Baikal's Trail
The race to develop ecotourism around the world’s oldest lake

By Joshua K. Hartshorne
This article was printed in Abroad View magazine fall 2004

A year ago, like most in the West, I had not heard of Lake Baikal. I had never noticed the banana-shaped blue splotch in the middle of Siberia on the world map in my room. So when I started looking for an environmental organization in Russia to volunteer for, it did not occur to me to look near Baikal.

The numbers alone are impressive: Baikal is the world’s oldest and deepest lake (25 million years and more than 1 mile deep). It is fed by 336 rivers and streams, contains one fifth of the world’s fresh water (more than the Great Lakes and all the rivers of North America combined) and is home to 2,500 plants and animals.

The environment is also unique. Surrounded by low, jagged mountains, the Baikal region is a semi-closed environment, with short tributaries, drained by only one river. Nearly 1,000 miles from the ocean, many of the animals closely resemble salt-water species, such as the Baikal seal (the nerpa), the Omul Salmon and species of sea sponges.
Baikal has played no small historical role either. Genghis Khan was born here, and the first cracks in the Soviet system showed when environmentalists protested the construction of two paper mills on its shores.

All these are intellectual reasons to care about Baikal. On an emotional level, what counts is that Baikal is beautiful. Crystal-clear water, with visibility to a depth of 124 feet, seals basking on rugged, rocky islands, snow-capped mountains…there is no place like it on Earth. And it is huge—nearly 400 miles long and 50 miles wide. It feels that much larger since rail lines touch the lake in only a couple of places, and only a handful of minor roads reach it. Even if there were more roads, it would make little difference, since few in Russia have cars. Once you are there, you will find no road, trail or train line cutting through its mountains, swamps and rivers. In fact, 95 percent of the shoreline is completely undeveloped.

I knew very little of this when I agreed to spend half a year volunteering at the Great Baikal Trail Association’s Irkutsk office. Although I had some reservations, I chose this organization because the people sounded nice. The GBT’s mission is to build 1,200 miles of trail around Baikal in order to support “ecotourism.” Did chopping down trees, trampling the ground and attracting people into untouched areas really count as environmentalism? Was ecotourism really eco-friendly?
Over time, I have come to understand. Although Russia boasts more protected land than any other country in the world, it is in constant political peril. Stalin eliminated many of the parks, and Krushchev cut protected land area in half and put a stop to decades of rebuilding the park system. During the last several years, the signs from the Kremlin have been ominous. Major oil companies are pressing to build pipelines through this seismically active area. Oil drives the Russian economy; in fact, the only healthy sectors of this impoverished country’s economy are those that benefit from environmental exploitation. As Russia is only nominally a democracy with a severely restricted press, environmental advocacy has its limitations.

Environmental activism is inherently confrontational. On the other hand, ecotourism is like a martial art, channeling the forces of others for its own use. Rather than fight business and development, it seeks to strengthen eco-friendly businesses and direct development toward environmentally sustainable projects. Current environmental impact studies show that the region can support 100 times the current tourist traffic with little damage, resulting in enough revenue to dwarf anything industrial development can offer. With the region’s economy dependent on a healthy environment, one can expect considerable pressure from businesses and the local government to protect the environment. Instead of local communities seeing protected lands as a barrier to their prosperity, protected areas become the source of prosperity.

The GBT lays the groundwork for this in the most ecologically sensitive manner possible. One way is by building trails instead of roads for tourists to see Lake Baikal. Experts have designed the trails to minimize their impact and contain erosion. Botanists and zoologists ensure that the trail paths avoid sensitive areas and habitats of endangered species. Well-marked, well-made trails and campsites attract the majority of tourists to specific locations, rather than allow hikers to cut their own trails through the brush. The GBT helps advertise for local tour operators, bed-and-breakfasts and small hotels, which spreads the benefits throughout the community. This also minimizes the environmental impact of large-scale hotel development. Ecotourism requires little capital investment—the main attraction is nature. What investment is needed (the trails), the GBT provides to local businesses for free, building trails each summer with volunteer labor.
So far, things look good. The first field season (2003) was a success, with 40 miles of new trails constructed by 136 volunteers (49 foreign). More than a dozen new projects are planned for this summer, and with very little advertising, we have been flooded with local volunteers (some slots remain open for foreign volunteers). The GBT has also attracted considerable support from local businesses and governments and is already involved in founding a new nature park, the seventh in the region.

Suffice it to say that I am now a believer. I do not know what I will be doing in the future, so it is nice to have these six months to do work I care about. Baikal is so pristine, its shores nearly untouched by towns and industry. Maybe with our help it will stay that way. AV

Joshua K. Hartshorne was born in Wichita, KS. He attended Oberlin College, where he began studying Russian. While his choice of Russian was almost accidental, he fell in love with the land and the people during his first semester in St. Petersburg, in the spring of 2001. Currently, he lives and works in Irkutsk, Russia.


Baikal Resources:
Photo Galleries
• www.sibirienspezial.com/galleries/english/baikal.htm
• www.waytorussia.net/Baikal/Gallery.html
• rjl.us/lslbi/Baikal/photo/lbfoto1.htm
• rjl.us/lslbi/Baikal/photo/lbfoto2.htm
Web Sites
• The Great Baikal Trail Association (Ulan-Ude): www.baikal.eastsib.ru/gbt
• GBT (USA): www.earthisland.org/ecotours/volunteer/eurasia/baikal/gbt_brochure.html
• GBT (Germany): www.baikalhostels.com/ html/german_gbt.xml.php
• GBT Irkutsk: www.baikal.eastsib.ru/ gbt_irkutsk
• Friends of the Great Baikal Trail: www.baikal. eastsib.ru/fgbt
Other Baikal Environmental Organizations
• Baikal Watch: www.earthisland.org/project/ viewProject.cfm?subSiteID=1
• Tahoe-Baikal Institute: www.tahoebaikal.org
• Baikal Environmental Wave: www.baikalwave.eu.org/eng.html
Books
• Baikal Sierra Club, by Peter Matthiessen
• Around the Sacred Sea by Bartle Bull,
Kerim Yalman and John Boit
• Lake Baikal, edited by Koji Minoura
Most of the listed organizations accept donations at their Internet sites.
All of them happily take volunteers.