Environmental NGOs from Russia, Estonia and Finland gathered at lake Peipsi, Pskov region

The Baltic Institute of Finland together with NGO "Chudskoye Project" (Pskov, Russia) organised a summer school for environmental NGOs: "Northern Dimension NGOs: Promoting Trans-boundary Cooperation between Russian, Estonian and Finnish Environmental NGOs" on 25–29 August 2005 at the lake Peipsi/Chudskoye, in Pskov region. Over 40 representatives from Russian, Estonian and Finnish environmental NGOs participated in the event.

The main goal of the summer school was to encourage exchanging of experiences, networking and trans-boundary cooperation between Finnish, Northwest Russian and Estonian environmental NGOs. Concrete aim was to initiate 1-3 new cooperation projects between environmental NGOs of the three countries and provide information about funding opportunities for NGO cooperation. The themes of environmental education, sustainable tourism and sustainable urban planning were discussed more in detail in the working groups.

In addition to work in the thematic working groups and case studies of trans-boundary cooperation by NGOs, the summer school provided lectures about EU Northern Dimension, European Neighbourhood Policy and soft security issues in the region. The discussion concerning NGOs' role in the region increased participants' knowledge about the differences between the three countries: the NGO work in Estonia and Russia is rather dependent on project-based and foreign funding, whereas in Finland the NGOs are more often supported by the government and voluntary work. This means also that Estonian and Russian NGOs have generally more experience from international cooperation projects, but the dependence on foreign funding has strong effect on the nature of their activities. In addition, especially the Russian NGOs suffer from lack of legislative basis, lack of unity and low public activity.

As a concrete result of the summer school, new project ideas especially in the field of environmental education were initiated. There is a need to exchange experiences of different educational methods and discuss the priorities in environmental protection in the three neighbouring countries. Also projects on sustainable tourism and a bicykle tour around the lake Peipsi/Chudskoye with discussion forums in the cities and villages on the way about e.g. sustainable transport and urban planning were initiated during the event.

The summer school was partly financed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and partly by the NATO Information Office in Moscow.    

Summer School Programme

Photos