By Oleg Yanitsky
MOSCOW — The fourth annual conference of the Social-Ecological Union took place here from October 5 to 8. The largest green organisation to emerge from the USSR, the union includes groups from all over the Commonwealth of Independent States, and also from other parts of the former Soviet Union.
The conference was attended by representatives of more than 40 affiliated bodies, as well as by observers and guests. The range of people and viewpoints was impressively wide. Members were present from republics of the Russian Federation whose leaderships have been in sharp conflict with the Russian government. Representatives attended from the editorial office of the anarchist journal Third Path, and also taking part were observers from various Green parties of Russia and the Ukraine.
The conference marked two important developments in the life of the Social-Ecological Union. First, the union has now made a definitive shift from being a nature conservation body to becoming an environmental organisation in the broader sense. Second, it has gained the status of an international philanthropic association.
As the union's founder and leader, Sviatoslav Zabelin, noted in his summary, the organisation has succeeded in breaking the state monopoly on environmental information.
"We're also involved in trying to develop alternative energy supplies", Zabelin continued. "We hope to overcome the monopoly of the state ministries that control energy policy in Russia.
"Nature reserves and national parks remain an important focus of our activity. But in our work with them, we're now placing much greater stress on their role in the country's economic development."
For the first time in the history of the Social-Ecological Union, members took part in wide-ranging discussions of social and political issues. The topics included relations with the state as a whole, with nature conservation authorities, with local government and business, and with other movements and political parties.
Like the nucleus from which it arose — the student nature protection corps movement, which has existed here since the early 1960s — the Social-Ecological Union has an ambiguous
relationship with the government. Along with the environmental movement as a whole, the union is clearly in opposition to the state and its policies. However, hundreds of members of the union are employed by the central and local organs of legislative and executive power, including the Russian parliament.
Through these people, the Social-Ecological Union can gather information about the actions of state bodies concerned with the environment, finding out whether they are enacting environmental legislation or sabotaging it at the local level. To some degree, there is even the possibility of influencing state policy.
But the obvious drawback is the dependency this involves on state bodies and, most importantly, the danger that the union will lose its distinct identity. It is no accident that for the first time the call went out at this conference for the movement to work out a clear ideology and a strategy of political action.
Meanwhile, the conference did not discuss such critical questions as privatisation, the redistribution of power between the centre and the regions to the advantage of the latter and the government's whole reform strategy. This omission was particularly glaring since the question of whether the development of Russian society is to have a pro- or anti-ecological thrust is being decided right now.
Does our society, orienting toward Western models of modernisation, have to pass along the whole road traversed by the developed West? Or is it possible to bypass the stage of consumer society? It appears that the leaders of the Social-Ecological Union still have not fully grasped the significance of the fact that the movement they head has changed from a nature conservation movement to an environmental one.
The leaders of the Social-Ecological Union and its base-level organisations have put a great deal of work into ensuring that the movement is economically independent, something which is especially vital during a difficult transition period.
An information centre has been set up to compile and market data on the environment. Member organisations of the union arrange environmental impact studies, or conduct them themselves. They contract with local authorities to carry out ecological surveys of particular areas, provide assistance to local environmental commissions, and organise courses and expeditions. Environmentally oriented cooperatives are set up, though these meet with great difficulties.
The union has also earned money by conducting environmental studies for the World Bank. However, the main source of financial and technical help has been non-government environmental
organisations in the West, especially the US.
The conference resolved to turn the Social-Ecological Union into an international philanthropic organisation, and adopted the necessary changes to its constitution. The "philanthropy" involved here is mainly financial and technical help to the local affiliated organisations, aimed at ensuring their survival during the period of economic reform. During the conference, many participants sought to establish information contacts and commercial ties with Russian and foreign partners.
As in previous decades, the tone for the conference was set by the older generation of environmental activists, professional biologists who had gone through the student nature conservation movement. It was clear, however, that before long a new generation would take over. Professional politicians from the milieu of the informal movements are likely to assume the leading roles; they will include economists, sociologists and lawyers.
Another, less promising variant is also possible. The movement could suffer a split between conservationists and environmentalists, increasingly concerned with the social environment as such.
[Professor Oleg Yanitsky is a Moscow sociologist and author of a forthcoming book on environmental movements.]