Environmental NGO The Altai Project is recognized as “undesirable in Russia”

The General Prosecutor’s Office of Russia declared the American non-governmental organization The Altai Project “undesirable”. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, she tried to sabotage the construction of the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline.

As the newspaper “Kommersant” clarifies, the Prosecutor General’s Office claims that The Altai Project calls for donations of funds to carry out environmental studies, “which will prove the alleged harmful influence of the gas pipeline, as well as for propaganda work in the Russian and international society, the purpose of which is to convey to the public the thesis about the need to “fight for sacred places” in the Altai Republic. It follows from the department’s press release that the organization’s website contains a “call to participate in protests and disobedience.”

The Altai Project is an ecological non-profit organization created in 1998 by the American Earth Island Institute. She is engaged in nature protection and preservation of the cultural and natural heritage of Altai. In particular, The Altai Project was engaged in the protection of habitats of the snow leopard and birds of prey, resisting the destruction of their traditional habitats. Activists conducted independent examinations and opposed the laying of new high-voltage power lines in the ecologically important territories of Altai, due to collisions with which birds died, against the construction of pipelines and mining there.

Two weeks earlier, the Prosecutor General’s Office recognized the oldest international environmental organization – the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – as undesirable in Russia. The agency stated that WWF, under the pretext of environmental protection, is allegedly conducting activities that prevent Russia from developing the Arctic and its natural resources.