Environmental Watch on North Caucasus, Press Release, June 19, 2013

Politics prevails over environmental protection at the 37th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee: the Committee was silent about destructive construction of Lunnaya Polyana, a ski resort for Vladimir Putin, and a road to this resort

The 37th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC, or Committee) is ongoing at this moment. The Committee had hearings on five Russian World Heritage Sites, including the most problematic Western Caucasus and Virgin Komi Forests Sites.

It is the 6th time, when UNESCO WHC discusses the issue on Western Caucasus. It is because of the critical situation around the protection of the Site. Despite the fact that Russia did not comply with any of the Committee’s previous decisions and that the problem with protection of the Site has reached its critical point for the inclusion in the List of World Heritage in Danger because of the road construction to the Putin’s resort Lunnaya Polyana, Committee issued a very weak decision (37 COM 7B.23), thus, sanctioning the destruction of the Western Caucasus natural complexes.

Moreover, the most serious environmental problem of Western Caucasus – construction of the resort Lunnaya Polyana for Vladimir Putin and the road to this resort, was not mentioned anyhow in the decision of the Committee. Thus, the Committee decided to be blind to the problem of massive destruction of natural complexes of the Western Caucasus Heritage as a result of construction of the ski resort for Vladimir Putin and the road to the resort.

Importantly, there is no word about destruction of natural complexes of Western Caucasus as a result of Olympic constructions in the area of Krasnaya Polyana. Ecosystems of Achipse and Laura rivers were destroyed because of construction works conducted by Gazprom. And this is not the end of it.

The Committee ‘took notes’ that Russia is planning to construct ‘a large scale tourism infrastructure’ on the Lagonaki Plateau and the Committee ‘took notes’ that Russia is planning to propose a boundary modification of the Site excluding parts of the Plateau. Thus, Committee does not see any problem with just changing the boundaries as long as such change complies with their own procedures.

All ‘hard’ words in the decision, which are reiterated from previous decisions, look more like an attempt to save the face of UNESCO WHC but definitely not the attempt to save the natural habitat of wildlife in Western Caucasus.

The Committee ‘[e]xpresses its concern about the changes in the legal protection of the property which make it possible to develop large scale tourism infrastructure on the Lagonaki Plateau situated within the property boundaries and reiterates its request to the State Party to ensure that no large scale ski or tourism infrastructure is built within the property.’

It also ‘[n]otes the conclusion of the joint 2012 World Heritage Centre/IUCN monitoring mission that anthropogenic pressures on the property are increasing and urges the State Party to implement all its recommendations’.

All issued recommendations in this decision are reiterated from Committee’s previous decisions, all of which have been ignored by Russia.

Extremely weak and inadequate decision on Western Caucasus is the evidence of politicized World Heritage Committee and that its position on Western Caucasus is weakening. Another evidence for this is that the decision does not mention anyhow that there is a need for monitoring mission to Russia regarding the construction of the resort Lunnaya Polyana and the road construction in the valley of the Shakhe river.

All this undermines civil society’s trust to this international institution which did a lot for the Western Caucasus protection in the past and was the main guarantor of its integral protection. Representative of Greenpeace-Russia, Andrey Petrov, described atmosphere at the Session as extremely politicized and dissimilar to environmental protection. He also described how Russian delegation is manipulating delegations from other countries using political tools and lobbying Russia’s interests at the session.

It seems that World Heritage Committee’s political interests prevail over the protection of unique natural heritage of humanity.

Andrey Rudomakha

(Environmental Watch on North Caucasus)

website: http://www.ewnc.org