The four recipients of Sweden’s annual Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, were announced in Stockholm on Wednesday, September 29th. Among them is a 48-year-old environmentalist and activist, co-chairman of the Russian public organization Ekozashchita! Vladimir Slivyak. “His tremendous successes proved that even in authoritarian Russia, grassroots public initiatives can effectively resist state-supported projects,” the award’s official website says.
Anti-nuclear campaigns: against stations and waste imports
Vladimir Slivyak was born in Kaliningrad. He has been dedicated to the protection of nature for more than thirty years. In 1989, on the basis of the Kaliningrad movement “Solidarity”, a non-profit organization “Ekozashchita!” Appeared, co-founded by Slivyak. Already in 1994, he initiated an anti-nuclear campaign demanding the closure of the Chernobyl-type reactors at the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania. Four years later, “Eco-protection!” together with Bulgarian activists, she was able to stop the shipment of spent fuel from the nuclear power plant from Bulgaria to Russia.
Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania
“Anyone who knows Volodya knows about his straightforwardness and difficult attitude towards compromises. He is always ready to deal with topics, the public interest in which, to put it mildly, is not obvious. If he knows that this is important, nothing will stop him. difficult in itself, and in it he took on aspects that remained out of focus. He was the first to raise the issue of importing depleted uranium from Germany to Russia, “said Vladimir Chuprov, project director of the Russian branch of Greenpeace, to DW.
Slivyak’s book about the accident at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima
In 2012, Slivyak published the book From Hiroshima to Fukushima, in which he analyzed the causes and consequences of the 2011 accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima Daichi. Among other things, the eco-activist wondered how such an accident could have happened in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. In addition, he tried to assess the safety of Russian nuclear power plants and the likelihood of a repeat of the Chernobyl tragedy in modern Russia.
“I always read with interest his materials and comments. It is professional, accurate, timely and uncompromising. They contain criticism, sometimes quite harsh, but there is no criticism, sweeping and baseless accusations. It is always an attempt to objectively understand and find the best, sustainable solution.” – emphasized in an interview with DW Director General of the Center for Environmental Investments Mikhail Yulkin.
Struggle against the status of “foreign agent”
Both Slivyak himself and Eco-protection! raised a whole generation of environmentalists and activists. Since 1995, more than ten thousand students have passed the educational program of the movement. From 2012 to 2015, Slivyak taught environmental policy at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow (NRU HSE).
Kuzbass, Kiselevsk: the snow here sometimes turns black
In 2014 “Eco-protection!” became the first environmental organization to be included in the register of “foreign agents” in the Russian Federation. The official reason: her campaign against the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Kaliningrad region. Vladimir Slivyak was suing the organization of the status of “foreign agent”, and the “Ekozashchita!” refused to comply with the requirements of the Ministry of Justice and to pay fines for non-compliance. For this, five criminal cases were opened against the director of the NGO Alexandra Koroleva, the activist was forced to emigrate to Germany.
Against black snow in Kuzbass
In the same 2014, Vladimir Slivyak got involved in the fight against the negative environmental impact of coal mining in Russia. Together with other activists, he first released the documentary “On Coal” about the destruction of nature and the violation of the rights of indigenous peoples in Kuzbass, the main coal region of Russia. Then, in 2020 Slivyak together with “Eco-protection!” published a detailed report on the ecology, morbidity and mortality in Kuzbass: “Downward Race”.
Over the past decade and a half, Kuzbass has boosted coal production and exports largely due to systematic violations of Russia’s environmental legislation, and local authorities turned a blind eye to them – these are the main findings of this 50-page report. The result was health problems for many residents of the region, as well as increased mortality in the region, the authors of the document say.
“This is probably the first report in my life that can terrify the abundance of shocking data, and official data. But even they show that the situation is catastrophic,” Slivyak shared then in an interview with DW.
“At the local level, activists worked with this topic, but at the federal level it was Volodya who actually raised it alone. He released a series of reports, conducted a public campaign. In fact, he laid the foundation for understanding what is happening in the Russian coal industry,” says Vladimir Chuprov.
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