(gazeta.ru) - The Federation Council of the Russian Federation summed up the Clean Arctic project results, which were presented as a photo exhibition "The Arctic - for people with character."
Galina Karelova, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, and Alexei Chekunkov, Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, took part in the opening ceremony and awarding the most active volunteers of the project.
During the two-year expeditions in nine Arctic regions as part of the Clean Arctic public project, more than 3,000 volunteers from different Russian regions and foreign countries collected and utilized about 5,000 tons of waste. The scale of work was assessed by the participants of the Council for the Far East, Arctic and Antarctic Development under the Federation Council, who discussed that day the legislative issues to support the delivery of goods to the Far North.
According to Karelova, the Clean Arctic project is an important and demonstrative project of uniting public initiative, the participation of the state and business to achieve an important goal - cleaning the Arctic from waste.
“I would like to note the high state, corporate, and public involvement in the environmental agenda of the Russian Arctic. The Clean Arctic project is becoming larger and more efficient every year, attracting more and more people who are not indifferent to the problem of the Arctic pollution. I am sure that, the project has a great future with such a team of like-minded people,” said Karelova.
Chekunkov, in turn, emphasized the importance of developing the volunteer movement and thanked the project participants.
“In the next decades, Russia will develop its technologies, its power, but all this is based on those feelings, on that energy, readiness and will that Arctic volunteers demonstrate. The most important thing is that the Clean Arctic project is voluntary,” he said.
The leaders of the Clean Arctic project expressed special gratitude to the partner companies, which organized expeditions to the most remote corners of the Far North. They include MMC Nornickel, Rosatom State Corporation, PhosAgro Group and Russian Railways.
During the opening ceremony of the photo exhibition, official commendations were presented to the participants and partners of the Clean Arctic project from the Federation Council, the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, and the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.
