Don’t forget about Baikal: a complete chronicle of the destruction of Siberia’s sacred heart

Our sacred Baikal. The heart of Siberia. A heritage of humanity and the most unique refuge for wildlife on the planet, with nothing equal to it and nothing that ever will be. Together, we fought for Baikal for several years, pushing back against the greedy appetites of those who tried to appropriate it by legalizing clear-cutting of the ancient forests around the lake. Leading scientists and academicians, hundreds of outstanding specialists from Russia, stood up to defend Baikal.

But it did not work. As you know, on December 15, 2025, bill No. 482-FZ was adopted and signed, and it entered into force on March 1, 2026. From this moment, we can begin the chronicle of the destruction of the most unique lake on Earth and its ecosystems. According to the law, the authorities will now be able to transfer parts of protective forests into other land categories, including “for the functioning of special economic zones,” although this was justified by the need to build infrastructure and expand cemeteries for people.

In June 2026, just a few months after the bill entered into force, at a meeting of a State Duma committee, a representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Alexander Sharapaev, reported that in 2025 alone prosecutors had inspected more than 200 facilities in Baikal’s water protection zone, more than 60 of them turned out to be illegal, and the construction of roughly half of them was accompanied by tree cutting; about 6,000 violations of environmental legislation were also identified, around 500 claims were filed in courts, and 21 criminal cases were opened.

This shows that the law allowing clear-cutting of ancient forests around Baikal was adopted with a perfectly clear understanding of the scale of predatory interests. There was already practically no proper control, and now they have also destroyed the fundamental basis for protecting the lake. I will also remind you that Baikal is precisely the Irkutsk region on one side, where the most brutal forest banditry by actual authorities had previously been uncovered: they personally organized an organized criminal group that was destroying the Russian taiga under the cover of “sanitary logging.” By the way, if you have seen online our taiga covered with thousands of “squares” (the result of forest destruction), that is precisely in the area of the Angara River, the only river flowing out of Lake Baikal. It flows through the Irkutsk region and Krasnoyarsk Krai, then flows into the Yenisei. So open satellite maps, if you have not seen it yet, and look at what the “effective managers” have turned it into — everything has been looted.

These same lobbying groups had long been seeking to lower Baikal’s protection status for its actual appropriation. And they achieved it. The bill was adopted. Further on, they will gradually be able to destroy the protected framework through various decrees and amendments — their main task was to start this process; stopping it will already be impossible. I have seen how this is done in other regions of Russia and the world: the pattern is always the same — first, break through the main protective framework, and then destroy everything down to the ground.

And already now, the tourist development of Baikal is accelerating at a furious pace.

In Buryatia, the “Magic Baikal” resort continues to be implemented as part of the federal project “Five seas and Lake Baikal”; according to the republic’s government, the project is estimated at more than 110 billion rubles, and the first hotel with 153 rooms is already under construction. The basis for this project is the “Baikal Harbor” special economic zone, located directly on the shore of Baikal and including five sites — “Peski,” “Turka,” “Goryachinsk,” “Bukhta Bezymyannaya,” and “Gora Bychya.”

That is, as you can see, Baikal is being “squeezed” from two sides. On one side, there are already fresh cases of logging and a huge mass of illegal development confirmed by the prosecutor’s office. On the other side, hiding behind talk of “territorial development” and “the needs of local residents,” officials have simply opened the possibility of developing the Baikal territories for new roads, utility networks, construction sites, and tourist facilities, and this, as you understand, means additional clearing, traffic, garbage, sewage, and development of the shoreline. Vital processes for the wildlife refuge will be brutally “cut down” by what people need to extract momentary profit. They will sever species migration routes, take the lake shore away from animals, and deprive them of their food base.

And then they will inevitably go on to “develop” the mountain spaces from the shores of Baikal deep into the sacred refuge: blasting rock, mining rare earths, cutting down forests.

I will remind you that the first version of the bill was initially submitted to the State Duma on June 23, 2023, by a group of senators and deputies; the bill’s file lists its initiators, including, in particular, senators Sergei Brilka, Arnold Varfolomeev, Bair Zhamsuev, Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, and deputies Sergei Ten, Georgy Arapov, Nikolai Buduev, Maria Vasilkova, Vyacheslav Pinsky, Mikhail Shchapov, and others. At the parliamentary level, one of the most visible public promoters of the topic was Sergei Ten, who was connected with the inter-factional working group “Baikal” and publicly accompanied the movement of the bill. As later became clear, many of them are directly connected with big business, from road construction to tourist clusters. That is, there are direct interests there — worth billions.

It is also essential to understand that this insane bill was opposed not only by numerous scientists and academicians, who for some reason are completely ignored (that is, science is in the very last place for us), but also by the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. In its conclusion, the Civic Chamber indicated that the bill creates catastrophic risks of weakening the legal protection regime of Baikal and could lead to the loss of its outstanding value as a World Natural Heritage site. The Chamber proposed excluding provisions that allow clear-cutting for tourist and municipal infrastructure, and separately insisted on banning the expansion of large tourist clusters (both the “Gates of Baikal” special economic zone and the “Baikal Harbor” special economic zone).

Large-scale logging on Baikal is already in full swing, as people in the regions are reporting. In this regard, I want to conduct a full chronology of everything that is happening around Baikal and how they rushed to “develop” it.

1. Probably, the very beginning of the conflicts started in the 1950s, when disputes were taking place over whether a large pulp and paper mill should be placed and put into operation on the shore of Baikal. I mention those years for a reason, because it was exactly the same lowering of protection status in the interests of business! And later it was the Baikal pulp and paper mill that dealt a crushing blow to Baikal’s ecosystems, and the consequences of its work are still being dealt with now: it became a real catastrophe for the lake.

   
   

2. Already in 1966, the pulp and paper mill was built on the southern shore of the lake and became a symbol of industrial pressure on Baikal. From this moment, we must count the beginning of a long era of systemic destruction of Baikal’s wildlife refuge!

   
   

3. Then, in 1996, Baikal was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, immediately after the collapse of the USSR. That is, the Baikal refugium was recognized as one of the most important wildlife refuges with colossal significance for the planet. At that time, Russia, as the successor of the Soviet Union, assumed obligations to preserve and protect Baikal from any attempts at “development.”

   
   

4.  The best experts and scientists of our country, academicians of the Soviet Union, developed a special law on the protection of Baikal. In 1999, it was adopted: this is Federal Law No. 94-FZ, which established the special legal regime of the Baikal Natural Territory and introduced restrictions on dangerous types of activity. Thus, a protective framework was created, which was supposed to repel any attempts by big business to appropriate protected lands in its own selfish interests.

   
   

5. By 2006, the industrial monster of capitalism tried to build the ESPO oil pipeline through the Baikal refuge, but then society stood as one to defend the lake. After that, President Vladimir Putin instructed that the pipeline route be changed and moved farther away from the lake.

   
   

6. In 2010, the Baikal pulp and paper mill was launched again, production resumed, and poisonous wastewater began entering the lake. This was a serious blow to the ecosystems: it was demonstrated that for the sake of momentary profit, they constantly try to return the old industrial model instead of protecting nature.

   
   

7. After a series of scandals and speeches by scientists, it was finally possible to achieve the permanent closure of the pulp and paper mill. One of the largest sources of Baikal pollution was eliminated, but the environmental damage is still being dealt with to this day. In turn, instead of industry, big business began calculating future profits if the lake were turned into a tourist cluster with an annual flow of many millions of tourists!

   
   

8. In addition to tourism, business wanted “some water”: in 2019, a conflict arose around a water bottling plant in Kultuk. Chinese businessmen were promoting their interests there, trying to organize supplies of clean water! A public outcry was raised, after which courts in Irkutsk first suspended the construction of the plant and later declared the previously issued construction permit illegal.

   
   

9. In 2020, Federal Law No. 254-FZ was adopted, opening a “special regime” for the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway: for the sake of building transport arteries, environmental restrictions were lowered and clear-cutting was allowed. It was from this moment that they began practicing a model of confrontation with the “annoying public”: first, they make an exception supposedly for a very important strategic project, and then the exception becomes the norm and further development begins.

   
   

10. And then, in June 2023, bill No. 387575-8 was introduced, legalizing the weakening of Baikal’s entire environmental protection status. It was precisely here that we took active action to defend the lake together with the entire environmental protection community of the country!

    
    

11. Already the next month, in July 2023, the bill was rushed through its first reading. By then, the scandal had already gone beyond the edges of political corridors, and it became impossible to remain silent about it!

    
    

12. Therefore, in September 2023, the Human Rights Council asked the Government to postpone the bill. The head of the Council, Valery Fadeev, personally sent a letter to the speaker of the State Duma asking that the second reading be postponed and an independent scientific assessment be carried out.

    
    

13. In February 2024, the Civic Chamber of Russia sharply criticized the bill: it published an expert conclusion and stated that the adoption of the bill would have catastrophic consequences for all biogeocenoses of the Baikal territories.

    
    

14. In July 2024, the State Duma and the Federation Council extended environmental concessions for the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway, increasing the terms until 2033. This demonstrated a new practice of officials: they introduce a bill and say, well, “this is only for a few years,” and it seems normal to people. After that, everyone gets used to it, and the deadlines are pushed back as much as they want! The problem stops interesting society, as if it were an “old topic.”

    
    

15. Also, in September 2024, an important event occurred that few people noticed: a court in Irkutsk ordered the administration of Listvyanka to dismantle 29 illegal structures in Listvyanka and Bolshiye Koty, which occupied about 2,000 square meters of the shoreline zone. This shows that the authorities had already consciously and for a long time been engaged in illegal construction on the shore of Baikal, and the new bill will simply allow them to legalize earlier crimes. And this court case confirms it.

    
    

16. At the same time, from August to October 2024, the prosecutor’s office sought the demolition of separate illegal facilities. Illegal development was taking place on a large scale and everywhere.

    
    

17. In 2025, if I remember correctly, sometime around February, the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences held joint meetings of five scientific councils dedicated to amendments to the new law on lowering Baikal’s protection status.

    
    

18. In March 2025, the scientific councils came out categorically against weakening the protection of Baikal. That is, the country’s leading scientists, scientific councils, stood up and said: do not touch Baikal — this will lead to catastrophe.

    
    

19. In July 2025, the document was activated again and began moving toward the second reading. Around the same time, the head of the Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, spoke out against such haste by officials and stated the need for an urgent independent scientific assessment and broad public discussion.

    
    

20. All of society and the academic community stood up to defend Baikal; the scandal thundered across the entire country! In September 2025, 87 scientists at once signed an open letter to the President asking him not to adopt this bill. These were scientists with names known throughout the country, including 11 academicians and 18 corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. That is, the heavy scientific artillery had already moved forward, openly warning about the inadmissibility of destroying Baikal.

    
    

21. Despite this, the State Duma Committee on Ecology hastily recommended adopting the bill in the second reading. Officials decided to take advantage of a difficult time in the country in order to adopt the project with lightning speed, and they successfully did so on December 9, 2025. Moreover, it was adopted in one day, immediately in the second and third readings.

    
    

22. Then, already on December 10, that is, the very next day (pay attention to the speed), the project was approved by the Federation Council. The upper chamber supported the document!

    
    
23. And five days later, on December 15, 2025, law No. 482-FZ was officially signed by the President. Its entry into force was set for March 1, 2026, and from that moment clear-cutting around Baikal and the transfer of protective forests for infrastructure construction were permitted.

A difficult time.

Protecting nature is becoming more and more difficult, and when such interests are pressing down on the country’s protected-area system, at times it is unclear how we can achieve change. After all, pay attention to the fact that they do not even listen to scientists! They ignore them, and pressure is put on society.

In January 2026, news came of fresh logging right by the water of Baikal; this happened in Utulik. People reported trees cut down in the protected zone near the shore of Baikal for the construction of a café. That is, the law had not even entered into force yet, and already, with hands trembling from impudence, businessmen were cutting down trees and appropriating protected lands.

The development of Baikal is now gaining strength. The consequences for Baikal’s wildlife refuge will be catastrophic and cascading. Officials openly say that the main interest is in millions of Chinese tourists — profit calculated over the horizon of the next few years! During this time, they will absorb state budgets, bring in infrastructure, launch an endless year-round flow of tourists, and then confidently continue weakening the protection status further.

We are losing the heart of Siberia. We are losing the jewel of the world.

Pressure is also being put on us for our speeches against the destruction of the country’s protected-area system. Some time ago, we were forced to temporarily stop some areas of our work, and many of those who defended nature together with us could not withstand the pressure and no longer continue the struggle. This includes people inside the system, our allies.

Today I announce the restoration of constant monitoring of the situation on Baikal, and our public initiative is active again. Let us identify violations precisely and try to at least minimally restrain all this unfolding madness!

Public initiative

It will be difficult. But there is no one else left to fight. Here, it is only us together.

© PAVEL PASHKOV