Environmental Initiative

The mission of CCI’s Environmental Initiative was to empower Russian environmentalists to push government officials at all levels to create a safer environment for the citizenry. It began in 1987 when a scrappy band of unknown environmentalists applied to CCI to help them develop a “voice” to wage a campaign against an official dam decree.

U.S. foundation executive Arlie Schardt meets with Soviet environmentalists in Leningrad

Soviet officials in Moscow and Leningrad were pushing forward a massive project to stem the flow of waters from the Baltic Sea into the Neva River to prevent once-a-century floods in Leningrad. The downside: the Neva would virtually become a cesspool when regional wastes could no longer be flushed into the Baltic Sea.

CCI brought U.S. foundation executives and environmentalists to Leningrad to caucus with the renegade environmentalists. Consultations were given, and funding was made available. It took years to destroy the dam project, but the project was finally forsaken in 1991.

The Environmental Initiative began to undertake a variety of environmental projects in Leningrad and other Soviet cities, including exposing Soviet nuclear waste pollution. Soviet environmentalists were paired with American activists at Three Mile Island, Hanford, and Tri-Valley Cares. This professional exchange resulted in the implementation of critical environmental projects throughout Russia. The nuclear waste cleanup work was eventually spun off to Earth Island in 1998 and still continues under the leadership of CCI Board Member Francis Macy and former CCI Board Member Enid Scheibman.

Over the years CCI’s Environmental Initiative grew rapidly, taking on ever larger projects. Urged by Russian environmentalists, CCI’s leaders became involved in solving the pollution and devastation of Russia’s crown jewel, Lake Baikal, the largest and deepest lake in the world. Soviet paper mills and other contaminating industries built on the edge of the lake were rapidly deteriorating this great body of water. CCI received a $4 million grant from USAID to create and implement a land-use policy for the Baikal basin in 1994, thus taking on the organization’s largest-ever environmental program.

George Davis, professional environmental land use planner, was hired as CCI’s Baikal project manager. Davis and his team researched and mapped the basin and began the long process of restoration. The program provided funding to reestablish the fauna and flora of the lake and basin, which included yak and reindeer to repopulate the region. In 1997 CCI and Davis agreed that he should run the Baikal project from his East Coast office, and afterward the Baikal restoration project continued to completion independent of CCI.

The Environmental Initiative is another example of CCI listening to Russian citizens, starting with small requests and building projects from the bottom up.