The agenda of the Russian Environmental Forum (REF), which took place from 7 to 9 October, included issues related to environmental education and activities to raise the level of environmental awareness of the population. This is a systemic area of work that has been gaining momentum in recent years: from small memos on official agency websites to large-scale projects.
Representatives of CIS countries took part in this year’s REF. Delegations from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan held a session on sharing best practices in environmental education and involving the population in the process of separate waste collection. The experience of such events in Russia was shared by representatives of the All-Russian Ecological Public Movement “Ecosystem” and the Lake Baikal Foundation. The REF venue is becoming an international centre of interaction on waste management and development of a closed cycle economy.
Olga Amelkina, Deputy Director General of the Lake Baikal Foundation, made a report at the session “Experience of environmental education of the population in the sphere of closed cycle economy”. Olga shared her experience in organising infrastructure for separate accumulation of waste (recyclable materials) and spoke about tools to improve the efficiency of such activities.
“Despite the fact that the slogan ‘bring – take with you’ remains the leitmotif of the programme ‘National Parks Without Waste’, we understand that in reality people are not yet ready to take all waste with them, so we are developing a system of separate waste accumulation. We see that every year more and more visitors to the national parks get involved in the sorting process, thereby reducing the amount of rubbish that will be taken to the landfill,’ Olga shared. For six years already, the Lake Baikal Foundation together with the directorates of Baikal protected areas has been implementing the programme ‘National Parks without Garbage“.
In the territories of the Zabaikalsky National Park, Pribaikalsky National Park and Chikoi National Park, an infrastructure for separate waste accumulation has been created, and the process of recycling and souvenir production has been established. The mechanisms of the “National Parks without Waste” programme have proven themselves and can be replicated in other SPNAs.