not immediately be reached.
Mikhail Kreindlin of Greenpeace said rezoning Yugyd Va could create a “dangerous precedent”.
“If they exclude this territory, then in the future they will be able to change the borders of any national parks or protected lands to extract resources, and there are many who want to do this,” he said.
The scheme to “expand” Yugyd Va mirrors a plan for the Elk Island national park in Moscow, the largest urban forest in Europe, that sparked protests this year. The Moscow governor has proposed transferring land from existing nature reserves to Elk Island to “compensate” for building a highway and shopping centre in the park.
‘If they exclude this territory, then in the future they will be able to change the borders of any national parks or protected lands to extract resources’