Knowledge Base

Here you can find Pavel Pashkov’s answers to the most frequently asked questions.

Why am I against planting forests in "rows" and critical of modern reforestation?How should we protect nature to achieve real change?Interactive map of the Territories of Full Ecological Tranquility (TFET)Why do we need our online Earth observation station?What is the 'Green Page' and why is it needed?What are Public Initiatives and how do they help protect nature?What is the Concept of Territories of Full Ecological Tranquility (TFET) and how does it differ from the existing global protected area system?How can an ordinary person help wildlife?What do we need to do to have a global impact on environmental issues?Is it necessary to write to government authorities if the responses are just formalities?Why don't petitions to protect wildlife work?

Why don't petitions to protect wildlife work?

From personal experience, we have a petition on the international platform Change.org with over 130,000 signatories. No, in the usual sense of 'signed—addressed the authorities—problem solved,' petitions don't work at all! On the contrary, for the management system, petitions are beneficial because they channel people's activity into a sort of 'drop your vote—forget the problem' bin. If you see petitions and calls to sign them, first check if there are any additional actions or work being done to solve the problem. Otherwise, it's just a waste of activity and will never bring any results! The only ones who benefit from your signatures on petitions are the platforms themselves, as you promote them and increase activity. It makes much more sense to publicly declare the problem and support the resonance than to quietly drop your vote into a common bin. In our projects, there is only one petition launched for the Territories of Full Ecological Tranquility (TFET) and used solely as an additional platform for audience engagement. This is the only real mechanism by which a petition can be useful to society for protecting wildlife. We fundamentally do not consider it a lever for solving the problem—rather a quality communication mechanism that can only work in conjunction with a main public campaign. I especially recommend being cautious with systemic petitions where authorization requires providing personal data. In recent years, there has been a tightening of technical control within state systems, and through petitions on controlled platforms, data can be collected for further compiling lists of dissenters. This creates significant risks for society.
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