Governor of Kamchatka – : “Nature gave us a small slap on the back of the head”

The environmental incident of 2020 has launched a wave of new projects and changes in the region. Governor of the Kamchatka Territory Vladimir Solodov talks about the causes and consequences of this event a year and a half later.

In the fall of 2020, the attention of the whole world was riveted to Kamchatka. Then one of the most high-profile environmental incidents of recent years in our country took place here. Its cause was “red tides”, that is, a natural phenomenon. But in the course of the investigation, a lot of other environmental problems of the region were revealed – the disposal of pesticides, the discharge of waste water from industrial enterprises, the pollution of the main bay of the city, and much more.

The information noise quickly subsided, but work in this direction did not stop, and the environmental agenda in Kamchatka from that moment came to the fore. Governor of the Kamchatka Territory Vladimir Solodov told Trends what is happening in the region now and how the environmental policy of Kamchatka is arranged after the “red tides”.

Exactly one year later, a similar situation with “red tides” occurred in Japan and the country’s scientific community turned to the government of Kamchatka for the accumulated expertise. With a certain regularity, this phenomenon is observed off the coast of the North American continent. According to scientists, these processes in the ocean are typical for the entire northern part of the Pacific Ocean. That is, we are observing global changes in the ocean, the causes and consequences of which are very little studied. Thus, Kamchatka, which used to be just the most remote subject of our country, has become one of the significant points on the global map of the world.

— How did the events of 2020 affect the development of Kamchatka?

– The “Red Tides” were very important, because they riveted the attention of our entire country and partly of the whole world to Kamchatka. And they gave us the opportunity to focus even more on the environment. In a sense, this can be considered as a small cuff when nature reminded that it is close here and gives signals. Small, light. I fear that there may not be more serious reminders from nature.

– How did it happen that the “slap” by nature worked in this place and at this time and attracted so much attention to itself?

– It was just that in Kamchatka it was very obvious, and the tides appeared in a place where more people live and where they are more often on the ocean. If we observed the same phenomenon 500 kilometers to the north, then it probably would not have been noticed and it would not have received such a resonance. Moreover, if there weren’t such amazing sports and tourist activity on Khalaktyrsky Beach, if there weren’t people constantly there, surfers, then we wouldn’t pay attention to this here either.

It is not considered as a catastrophe, as an ecocide, or as other designations that were used in the public information space during the events themselves. But we see this in other countries, we see the reaction of scientists to this phenomenon, that it carries risks for the ecosystem, and, of course, risks for people. “Red tides” happened in Kamchatka and once again reminded that great changes are taking place. They do not happen tomorrow, they have already happened. We here just feel them more acutely, we feel them first.

Positive effect for Kamchatka

– What has changed in Kamchatka after the “red tides” ended and ordinary life continued without close attention from the media?

“The Red Tides have a very positive result because they have allowed us to focus resources on scientific research in this area, to prioritize work related to cleaning up accumulated environmental damage and studying what is happening in the oceans and in coastal areas such as like the Kamchatka Territory.

But at the same time, I would not absolutize or exaggerate the significance of the “red tides” themselves. Because I initially staked on ecology and on “green” development in an explicit form did, do and will do.

– What has already been done in a year and a half since these events?

— We have launched an information system — very simple, I would even say primitive. This is just a geosystem, to which information is tied, which is already being collected by various services, departments and people. That is, this is a map on which we place all the monitoring that is carried out by Roshydromet, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Rosprirodnadzor, our regional structures. Anyone can also post a message about a phenomenon that he or she believes has environmental implications.

The system works while it is not very popular, I must say, but it is quite convenient. It allows you to collect and make this array of data public, because in fact, many of them are scattered and have never been systematically collected in one place until now.

– This is the first step. Has the scientific community started working on this data set?

“As a result, we received support from the federal government. It launched comprehensive scientific research, which is currently underway. Many scientific institutes and organizations carry out research in this area, but they have never come together. Now they are collected, although there is still work to be done to focus them.

Next, we want to create a scientific center for studying climate and the ocean, that is, the effects that climate has on the ocean, within the framework of a world-class scientific and educational center, which included Kamchatka, in 2022.

We want to involve the Kamchatka State Technical University, the Kamchatka branch of the Federal Agency for Fisheries, the Pacific Institute of Geography, the Far Eastern Federal University, and the Kronotsky Reserve in this task. This is the kind of consortium we are gathering and focusing on work in this scientific center, which is designed to systematize the study of climate and the ocean.

— And what about the pesticides landfill and other objects that were opened during the investigation?

— We were able to allocate more resources for this, also thanks to the attention to the environment in Kamchatka. This includes the cleaning of Avacha Bay from wastewater – several modular treatment plants have already been delivered, and we will intensify this work. Sunken ships are being salvaged.

We have launched the process of liquidation of the Kozelsky pesticides polygon. Now the project has already been completed, and this year we will move on to practical work to extract its contents from the ground and transport them to landfills adapted for reclamation outside the Kamchatka Territory.

The red tides allowed us to focus our resources on this, but now we are pretty clear that these factors were not the direct cause of them. Although the exact mechanism is still being clarified by scientists.

– The mechanism is tied to global climate change, which entailed new processes in the ocean. It really can take some time to figure it out to the end. However, in 2020, there were serious consequences in Kamchatka: the beaching of dead marine animals and the death of most of the benthic organisms in Avacha Bay. How is the state of the ecosystem now assessed?

– We see through the monitoring system that now it is already quite actively restored. Here, one of the divers, who is fond of underwater photography, regularly publishes his photos, and I follow with great interest how the dynamics of nature restoration can be seen through the eyes of a photo diver.

It is very important that scientists have caused the most concern, and what they are now paying more attention to is the issue of the population of our marine mammals, including the Red Book ones – sea otters, anturs, sea lions. First of all, sea otters and anturas just feed on hydrobionts and inhabitants of the bottom part of the ocean area. Fortunately, we do not see any catastrophic consequences for the population.

man and ocean

– Why did the inhabitants of Kamchatka react so actively to what was happening, becoming, in fact, the missing monitoring system at that time?

“Because when you are in Kamchatka, nature here is not only beautiful and powerful, not only fragile, but it is also very, very close, it affects you all the time. In a big city, we are used to being isolated from nature, protected from it. We are accustomed, therefore, to think that we are such great men that nature does not concern us. Someone talks about global warming, about the melting of glaciers, about earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but this is shown somewhere on TV. This does not concern us: well, it started to rain – we hid under an umbrella. It began to snow – we got out of the car through the underground parking and that’s it. Sometimes uncomfortable, nothing more.

— How did the events of 2020 affect the residents of Kamchatka?

– Indeed, there are very special wonderful people in Kamchatka. You can relate differently, but they are definitely not indifferent and definitely love their land, their nature very much. This indifference, of course, also manifested itself in this situation, because everyone was worried, worried about the ocean, worried about it and continue to do so.

At the same time, in addition to this indifferent attitude, it is important for me to form among the inhabitants of Kamchatka, first of all, of course, among children, a culture of everyday concern for the environment. We are now trying to develop a system, through the School of Defenders of Nature – this is training in the field of conservation, through environmental initiatives in schools, through everyday principles. So that we can learn to take care of nature in small things even on a daily basis.

– It turns out that this is also one of the conclusions of those events?

“This is an important conclusion from the events that we are talking about, and from everything that is happening, we get the most active involvement of residents in those projects, those initiatives that we are implementing.

– And how to involve residents in environmental projects?

— When I talk about our projects or our initiatives, I am not at all limited to the initiatives and projects of the authorities. In general, our task, the authorities, in this area, I think, is not to invent something ourselves and do it, but to help those initiatives that appear.

The main initiatives are born in society, and if possible, it is necessary that active people implement them. And we only help and create conditions for this. This is, of course, the optimal model that we want to arrive at.

“Kamchatka is doomed to be included in global processes”

— What are your plans for the future?

– If we talk about the role Kamchatka should play, excuse me for some pathos, in the history of mankind, then this is a contribution to the development of real environmental thinking, which is much talked about, but not very much done. Especially in our country, but in the world too.

Because we, as humanity, need to change the way we think about nature, and it is very difficult to do this, because in general it is the most difficult exercise that a person himself can do.

Therefore, my main thesis is that we need to develop the economy, improve the well-being of people, preserve nature and learn how to share it with others and share this feeling and understanding that is here in Kamchatka.

— How realistic is this prospect for Kamchatka?

— We are actually lucky that, unlike many other regions, we do not have that industry, there are no those sectors of the economy that we need to abandon. There are regions in our country, in the world, which are forced to undergo a painful transformation, abandoning “harmful” industries.

And we don’t have them. The development of Kamchatka is initially based on those industries that are generally sustainable. This is a fishery that can be made sustainable. In any case, this is the possibility of Kamchatka as a port in the broadest sense of the word – both sea and air. This, of course, is tourism.

In the future, it is also “green” energy, renewable energy sources, which are also absolutely amazing here in Kamchatka, starting with wind load, one of the best in the world, geothermal energy – the heat of the Earth, and a very interesting direction – tidal energy, which is actually actually is the energy of the moon.

– So the goals are very high?

— In general, Kamchatka is one of the most famous Russian brands in the world. There are no such rigorous studies, but at different levels, for example, from Google, I was told that this is one of the most common global queries in the global search engine.

Kamchatka can already today be a model region, show an example of how a single region, small, very remote from other centers in our country, can build a sustainable model of the future. Neither a model of the past, nor a model of the present, but a model of the future. To which many other regions of our country and the world will come. This is actually a huge chance that we should use in Kamchatka.

And we are already doing this in practice, abandoning a number of projects in the field of mining, in the field of energy unfriendly to nature, which have an economic effect, but harm nature. And vice versa, by stimulating projects that create well-being for people without causing serious harm to nature.

— Is there a desire to develop international scientific cooperation directly?

– There is only one ocean. Fish that spawn, for example, in the Ozernaya River in Kamchatka, then fatten up in the US, then return to us again or not return if they have already been caught, and so on. So it’s a global system. Climate change is not about one side, it is about everyone. And in this sense, such phenomena that we observed in Kamchatka and in Japan are pushing us to interact more.

We must be open to cooperation with foreign countries – scientific, humanitarian, economic and transport cooperation. Because Kamchatka is a crossroads of both sea and air routes, and this is the essence, this is the natural prerequisites of our region.

– Back in 2020, you proposed a development model for Kamchatka based on the principle of Singapore, has this conviction been preserved?

– We have a little bit of humor perceived my thesis that Kamchatka can become the future Singapore, and the people of Kamchatka like to make fun of it, but I would never have formulated it myself if I had not read in Noah Yuval Harari’s book “21 lesson for the XNUMXst century. The world’s leading futurist says directly that one of the examples of the changes that he sees, taking into account the Northern Sea Route and everything else, is that in the future Kamchatka can receive the same advantages as Singapore and use them.

But all this is possible only in conditions of an open economy, open interaction, which I really hope for. I hope that the pandemic will be left behind, we will resume economic cooperation, but cooperation in the scientific field, in general, does not stop. We expect to strengthen it and hope that scientists will give a more accurate diagnosis and description of the processes that are taking place, and a recipe for how to fight these negative phenomena.

– That is, “red tides” should be tracked in the same way as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions on the planet?

— By the way, this topic is much more complicated for us. At the very least, I think that we need to intensify the scientific study of the manifestations of volcanism and seismicity, which exist in Kamchatka and which can be a source of development, but can also be a serious threat.

Here I am every day when I drive, I look at our “home” volcanoes. The Avachinsky volcano is smoking, the smoke is coming, and somehow you still think: “Who knows when it will erupt?”. That is, it is not a question of whether or not it will be, but a question of when. The cycle seems to have come, it can happen tomorrow, or it can happen in 50 years. This also needs to be given more attention.