Environmental Security of Northeast Asia: A Case of the Russian Far East

By Lukin, Artyom L

Abstract: The article examines the environmental issues of the Russian Far East (Pacific Russia). The author covers problems such as military-related nuclear and nonnuclear factors of environmental security, excessive exploitation of forests and marine biological resources, the ecological risks of big energy projects, environmental conditions in urban areas and transborder aspects of environmental security. Political, social, and economic factors affecting environmental decision-making in the Russian Far East are analyzed. Keywords: environmental security, Northeast Asia, Russian Far East

Introduction

The Russian Far East,1 with its territory of 6.63 million square kilometers (roughly two-thirds the size of the United States), plays a vital role in Northeast Asian environmental security. This eastern area of Russia is important in mitigating climate change, maintaining biological diversity, and providing a reservoir of natural resources for future generations.2 It also serves as a positive example of how domestic and transnational factors affect the environmental situation in this area and in the entire Northeast Asia region. Some of these factors are peculiar to Russia and the Far East, while other factors apply to Northeast Asia in general.

The Far East has always been viewed by the Russian government as the country’s strategically and militarily crucial Pacific bulwark. Hence many military facilities and installations are concentrated in the region. These facilities, which include nuclear operations, are environmentally risky.

The Far East has traditionally functioned as a storehouse of natural resources for the Russian state. The region’s main natural riches include fish and other marine life, timber, and nonferrous metals deposits. In recent years, exploitation of hydrocarbon energy resources-particularly oil and gas on the Sakhalin Island shelf-has increased. Moreover, there are plans to construct oil and gas pipelines through the Far East to export hydrocarbons to Asia- Pacific countries. Undoubtedly, these activities also affect the region’s environmental conditions.

The impact of transnational and transborder factors on the ecology of the Russian Far East is considerable. The region shares borders with the People’s Republic of China, North and South Korea, and Japan, each of which affect the environment of the Russian Far East through their economic activities. Furthermore, North Korea poses a potential threat to the environmental security of the region because of its nuclear ambitions, which, in the worst case scenario, could lead to violent armed conflict or the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Finally, it is necessary to take into account the hierarchy of priorities in political and economic decision making. Environmental protection has never been a basic priority of Russian government policy. It has paid even less attention to ecological concerns in the Russian Far East than in the rest of the country, especially since it is viewed by many in Russia as a kind of natural resource- rich appendage and not as a genuine part of the country.

Military Aspects of Environmental Security

Nuclear Issues

Except for the Bilibino power plant on the Chukotka Peninsula, the major nuclear facilities in the Russian Far East have military significance. These include holding strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, maintaining active-duty and decommissioned nuclear submarines, and storing submarine-spent nuclear fuel cells. The presence of such installations and facilities causes an increased risk of nuclear accidents and leaks. The most serious accident of such a kind happened in 1985 in the Chazhma Bay of Primorsky Krai (Maritime Province), not far from Nakhodka. The submarine’s active reactor exploded during refueling. Ten people were killed and more than 260 people were exposed to radiation. The bay and the nearby shores were contaminated with radioactive substances.

One of the region’s most serious problems is the Pacific Fleet’s decommissioned nuclear submarines. The USSR had some capacity to handle decommissioned submarines, which were removed from active service under the planned schedule. However, after the Soviet collapse, Russia inherited an excess of submarines, which the crisis- stricken national economy could not afford to maintain. Furthermore, international agreements obliged Russia to reduce its strategic nuclear forces, leading to a large-scale decommissioning of the Russian Navy’s submarines, including those based in the Far East.

According to official Russian sources, the radio-ecological situation along the Pacific coast of Russia can be described as normal. Radioactive contamination of the environment, accumulated during the course of the lengthy nuclear operation of the Russian Pacific fleet, has not spread beyond administrative borders of the Pacific Fleet units, except for the aforementioned Chazhma Bay accident. However, experts point out that the potential for an accident may be significant because of the technological difficulty of dismantling nuclear submarines.3

The problems of handling decommissioned submarines grew especially acute in the mid-1990s. By 1996, dismantlement work halted because of the lack of necessary technical equipment for submarine cutting and defueling. Previously used floating repair and maintenance facilities were dilapidated and no longer functioned, and Russia lacked adequate financial resources to fund the dismantlement. International cooperation was the only way to solve these problems. In 1996, thanks to U.S. aid under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the modernization of the existing Pacific Fleet submarine dismantlement infrastructure began. In 1999 Russia and the United States signed a contract that created an entirely new system for unloading spent nuclear fuel.

Japan also gave Russia significant aid for safe submarine dismantlement. Whereas the United States is mostly concerned with the dismantlement of strategic nuclear submarines capable of carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles and posing potential military threat, Japan, because of its proximity to the Russian Pacific Fleet bases and nuclear facilities, is less anxious about strategic threats than the environmental ones. For example, Japan allocated $36 million for the construction of a floating facility for liquid radioactive waste reprocessing. The Japanese were supportive of this facility because low-level liquid radioactive waste had been dumped into the Sea of Japan without any processing before this facility was created.4

The decommissioned ballistic missile submarines in the Russian Far East have been completely dismantled. Nevertheless, more than thirty decommissioned attack nuclear submarines that pose environmental risks remain. Although Russia can solve this problem on its own, budget constraints mean the process will be lengthy. International help would speed the process. In 2003, Japan funded the dismantlement of one attack submarine under the Global Partnership program. In 2004, Tokyo pledged to fund the dismantlement of five more submarines, although the final agreement has not yet been signed. Australia also allocated $7 million for submarine dismantlement in the Russian Far East.

However, the pace of decommissioning submarines in the Far East is lagging behind Russia’s northwestern Arctic region, where international aid has been much more generous. In the Arctic region, where the Russian Northern Fleet is based, European donor-countries and the United States and Canada have contributed funds to safe dismantlement. In the Russian Far East, dismantlement-related activities are now mainly financed by the Russian government.

Nonnuclear Military-related Environmental Hazards

Numerous nonnuclear military facilities and installations scattered over the region also pose serious environmental threats. Submarine dismantlement, radioactive waste reprocessing, and other nuclear aspects of environmental security have received attention and funding from the Russian government and foreign governments, but the environmental hazards emanating from the conventional arsenals in the Far East are viewed as less important. Although conventional weapons are not perceived as strategic threats in military and political terms, the environmental risks they generate are even more menacing than their nuclear counterparts. Risks from conventional sources have drastically increased since the early 1990s, when the army and navy units in the Russian Far East began undergoing considerable reduction. As part of this process, less and less money was allocated for the maintenance of military infrastructure, including arsenals containing numerous piles of weapons accumulated during the Soviet times. This, along with a lack of central control and management, and a decline in the population of the Russian armed forces, has contributed to the deterioration of morale and discipline among servicemen. As a result, there has been a considerable rise in the number of military-related accidents, dangerously affecting the security of people and the environment. For example, in 1992 a conflagration broke out on the grounds of the Pacific Fleet’s ordnance arsenal in Vladivostok. The equivalent of 1,300 railway cars of artillery shells exploded. Shell splinters struck nearby apartment buildings, breaking windows and slicing through apartments. One person was killed and six people were wounded. Unexploded shells were scattered all over the neighborhood. In 1994, Pacific Fleet air force arsenals exploded at Novonezhino, not far from Vladivostok. The Pacific Fleet commander was fired in the wake of the accident. However, the situation has not improved and accidental explosions of military arsenals continue with frightening regularity. In July 2003, another Pacific Fleet’s arsenal exploded in a rural suburb of Vladivostok, injuring twenty- seven people. Grave environmental threats also emanate from military stores of various chemicals. For instance, as the local press reported, a Pacific Fleet storage facility in Vladivostok contains 280 tons of highly toxic missile fuel. The old tanks are corroding and the missile fuel is gradually evaporating. According to experts, if there is a major leak from the storage facility, more than one million Primorsky Krai residents could die.5

In October 2003 another shocking accident was reported at the Barsovy wildlife reservation south of Vladivostok. It demonstrated yet again the serious danger poorly controlled military stores create. This unique reservation is a habitat for the last thirty far eastern leopards on earth and a number of other rare animals. It is also home to an army storage facility containing napalm and other toxic chemicals. The military abandoned the facility some years ago and it was left unguarded. A group of local residents who made their living gathering scrap metal for trade entered the storage ground and emptied approximately eight hundred metal drums of chemicals onto the ground. These chemicals ignited, which badly damaged 385,000 square meters of the reservation’s territory.6

In 2005, two other major accidents occured, both involving Pacific Fleet facilities. In September 2005, forty-three tons of fuel oil from navy tanks in Vladivostok leaked into the sea, contaminating Vladivostok beaches and coastal waters.7 In October 2005, a Pacific Fleet arsenal that stored decommissioned munitions near the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Kamchatka exploded. More than seven thousand local residents were evacuated.8

When such accidents are investigated, the military usually claims that an acute lack of funding makes it impossible to properly maintain arsenals and dispose of old weapons and chemicals. One possible way to solve this problem would be to establish international technical and financial assistance programs similar to those implemented to handle decommissioned nuclear submarines and associated radioactive waste.

Environmental Problems of Marine Biological Resources and Forest Exploitation

Exploitation of biological resources of seas and forests is one of the mainstays of the Russian Far East’s economy. However, overexploitation of these resources leads to depletion, reduction of biological diversity, and the total extinction of a number of unique species. Many of the problems connected with fishing grew especially acute after the Soviet Union collapsed because government control over the fishing industry ended. It became very difficult to verify Russian and foreign fishing companies’ compliance with environmentally justified quotas, especially as fishery supervisory authorities were notorious for rampant corruption. Fishing enterprises in the Russian Far East were quickly privatized, often with gross violations of the law. The structural composition of the fishery catch also changed. Priority shifted to the exploitation of species such as sea urchins, crabs, and other sea animals that could be sold at high prices in foreign markets, producing huge profits. Excessive fishing beyond legal quotas and illegal sales of the catches at sea and at foreign ports became common.

As many formerly state-run fishing enterprises closed down- largely because of mismanagement and lack of investment-rising unemployment and deteriorating economic conditions resulted in widespread offshore poaching among local populations. High demand for sea urchins, Kamchatka crabs, shellfish, and, particularly, trepang in East Asian countries caused unprecedented poaching. Exhaustion is happening so quickly that these formerly prevalent Far Eastern species are becoming rare. Primorsky Krai’s waters suffer the most from poaching of invertebrate sea animals, followed by the waters surrounding the South Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Moreover, illegal fishing and poaching activities are common even in state- guarded reservations. The amount of illegally procured salmon caviar has also drastically increased.

The population of the Kamchatka crab has been seriously depleted. Further overexploitation threatens its very existence. Illegal exploitation of the trepang reduced its population in the Russian Far East to critical levels. The gray sea urchin is also endangered. The numbers of nerka (sockeye salmon) off eastern Kamchatka are declining and have already reached dangerously low levels. The Kamchatka populations of other salmon-like species such as kizhuch and chavycha have also declined.9

Illegal catches in the Russian Far East are many times bigger than officially and environmentally approved quotas. In 2004, for instance, Russian fishing companies sold more than 30,000 tons of crab to Japan, although the total quota allocated for the Russian Far East amounted to only 1,500 tons. Instead of annual quotas of 4,000 or 5,000 tons, the nerka catches exceed 15,000 tons.10

According to Presidential Envoy in the Far Eastern Federal District Konstantin Pulikovsky, the crime rate in the fishing industry continues to rise.11 In economic and environmental terms, the total damage caused by illegal fishing activities is estimated at $3 billion annually.12 Annual Russian budget losses from illicit fish exports in the Russian Far East are assessed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs at $70 to $100 million.13 The main destination for illegal fish exports is Japan. Russian Border Guard Service estimates the volume of fish smuggling from Russia to Japan at $700 million annually.14

The use of super-trawlers is another alarming factor affecting marine resources. After these vessels had been banned in the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of Peru, Chile, and the United States, many of them moved operations to the Russian Pacific waters. The consequent increase in the fishing capacity is likely to deplete the feeding base for a number of marine birds and mammals. In the eastern part of the Bering Sea the number of seals and fur-seals is declining. Environmentalists argue that such negative effects can be linked directly to the use of super-trawlers.15 But other types of modern fishing gear may damage marine life as well. For instance, drift nets used by Japanese fishing boats for catching salmon in the Russian EEZ harm the marine environment by trapping sea birds and dolphins. Crab-fishing boats using powerful searchlights for night work may create serious obstacles to migrating birds, leading to their deaths.16

The degradation of Far East forests also causes grave environmental problems. According to official statistics, the annual volume of timber cut in the Far Eastern Federal District is slightly more than 5 million cubic meters, which does not take into account illegal logging. The state authorities in the Russian Far East are unable to exercise effective control over the timber business, which is characterized by major violations of environmental and fiscal regulations. Illegal timber felling and the cutting of tree species that are protected by law are common in the Russian Far East. The volume of timber cut far exceeds officially authorized limits. Large amounts of timber are cut without official permission or licenses. Seeking higher profits, timber businesses often cut the most valuable tree species, leaving behind less valuable fallen timber. According to some estimates, from 25 percent to 50 percent of cut timber is left rotting. Environmental and safety violations often lead to fires ravaging vast tracts of woodland. In some cases, forests are set on fire intentionally to conceal illicit logging.

Illegal and environmentally harmful timber cutting activities are mainly driven by high demand from foreign markets, above all China. According to World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) experts, illicit logging constitutes approximately 40 percent of the total volume of timber cut in the Russian Far East.17 The fiscal damage to the state budget amounts to 700 million rubles annually.18 By conservationists’ estimates, existing timber resources in Primorsky Krai will be completely exhausted within eight to ten years if cutting continues at the present rate. According to official data, more than 20 percent of timber exported from the Far East is illegal; illegal exports of valuable timber reach 50 percent. The illegal timber business generates huge profits, which are then shared with corrupt officials.19

Environmental Security and Energy Projects in the Russian Far East

Energy projects related to oil and gas extraction and transportation have also become major factors impacting the ecology of the Russian Far East. The most important projects are the development of the Sakhalin shelf’s oil and gas resources and plans to build an oil pipeline from Eastern Siberia.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, international oil companies were allowed to exploit offshore oil deposits in the Russian Far East, particularly off eastern Sakhalin in the Sea of Okhotsk. In 1999, under the Sakhalin-2 offshore oil project, the industrial extraction of oil started. The Molikpak platform, after being used in the Canadian Arctic waters, was installed in Piltun Bay. Thus far, there have been no major accidents or disasters associated with Sakhalin oil and gas projects. Yet some conservationists along with indigenous peoples organizations and local communities’ governments continue to insist that environmental risks are extremely high. The Sea of Okhotsk is one of the world’s most biologically productive seas. The waters near northeastern Sakhalin provide a habitat for the endangered western gray whale. Given the difficult weather conditions in the Sea of Okhotsk, there is the potential for a large oil spill, which can be caused by damaged or overturned tankers or disruptions in oil-pumping equiptment. The damages to fisheries, marine mammals, and seabirds would be enormous. Environmental activists and the Sakhalin indigenous peoples have already staged several actions of protest, including blockading oil and gas infrastructure facilities on northern Sakhalin. Meanwhile, the oil companies operating on the island claim that all of their activities are in strict compliance with existing Russian laws and regulations.20

Environmentalists are also alarmed by a grand pipeline construction project from eastern Siberia to the Russian Pacific coast, which is now being implemented by the state-owned Transneft company.21 They believe the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) project, which is to pipe 80 million tons of oil for Asia-Pacific markets annually, does not take into account ecological hazards. Environmental experts point out that the territories that the 4,130- kilometer-long pipeline would cross have a complicated geological structure and rugged terrain including permafrost and highly seismic areas. For instance, experts of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences question the safety of the proposed pipeline route along the Baikal-Amur Railway because this area involves considerable seismic risk.22 There are numerous mountain ridges, rivers, and lakes on the pipeline route. In this respect, the engineering difficulties of the construction are similar to those of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. Environmentalists were especially alarmed that the ESPO pipeline would run in immediate proximity to Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater reservoir and a unique natural treasure.

There is also controversy over the terminal point of the pipeline. Transneft insists that Perevoznaya Bay in Southern Primorye, not far from Vladivostok and just near the Russian-Korean border, is the best place for the terminal because supertankers will dock there. However, many environmental groups and experts argue that this option involves high ecological risks. In particular, environmentalists are worried about possible harm that could be done to the Perevoznaya Bay area. They are convinced that the terminal construction and operation would inevitably damage unique Perevoznaya Bay’s marine and littoral ecosystems and the larger Bay of Peter the Great, where Russia’s only marine natural preserve is situated. It could also endanger the habitat of the rare far- eastern leopards.23

There are options for rerouting the ESPO pipeline that are more sustainable in environmental terms, but, according to Transneft, will make the pipeline construction more expensive and require more time. Environmentalists say that they do not reject the pipeline but want its planners to be more responsive to ecological concerns.

Environmental Security in Urban Areas of the Russian Far East

Approximately three-fourths of the Russian Far East’s population live in cities. Therefore urban environmental issues are directly linked to human security. Vladivostok-the largest city of the Russian Far East with the population of around seven hundred thousand-exemplifies environmental problems confronting the urban areas of the region. One of the most important environmental concerns in Vladivostok is the absence of sewage treatment facilities. More than 90 percent of sewage goes into the sea without treatment, polluting the coastal waters. Moreover, waste from ships and port facilities is often dumped straight into the sea. According to environmental officials, 85 percent of the water area of the Golden Horn Bay, the main Vladivostok harbor, is biologically dead.24 Only two beaches in Vladivostok are officially approved by sanitary authorities for bathing. They warn that swimming at other city beaches may be harmful to health because of excessive water contamination.

The Russian Far East also faces a problem with urban solid waste disposal. The garbage reprocessing plant in Vladivostok is capable of reprocessing only a fraction of the city garbage. The rest is transported to the dump site, which sits on the seashore in proximity to the city blocks. In Primorsky Krai as a whole, 50 million tons of garbage is accumulated annually but only 1.5 percent is reprocessed.

Transnational Threats to Environmental Security

As a border region, the Russian Far East experiences significant pressure from negative transnational environmental factors. The most serious external threat to the ecology of the Far East is posed by China’s explosive economic growth and overpopulation. According to the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, ecological systems in China have been suffering from economic activities that have also inflicted significant environmental damage on the adjacent territories of Russia and other Northeast Asian countries.

One of the most urgent problems is pollution of transborder rivers and lakes with industrial and communal waste generated in China, where waste treatment systems are virtually nonexistent. For example, in the Amur and Ussury river basins in Northeast China, there are fourteen oil refineries and several pulp factories, including Asia’s biggest pulp and paper mill. None of them has proper waste reprocessing facilities.25

The China factor also contributes to the ongoing deforestation of the Far East territories. China’s Heilunjiang Province, which borders Primorsky Krai, saw a five-fold reduction of forest area over the past century.26 The same process is currently taking place in Primorsky Krai and other Far East territories. The ban on timber cutting in China has resulted in the transfer of Chinese timber business activity to the Russian Far East. Chinese dealers, however, are then prepared to buy large amounts of timber from across the border and pay in cash. Depredation of forest resources is especially rampant in the Far Eastern areas, which are struggling with economic depression. Illegal timber cutting has become the only way to earn a living. According to the Far Eastern Customs Office, Chinese dealers account for 90 percent of registered illegal timber export cases.27

Demand from Chinese markets also threatens endangered wildlife species. The lion’s share of the poachers’ prey from the Russian Far East is smuggled to China. These illegal wildlife exports include such animals as tigers, leopards, bears, deer, fur animals, pheasants, turtles, frogs, and their parts and derivatives. The annual volume of this illegal market is estimated at approximately $13 million.28 Marine and river species also fall prey to transnational poachers. Chinese fishermen use such environmentally dangerous methods as chemicals, explosions, and electric shock, which do irreparable harm to biological resources. Russian environmentalists’ concerns do not seem to be shared by the Chinese traders and authorities.

Despite these problems there is no comprehensive system of environmental transborder cooperation between Russia and China. According to Russian scientists, Chinese officials refuse to acknowledge the considerable pollution emanating from China.29 However, Chinese officials are afraid that Russia may raise the issue of compensation for environmental damage. Chinese authorities, for example, will not agree to joint monitoring of the Tumen River basin, fearing a precedent that could be used by Russia in other border areas.30

Intergovernmental cooperation on transnational environmental issues is lacking not only between Russia and China but also among other Northeast Asian countries. There is clearly an urgent need to form an effective system of multilateral environmental cooperation in Northeast Asia.

Conclusion

In the short and medium term, substantial positive changes in the environmental security of the Russian Far East are unlikely. This is mainly because of the fact that environmental concerns do not have priority in the political and economic decision-making processes in Russia or in the Russian Far East. Neglect of environmental conservation is characteristic of central authorities in Moscow and in regional and local governments and businesses. Awareness of environmental issues among the majority of the population is also quite low, which is not surprising. Russia’s regions and local communities are most concerned with survival and economic development; environmental problems are a low priority. Moreover, large-scale activities to protect the environment require significant financial resources.

The findings of a recent public opinion survey are indicative of this attitude. Russians were asked how they would spend the money from the country’s Stabilization Fund, which accumulates the budget surplus Russia receives thanks to high oil prices. Most respondents suggested that the money should be used to raise senior citizens’ pensions and increase the salaries of people working in education, health care, and other state-funded public services. Environmental concerns were at the bottom of the list. Only 4 percent of those polled supported financing environmental programs.31 According to another poll, 55 percent of Russians view ecological situation in places where they live as bad, but only 4 percent were willing to donate their own money to preserving the environment.32 Government bodies treat environmental issues in a similar fashion. In a formal sense, Russia has a legal and administrative infrastructure for environmental protection. However, federal and local environmental agencies are not independent and exercise only limited influence over their supposed jurisdiction. This situation is exacerbated by corruption among officials, including those in environmental protection agencies.

Environmental legislation is often enforced selectively and arbitrarily. Assessments of environmental consequences of projects made by government agencies are commonly based on certain political and economic considerations are unrelated to ecology. Sometimes environmental safety standards are “forgotten,” while in other cases environmental legislation is used to block implementation of undesirable projects. For example, some observers argue that the negative environmental assessment of the proposed pipeline from Eastern Siberia to the Chinese city of Daqing was politically motivated and could be explained by the reluctance of Russian authorities to implement agreements that had been previously negotiated between the Yukos oil company and China. At the same time, some experts believe that aggressive lobbying for ecologically vulnerable Perevoznaya Bay as the terminal site of the ESPO pipeline is also explained by politics. Perevoznaya Bay is very close to the Korean border, which could in the future facilitate Russian energy exports to the Korean Peninsula. Koreans are interested in Russian oil and gas, and Moscow can gain more leverage on the Korean Peninsula through large-scale energy exports.

Another problem is that many environmental organizations and groups active in Russia are funded by the West. Hence they are often suspected of promoting Western countries’ political and economic goals to the detriment of Russian national interests. Such concerns are voiced even at the highest political levels. For instance, in July 2005 President Vladimir Putin, speaking on the issue of the ESPO pipeline construction, said: “Environmental assessments must not hamper the development of the country and national economy. Once we start doing something, they are always using environmental charges as one of the ways to block our efforts.”33

Therefore, at this point, it would be naive to expect Russia and its regions to strictly comply with high environmental security standards. Progress in environmental protection will primarily depend on Russia’s achievements in economic development and the formation of strong civil society institutions. In the near future, the Russian Far East is unlikely to face precipitous environmental degradation. However, if the current negative trends continue unabated, in the long term it will have a grave impact on the region’s environment, its economic development, and the health of its people.

NOTES

1. The Russian Far East includes the Pacific territories of Russia and some territories of eastern Siberia east of Lake Baikal.

2. For a comprehensive coverage of environmental issues in the Russian Far East, see Josh Newell, The Russian Far East: A Reference Guide for Conservation and Development (McKinleyville, CA: Daniel and Daniel, 2004).

3. Press release, International Scientific and Technical Conference, “Environmental Problems of the Nuclear Submarine Dismantlement and the Development of Atomic Energy in the Region” (Vladivostok: September 2002).

4. For more details, see C. Chuen and T. Troyakova, “The Complex Politics of Foreign Assistance: Building the Landysh in the Russian Far East,” The Nonproliferation Review 8, no. 2 (2001): 134-49.

5. Sergei Sablin. “TOF pozhymaet plechami,” Novosti, November 28, 2000, 5.

6. “Primorsky krai: zemlyu leoparda travyat khimikatami,” Eho- DV, October 24, 2003, http://eho-dv.com (accessed June 25, 2004).

7. According to some unofficial estimates nearly 300 tons of oil leaked.

8. “Na Kamchatke so skladov vyvozyat na poligon nerazorvavshiesya boepripasy,” http://www.rian.ru/incidents/conflagration/20051002/ 41571048.html (accessed October 5, 2005).

9. Personal interviews with environmental and law enforcement analysts in Vladivostok, October 2005.

10. “Brakonierstvo v moryah Dalnego Vostoka ugrozhaet rybnym zapasam,” Vostok-Media, December 22, 2004, http://vostokmedia.vl.ru (accessed December 27, 2004).

11. Vasiliy Avchenko, “Polpred vzyalsya za ikru,” Vladivostok, May 25, 2004, 3.

12. “Uscherb ot nezakonnogo vylova sostavlyaet milliardy dollarov,” http://www.russianews.ru/articles/showarticle.asp?id=112 (accessed May 10, 2006).

13. Personal interviews with environmental experts in Vladivostok, October 2005.

14. “Yaponiya povernulas’ litsom k Rossii,” ITAR-TASS, January 29, 2004, http://itartass.ur.ru/pub/?id=150-(accessed March 2, 2005).

15. World Wide Fund for Nature, Russian Program Office, “Strategiya sohraneniya biologicheskogo raznoobraziya morei Dal’nego Vostoka Rossii v period s 2000 po 2005 gg.,” http:// npacific.kamchatka.ru/np/programm/proon/strat.htm (accessed October 3, 2005).

16. Ibid.

17. Personal interviews with environmental experts in Vladivostok, September 2005.

18. Personal interviews with law enforcement analysts in Vladivostok, October 2005.

19. “Po otsenkam ekologov, lesov v Primorye ostalos’ na vosem’- desyat’ let rubki,” Eho-DV, October 10, 2003, http://eho-dv.com (accessed October 15, 2003).

20. Yelena Tretyakova, “Aborigenov Sakhalina ne vosprinyali vseryoz,” Kommersant-DV, December 18, 2004, 12.

21. Transneft is a state-owned monopoly operating all long- distance pipelines in Russia through which oil is exported to other countries.

22. “Yaponiya povernulas’ litsom k Rossii.”

23. “Terminal v Perevoznoy nanesyot nepopravimiy uscherb ekologii,” http://www.isardvrc.ru/index.php?topic=2 (accessed November 5, 2005).

24. Aleksandr Konnov. “Delo-truba,” Novosti, September 25, 2003, 3.

25. V. Ishaev, “Strategiya razvitiya Dal’nego Vostoka v izmenyayuschemsya mire,” http://www.adm.khv.ru (accessed October 1, 2006).

26. “Ekologicheskaya situatsiya v prigranichnyh rayonah Primorya: problemy i regional’noye sotrudnichestvo,” October 18, 2002. http:// valaam.rmt.ru/china/base/6160FC56-C2E2-43E1-BD0EDC1BD080FB20. html (accessed October 30, 2004).

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. “Stabilizatsyoniy fond rossiskoi ekonomiki rastyot,” September 7, 2005, http://www.dengiinfo. com (accessed September 10, 2005).

32. “Rossiyane-ob ekologii,” August 2, 2005, http:// news.gismeteo.ru/?newsitem=63258668242& printable=1 (accessed August 23, 2005).

33. Sophia Kishkovsky, “Putin gnevno obrushivaetsa na politicheskoye vmeshatel’stvo,” July 21, 2005, http:// www.inopressa.ru/nytimes/2005/07/21/12:36:15/aide (accessed September 10, 2006).

Copyright Heldref Publications Spring 2007

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