We list the officials who sought to declare WWF (World Wildlife Fund) a foreign agent
THIS MATERIAL (INFORMATION) (PRODUCED, DISTRIBUTED AND (OR) SENT) BY A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE WORLD WILDLIFE FUND OR RELATED TO THE ACTIVITIES OF THE FOREIGN AGENT OF THE WORLD NATURE FUND
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“Under the guise of protecting nature and the environment, the biological diversity of species, representatives of the fund tried to influence the decisions of the executive and legislative authorities of the Russian Federation, hindered the implementation of industrial and infrastructure projects” — this is how the Russian Ministry of Justice on its website justified the inclusion to the register of foreign agents of the World Wide Fund for Nature.
From this explanation, in principle, it is already clear who became the beneficiary of the decision: lobbyists for industrial projects that were criticized by conservationists.
Environmental organizations have long been under the gun of the Ministry of Justice. Stars of “agents” in different years were sewn onto Bellona*, Silver Taiga*, Kola Ecological Center*, Syktyvkar youth association Etas*, Sakhalin Environmental Watch*… Among the latest victims is the 42 movement * from the Republic of Komi, who was engaged in environmental education.
Despite the seeming randomness of being included in this list, there is logic in the repressions: nature conservation still motivates residents of various regions of the country to protect their rights, forces them to protest and even, as in the story with the Shies landfill, to achieve results. However, WWF is perhaps the most systematic and, in a good sense, negotiable fund, which, having a recognized authority in the world, in Russia sought not to openly conflict with the authorities or polluters, but to achieve changes for the better with soft power.
A foundation with a panda on its logo is not about politics at all, and it is extremely difficult to accuse it of “environmental extremism” (a dubious term invented by officials to defame activists).
The absolute handshake of WWF, even from the point of view of Russian apparatchiks, was expressed, for example, in a lengthy congratulation of the fund to Putin on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the organization. It was in 2014, the President praised ecologists for restoring the population of the European bison, protecting the snow leopard from poaching, preserving the Amur tiger, returning the leopard to the Caucasus, as well as for promoting the law «On protecting the seas from oil pollution» and participating in the development of laws that tighten responsibility for the production and circulation of Red Book animals.
The safe conduct ceased to be valid in 2022. It was then that the Ministry of Justice was first asked to recognize the fund as a foreign agent. Who? Outraged «public» represented by the Russian Ecological Society. This office, as stated on its website, brings together «environmentally responsible businesses, government authorities at the federal and regional levels, eco-leaders and citizens.»
Last April, the REO complained to the Ministry of Justice that it was faced with «unfriendly actions» by WWF and Greenpeace in relation to state environmental policy.
In particular, these organizations allegedly form a negative public opinion about the actions of the Russian government and companies in the field of nature protection.
The Ministry of Justice, however, replied that there were no legal grounds for including organizations in the register of foreign agents. The fact is that they are international, and the status of foreign agents cannot be extended to such structures. It's like being included in the UNICEF or UNESCO registry.
Then the chairman of the REO, Rashid Ismailov, said that he would achieve the recognition of Greenpeace and WWF as undesirable. Everything is for patriotic reasons, because «Russia's environmental sovereignty is at stake.» In Ismailov's interview with Vedomosti, a motive sounded, which would later be transferred to the release of the Ministry of Justice: opposition of environmentalists to certain infrastructure projects.
Who is this Ismailov anyway? He worked as an expert in the Federation Council, headed the Center for Green Standards under the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia. He claims that the world should look up to Russia in environmental matters, considers the «rocking» of negative environmental topics in the media by custom-made campaigns.
Comfortable environmentalists saddled the topic of patriotism in time: the society signed an agreement on cooperation with the Yunarmiya. The website of the REO, which regularly receives presidential grants, reports on the Eco-Chevron competition held jointly with this organization to develop a logo for “environmental-patriotic detachments”.
The organization’s website also ingenuously states that it is open to investors, who in return are promised “presence in the current media agenda.”
REO, or rather its Irkutsk branch, is represented by State Duma deputy Alexander Yakubovsky, who recently accused WWF and “ Greenpeace» in extremism and blackmail.
The deputy believes that «environmental issues become the subject of speculation in the interests of sometimes business, and sometimes unfriendly countries.»
In general, Yakubovsky, who inherited Kobzon's mandate, sits on the Duma committee on housing and communal services, and he was worried about the environment after environmentalists criticized the bill lifting the ban on clear-cutting in the central ecological zone of Baikal. Yakubovsky is its co-author together with a group of deputies, including, for example, Andrey Lugovoi. This document allows to transfer the lands of the forest fund to the lands of settlements and carry out clear cuttings (for sanitary purposes).
The Wildlife Fund, like other environmental organizations, has been fighting against clear-cutting on Lake Baikal for decades. The State Duma deputy, who considered the cuttings appropriate, is closely connected with the construction business of the Irkutsk region — he was previously the owner of Baikal Construction and Development Group LLC, which is now managed and owned by his wife.
In 2022, small attacks against the WWF were regularly carried out under the guise of local initiatives. For example, in the same April, Arkhangelsk deputy Alexander Dyatlov demanded that the Prosecutor General's Office ban the Fund on Russian territory as being associated with unfriendly countries. Dyatlov himself in Arkhangelsk is famous for being the character of the book «Arkhangelsk on guard of law and order», published by the press service of the local police department. The future parliamentarian is introduced in the chapter titled «The Mafia is Feathering.»
The WWF received another unexpected opponent in the person of deputies of the Chukotka parliament. They declared a “threat to national security.”
According to regional parliamentarians, it was expressed in the creation of specially protected territories, which they called «the exclusion of land from Russia.» The government of Chukotka unilaterally terminated the cooperation agreement with the fund. Which, we note, caused criticism of the federal Ministry of Natural Resources, which recalled that it was the fund that launched the Bear Patrol project in Chukotka (a system for prompt response to polar bears coming to people, assistance in transporting predators outside settlements), formed «forest teams», who helped to fight forest fires in the reserves, and also purchases equipment for local protected areas.
The Fund is actively working in the Arctic, which in recent years the military has been increasingly trying to completely subdue for their needs, not particularly considering the interests of environmental protection. They are unlikely to be satisfied with an international organization that strictly controls the treatment of animals (remember the scandal with the killing of a polar bear on Wrangel Island during the construction of another military facility). But still, the authority and merits of WWF were such that the fund skillfully got out of conflicts without loss. Here is just a short list of achievements from the foundation's latest press release:
“More than 1,500 field projects have been implemented over 28 years. More than 145 federal and regional specially protected natural areas with a total area of 72 million hectares have been created and expanded. Bison have been returned to nature: today more than 1,300 purebred animals graze freely in the forests of the European part of Russia. The first leopards were released into the wild in the Russian Caucasus: together with partners, a program is being implemented to restore the population of the Persian leopard”…
In this case, what was not the reason, but the reason to torpedo the WWF by the Ministry of Justice? Konstantin Chuichenko, the head of this department, was personally involved in the latest conflict with the foundation.
In February 2023, the head of WWF biodiversity conservation programs Vladimir Krever, in a commentary to Kommersant FM, said that insufficient funds were allocated in Russia for conservation endangered species.
The material on the situation with rare species in the world as a whole included a tiny commentary by Krever. But for some reason, Chuichenko was touched, who, in addition to the mission to identify foreign agents, is the chairman of the supervisory board of the ANO Amur Tiger. In a duet with him on the pages of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Sergey Ivanov, once the Minister of Defense and a candidate for successor, and now the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation on environmental issues, was indignant. Ivanov and Chuichenko accused the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund of wanting to cash in on helping endangered animal species. Their article came out under the catchy headline: «Advice to true conservationists — stay away from the Russian WWF.»
In it, for some reason, they refer to the Kommersant text as an interview with Krever and respond to it as if the material is about criticizing efforts to conserve tigers and leopards in Russia. Say, the ecologist and the journalist claim that everything is bad with this, but in fact it is good thanks to the state and the Amur Tiger ANO. At the same time, in fact, in the original text, the tiger is mentioned only once, and there is no criticism of the mentioned ANO at all. Which does not prevent the authors from rebuking in a boorish manner recommending the leadership of Kommersant to “deal with” the journalist who wrote the text, and explaining the appearance of WWF in the media by “the desire to collect more money from naive companies and citizens, and use the funds received not for environmental protection measures, but for self-promotion and «work» with some journalists.
Director of the Russian WWF Dmitry Gorshkov on the organization's website tried to settle the conflict, recalling that the fund always builds partnerships with government and business to preserve wild animals, praised the Amur Tiger ANO «and stressed:» We never shout «wolves-wolves!» But, obviously, the fate of the organization for Russian officials has already been decided. Less than a month passed from the moment the article was published in KP to the inclusion of WWF in the register of foreign agents. The Foundation has already announced that it will challenge this decision in court.