Yesterday, April 16, a Goldman Environmental Prize statuette was handed to the leader of the Khimki Forest Defenders, Mrs. Evgenia Chirikova, in a public ceremony attended by 3,000 people at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House. Mrs. Chirikova was recognized for her 5-year- long effort to protect the Khimki Forest near Moscow against destruction for the Moscow–St. Petersburg toll motorway project. The Goldman Prize (often referred to as the “Green Nobel”) is awarded annually to grassroots environmental heroes from the six inhabited continental regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. Mrs. Chirikova is the prize winner for Europe in 2012.
“This award is very important for our fight for the Khimki Forest,” Mrs. Chirikova told journalists after the Goldman Prize ceremony. “I have no doubt that, when French company Vinci got involved in this corrupt [1] and environmentally destructive project, it hoped for an easy and silent killing of the forest. Vinci has always ignored the opinion the local community, as if it were sure that nobody else would notice the destruction. I hope that this award will attract even more attention from the international community and will help us make Vinci's and the Russian government's misconduct evident for everyone.”.
Two major direct achievements of the Khimki Forest activists are depriving the project of European financial support and preservation of the relic oak grove of the Khimki Forest. Due to activists’ efforts, construction works were stopped just in front of the oak grove and have not resumed for almost half a year. The activists have even organized a permanent outpost in the forest, using a shipping container and tents. The outpost was standing even during severe frosts this winter, and helped to prevent attempts to resume construction. Nevertheless, the forest-killing project was neither cancelled nor changed (despite the availability of 10 alternative options for the road placement, each of which would preserve the forest). Though works in the forest have been halted, additional environmental crimes have been perpetrated by the Paris- based Vinci company and their Russian partners in the project, such as the infilling of the Klyazma River. So the fight for the Khimki Forest continues.
But the indirect consequences of the battle for Khimki Forest are perhaps even greater than the direct ones. Erik Hoffner from the international conservation magazine, Orion, said, “The Khimki Forest activists have clearly impressed many people in Russia and abroad, and we can now see similar movements emerging due to their example. I believe the Khimki Forest campaign can spark a grassroots environmental movement across modern Russia”.
Another outcome of the campaign is the clear demonstration that even a local environmental problem can have international corruption as its source. In the case of the Khimki Forest, a joint investigation by CEE Bankwatch Network and activists from Khimki found an entire chain of offshore companies hiding behind the facade of Vinci. [2] Some of them belong to Russian oligarchs (like Mr. Arkady Rotenberg) known for their friendship with Vladimir Putin and other decision-makers on the project. Another company involved even hides its owners and beneficiaries – an unacceptable reality for the first Public-Private Partnership in Russia, a scheme using public money and land. “The very existence of such chains of offshore companies clearly indicates an attempt to hide real ownership of the project,” said Pippa Gallop, of CEE Bankwatch Network. “The close cooperation of corporations, like Vinci, and Government officials on the highest level makes the situation very opaque and makes it highly doubtful that the project represents good value for money for Russian taxpayers and road users”.
Looking like the Russian law-enforcement system is unable to tackle such cases. Therefore, the only means of fighting such projects in Russia are through public campaigns where activists have to risk their lives.
“The best way of tackling problems like the Khimki Forest is to develop international mechanisms able to investigate and prosecute corruption and environmental crimes,” suggested Mikhail Matveev of the Movement to Defend the Khimki Forest. “Since corruption uses global instruments, the fight against it must be global, too. Otherwise, authoritarian governments are protected by corrupt courts and global companies deny any responsibility in environmental and social issues, shifting it to those governments, as Vinci does. I hope that the first step towards international control will be taken soon by the United States. The Magnitsky bill in the U.S. Senate (S.1039 - Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011), if passed, provides the possibility of prosecution of corrupt Russian officials living in the U.S. for crimes committed in Russia. I hope that other countries, including France, will follow this example. If it happens, it marks the beginning of hard times both for corrupt officials from countries like Russia and for companies like Vinci. But it will be a happy day for all those who try to protect the environment”.
Evgenia Chirikova considers the Prize as not only her personal achievement (though her role in the protection of Khimki Forest could hardly be over-estimated): “For me this award is first of all a recognition of the joint efforts of all the people who stopped bulldozers with their bodies, who came to our actions despite constant threat of arrests and beatings, and who wrote truthfully about the project in the media, including journalist Mikhail Beketov who was severely beaten and mutilated by unknown assailants after his publications. Moreover, it is recognition of the efforts of many people from all around the globe who helped us to get international media coverage, who investigated the corrupt schemes behind the project, and those whose efforts prevented leading European banks from taking part in the affair”.
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Notes for editors
[1] Transparency International study on the project: http://www.khimkiforest.org/sites/default/ files/expert_examination_en.pdf (pp. 3.4)
[2] The study can be found at: http://bankwatch.org/documents/ Vinci_oligarchs_taxhavens_Khimki.pdf
