Project no 1

Three countries, three cultures, one idea: bringing the Kyoto Protocol to forest management. When LEAD Fellows from Ukraine, Russia and India got together to combat climate change through sustainable forestry, it was teamwork without borders. Their project, the Green Triangle, got Kyoto's message out to more than 300 fellow movers and shakers.

It all started in Moldova. At a LEAD International Regional Session in August 1998, three Fellows from Cohort 6 - Eldar Kurbanov from Russia, Oleg Lystopad of Ukraine and Panna Ram Syag from India - got together to forge a network and kickstart a new project: the Green Triangle.

This new LEAD venture aimed to exploit the carbon-gobbling capacity of forests to meet Kyoto targets. To this end, Kurbanov, Siyag and Lystopad would be setting up long-term, sustainable forestry projects in Russia's Republic Mari El, the state of Rajasthan in India and the Zakarpattie region of Ukraine.

At first, agreement wasn't easy. With such different countries, cultures and needs, the approaches had to be different. While Kurbanov focused his work on Russia's forestry enterprises, Lystopad in Ukraine concentrated on non-governmental organizations and activists, and Siyag opted to collaborate with the Indian government's forest departments and agencies.

In essence, it was to be teamwork without borders. In Russia, Kurbanov began developing a set of presentations on international aspects of sustainable forest management, with a Kyoto-inspired twist: the main criterion was the maintenance and building up of forest resources and their contribution to global carbon cycles. Kurbanov trained foresters from 15 Mari El-based forest enterprises in sustainable forest management practice aimed at mitigating greenhouse gases. He also printed and distributed a manual for foresters and students of forestry universities in Russia, and helped organize a closing seminar on the project's outcomes for 70 people, including foresters, NGOs, students, government ministers and environmentalists.

Meanwhile, Lystopad was busy in Zakarpattie, working with local NGOs to develop procedures for protecting forests in the area in accordance with national law. He helped produce a publication on the procedures, including methodology, and also introduced guidelines for working in forest conservation to a number of Ukrainian and Russian environmental organizations.

And in Rajasthan, Siyag was working out the economics of so-called carbon forests and their role in mitigating global warming, and spreading the word to forest managers, industry, academia, media and the general public. As part of this project, Siyag developed a package for planting carbon forests on recovered wasteland. He also found time to design a new course for the Forestry Training Institute at Jaipur. The course comprises: basic concepts of carbon sequestration, carbon cycle in forests, forest growth rates and stock volumes, per unit carbon stored in different types of forests and ecosystems; basics of UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol, details of
CDM provisions in KP, issues of interest of to the host and the funding parties, basic principles to be followed in selecting and implementing CDM projects in forestry sector in LDC countries; potential of CDM forestry in India, how the country can benefit by choosing projects intelligently.

Although they worked independently, and didn't see each other for months at a stretch, the three still managed to network. At project's end, they met to set up an international seminar in Russia to present their results.

Project no.2

Vladimir Pokrovsky, head of the Russian AIDS Centre, urges Russia to channel more funds into combating the disease, saying authorities should devote at least as much to the epidemic as they did to raising the wrecked Kursk submarine. And the U.S. Agency for International Development has given a $ 3.4 million grant to the Red Cross to fight tuberculosis in Russia