A group of Russian and international environmental organizations have sent a letter to the World Bank’s president James Wolfensohn.

A group of Russian and international environmental organizations have sent a letter to the World Bank’s president James Wolfensohn urging the head of the world’s most powerful international financial institution to halt all loans and cease financing environmental projects in Russia. The first installment of a $60 million loan to the Russian Federal Forest Service was made five days after the agency was dissolved. On May 17, 2000, President Putin issued a decree dissolving the State Committee for Environmental Protection and the Federal Forest Service. The activities of both agencies are now under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Natural Resources. The committee was responsible for monitoring all aspects of the environment except for nuclear safety. Environmentalists insist no loans should be granted until President Putin re-establishes the Committee for Environmental Protection and the Forest Service. The authors of the letter fear that not a single ruble of that loan will be used for forest fire protection as stipulated in the loan agreement and that the Ministry for Natural Resources will only embezzle those funds. The World Bank has so far granted in excess of $1 billion worth of loans for environmental protection projects in Russia. The latest loan of $60 million is earmarked for “implementation of the forest pilot project”, aimed at preventing and fighting forest fires. It was the renowned environmentalist Alexei Yablokov, the president of the Center for Environment Policy and a co-Chairman of International Socio-Ecological Union, who proposed addressing the World Bank. The letter was signed by 57 mainly Russian organizations.