Translated material
Almost 300 people took part in a rally in Irkutsk against logging on Lake Baikal
The Irkutsk rally in defense of the nature of Lake Baikal was agreed upon by the authorities on Truda Square near the city circus and gathered on Saturday from 200 to 300 people, as its participants counted. The action went smoothly.
On this day, Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov, State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Sergei Levchenko, environmental activist Lyubov Alikina, Pyotr Mekhonoshin arrived in Irkutsk; the rally participants held posters in their hands in defense of Lake Baikal and against permission to cut forests on its sides.
Deputy Levchenko said that the law has not protected Lake Baikal for more than 20 years, and as a result, it was unable to protect Baikal, and local residents living in the villages around the lake will suffer from logging.
The head of Yabloko, Rybakov, spoke about a party investigation, from which it turned out that lobbyists for the bill on deforestation may be interested in them because of the business of their relatives related to timber and construction. Rybakov announced that Yabloko would send an appeal asking about depriving deputies of their mandates in connection with the revelation of a possible conflict of interest.
Alikina called the adopted law “corrupt.”
Those gathered immediately drafted an appeal to President Putin, senators and deputies with a call to reconsider the adopted law and prevent clear-cutting under the guise of sanitary logging.
On December 16, Putin signed a law, hastily adopted by the State Duma, which allows sanitary and clear cutting of forests along the shores of Lake Baikal if they are carried out “for the purpose of forest reproduction.”
The petition not to pass this law, submitted to the State Duma back in 2022, has collected more than 100 thousand signatures.
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Novaya Gazeta investigated the business of the families of deputies who lobbied for the bill on clear-cutting around the main Russian lake - read the material “Lumberjacks” .