Vegan food, “Green patrol”, and eco-school

Eco-activists in Minsk held an “open day”.

Such people are usually referred to as eccentric: they are worried about bog reclamation and deforestation, about pollution and dumping places. But they just want to live a healthy lifestyle without harming the environment and themselves. And lately they have been finding support: green activists “cases” get more and more publicity. Last year Minsk hosted the Forum of Belarusian environmental non-governmental organizations. Everyone has heard about such cases as the protection of the lake Balduk, protests against the new Forest code, and construction of the pig farm in Molodechno oblast. “EuroBelarus” Information Service visited the open day organized by Green Network and found out what are the concerns of the environmentalists.

Created in the “Environmental Activist School”

The event was taking place in the IMAGURU Startup Hub in Minsk where representatives of different ecologic movement gathered together.

One of the surprises was a young activist from Brest, who was baking natural bread.

“It can be done really quickly, which is very important in real life, - the activist told. – I will also organize a Belarusan tea ceremony: I will be brewing herb tea.”

The art of cookery didn’t stop there. The journalist Khristina Charnyauskaya prepared an eco-quiz, where for guessing right one could try vegan sandwiches.

Khristina is making sandwiches with hummus

- Vegan food has no meat, no milk, no fish, - tells Khristina. – Our sandwiches are made of toasted bread with hummus, a slice of tomato or cucumber and arugula.

Khristina says that it’s quite easy to be a vegan in Belarus. Many cafes are absolutely ok with the requests not to put sour cream in soup, and every central market has vegetarian products.

Apart from the secrets of “green” kitchen, the event also gave a chance to learn about the legal side of the environmental movement and how one can make his or her life more ecological independently.

Workshops organized by the “Environmental Activist School”, specially designed photo zone, and performance of NAVI helped to spend time both actively and pleasingly.

Green Network was the organization that united all the initiatives present at the event. The organization aims at protecting nature, engaging citizens in making ecologic decisions, and developing green movement, told Yaraslau Bekish, the Coordinator of the Green Network to the “EuroBelarus”.

Yaraslau Bekish

- If we speak about the protection of the environment, we have a series of campaigns. For example, the campaign aimed at protecting swamps has recently turned into the campaign for protecting wild nature in general.

Green Network performs researches and monitorings of civil society engagement in making ecological decision-making, suggests amendments to the legislation in this sphere, and, namely, initiates civic activity.

- If we see that somewhere people complain about negligence of their opinion we try to help them. We have a team of lawyers, and with their help we manage to assert the right of the civil society to make ecologically important decisions. It often happens in court. However, for now we have been losing our loudest cases, - states Yaraslau Bekish.

Last year the “Green Patrol” campaign went big in Belarus. During this campaign volunteers are resolving minor everyday violations of environmental legislation on the spot.

One more breakthrough from the previous year is the Belarus’ participation in the International Climate Conference in Paris, where ecological activists were able to cooperate with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection. Green Network has been leading the climate campaign for 5 years now, and during the conference Belarus undertook obligation not to exceed the amount of 72% of harmful emissions from the level of 1990.

If we come back to the conversation about the local view on ecology, according to Yaraslau Bekish, green movement is becoming more active in the regions.

- We are looking for organizations and help them work independently. First we were afraid that we won’t be able to find partners in the regions, but people, organizations, even village councils, executive committees, and the administration of forestries are joining our campaigns. It turns out that there is sharp demand in getting and using simple, non-political tools in eco-movement not only at the level of administration, but also in simple everyday issues: unauthorized dumping places, parking on green areas…

Sometimes eco-activists resolve the problems that the society and the state have no time to fix. For example, during the “clean sights” campaign a lot of cultural facilities were cleared, and Green Network filmed several short movies that will be taking part in festivals.

This year Green Network is going to reach a new level and get rid of dependency on external funding.

- According to the observations, the environmental issue has become more important in society than it used to be before - said the coordinator of the association. - Even a cursory content analysis of mass media shows how strongly has the amount of environmental publications increased even over the past year. It is still small, but the dynamics is obvious. And we can talk about a significant change in the attitude of the government to environmental NGOs. It used to be a cold rejection, whereas now, after several years of work, a whole number of organizations is respected when it comes to climatic, environmental protection, and human rights protection issues. Unfortunately, it very rarely goes beyond the "NGOs - Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection " dialog. But I think that we will be able to make the whole state apparatus “greener”.