On December 2, 2020 the Head of Projects Ekaterina Terenteva took part in the regional meet-up in Irkutsk organized by the Coalition of for the Sustainable Development of the Country (KURS) integrating civil society, scientific community, local authorities representatives around fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goal 6 «Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all» in the Baikal region.
Modernization and constructing of sewage treatment facilities needed for purification of effluents running to the Baikal and other communicating water bodies are main priorities of the federal project «Conservation of Lake Baikal».
However, experience has shown that it is impossible to switch to the rational water treatment system only by adopting the respective law. Water is so precious that its conservation unifies a big number of stakeholders: authorities, communal services, administrations of protected natural areas, industry, business, sci-tech cluster and everyone in person.
Ekaterina Terenteva rose an issue of sanitary infrastructure accessibility in perspective of sustainable tourism, particularly – transportation of the liquid household waste and sewage from the tourist sites in the Central Ecological Zone of the Baikal Natural Area. The experts emphasized that transportation of liquid waste from the Baikal shore to treatment facilities equipped with special reception stations is the only right way of safe water usage and sanitary development in the area. Additionally, the meet-up agenda held various issues connected to the technical regulations and purification requirements: local authorities from the Slyudyanka, Maximikha settlements and the town of Severobaikalsk, technologists and representatives of NGOs spoke about their work in this field.
The Irkutsk meeting is a part of the «Local Dialogue» series initiated by KURS to form a community including local civil society and local authorities to find ways for cooperation in implementation of Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.