International volunteers' trail building
Yesterday I met with several members of the Great Baikal Trail Organization and their American partners to learn more about what they have been doing since we gave them a grant many years ago. It turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to appreciate, again, what people can do when united in a common purpose.
In 2002 the Adventure Tourism and Mountaineering Federation of Buryatia, Russia and Earth Island Institute, San Francisco, competed for and won a grant from FRAEC under our USAID-funded US-RFE Partnership Activity. The Great Baikal Trail Association was newly established and our grant, their first, gave them the necessary support to exchange experience and knowledge about how to build trails around Lake Baikal, the largest fresh water lake in the world and a World Natural Heritage site.
Just two years later, Great Baikal Trail Organization (GBT) in Russia was established to facilitate further funding support from other donors. It is now an international, volunteer-driven, nonprofit organization working to develop, maintain, promote, and protect the first national system of trails in all of Russia, and to advocate for the sustainable development of Lake Baikal.
The fact that they have created the first national system of trails in Russia as well as attract other partners is in itself quite an accomplishment, but they have done so much more! Every summer they conduct camps for volunteers from all over Russia, Europe, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand to help build the trails. Over the last six years they have held 114 summer camps with over 3000 volunteers.
When I asked the director of the GBT what she thought were the most important results so far, she said it was working with youth. Their outreach education to children from villages around the lake include subjects such as the importance of clean water and a healthy earth. Most of this education is done by university students based in Irkutsk who are members of the Student Club. Equally important, the GBT works with leaders in the lake’s surrounding villages educating them about the of value ecotourism and how they can benefit from tourists who come to build the trails. Not only has this improved the economic situation in the villages, but the trails are no longer being damaged by local communities that didn’t understand the goals.
Over the life of our grant program FRAEC was able to give GBT three grants to expand their efforts around the lake, and to take their experience to Kamchatka, Russia to assist them with that region’s efforts in developing ecotourism. I would like to congratulate this great team of Russian and American organizations and individuals. They have accomplished so much and are an excellent example of the power of partnership.
