Lake Baikal

Buryatia and Irkutsk Region, Russia

February 2010

The Baikal Cellulose Paper Firm in Baikalsk was reopened by a special permit of Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister, in January 2010.

Further information ...

Lake Baikal is located in the south of Siberia, near the Russian- Mongolian border.

The species diversity in Lake Baikal is the highest among all the world's lakes. About 2,500 different species of animals and 1,000 plants are recorded. In the Siberian taiga, in the pinewoods and lark woods you can find bears, wolves, lynxes and elks. The Baikal Seal (Pusa sibirica) is a unique kind of seal living exclusively in fresh water. There are also other endemic species - an example is the Golomyanka, a scaleless transparent fish possessing no swim bladder.

Lake Baikal is a lake of superlatives. At more than 25 million years old it is world’s oldest lake and with its maximum depth of 1,673 metres, Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, and the largest freshwater lake in the world by volum. The lake is fed by more than 300 rivers and streams, the largest inflows are the rivers Upper Angara, Selenga and Bargusin. Angara is the only outflow in the south of the lake. Lake Baikal has 22 larger islands. Olchon island with a surface of 730 sq. km is the largest island in Lake Baikal.

Our partner is the nature protection association "Firn" and the Baikal Information Center GRAN in Ulan-Ude. Water pollution is the most urgent problem our partners are dealing with. The wastewater from a paper plant built in Baikalsk on the south shore of the lake in the 1960s was considered the major source to pollution in the lake since March 2009. Other major contributor to pollution is untreated industrial wastewater carried to the lake.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to economic crisis and the people living near Lake Baikal, in their struggle of life, understandingly (but unsustainably) put aside the protection of nature and environment in favour of creating jobs. Over-fishing and uncontrolled hunting (e.g. hunting of seals) threaten the unique fauna of the region as well.

Other problems, our partners are focusing on, are the dissemination of ecological information and environmental education in the Baikal region.

At the end of 2008, the “Ecological Community Council” was founded, its primary option is the cooperation between the Office of Public Prosecutor and the NGOs in the sector of environmental protection. With the corporate implementation of federal and regional programmes, encroachments and ecological felonies should be prevented and therefore the conservation of the unique nature in the Baikal region should be ensured. FIRN is a member of the Ecological Community Council.

Together with both partner organisations, GNF is and was implementing the following projects: 

Project for the protection of the Baikal Seals "Nerpa in Focus"

Project of Development of Sustainable Tourism

Project "Integration of Youths into a Sustainable Development and Conservation of the Heritage in the Barguzin River Valley in the Baikal Region",

Barn-Swallow Project (2004)

Further information about each project you find under the separate project webpage.

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