The Altai Republic is a small mountainous republic in Russia, southern Siberia, close to the borders of Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China. It is a spectacularly beautiful and unspoiled land of forests, alpine meadows, and mountain peaks reaching heights of more than 4,500m. The name "Altay" (or "Altai") comes from Mongolian "Altan", which means "golden", and in 1998, UNESCO inscribed five separate natural regions, the "Golden Mountains of Altai", as a World Heritage Site.

In ancient Sanskrit texts Altai was known as the centre point of the Eurasian continent, equidistant from all four of the world's oceans. Many ethnic groups from the surrounding countries ascribe their center of origin to the Altai and therefore retain strong ties to this region. The Altai mountains are a unique natural formation with a high degree of biodiversity - it is the habitat of the last remaining irbis (snow leopards), arkhar (Altai mountain sheep), and other rare animals and plants, as well as being a cultural crossroads for many peoples.

Indigenous Altaian's have preserved the rich cultural heritage of their ancestors; an ancient shamanic tradition with a strong nature-centred view of human existence and the Universe. The beliefs and values of the Altaian people mean that they recognise places of special ecological and spiritual significance as sacred. Knowing the qualities of these lands, indigenous cultures have developed specific norms of behaviour and activities over the course of generations around each sacred site. For example, for sacred springs which have healing properties, there is an entire body of laws to guide interaction with the site.

Creating an Ethno-Park to preserve natural beauty & traditional culture

The Karakol Valley and Mount Uch Enmek have been revered by the Altaian's as sacred places since ancient times. At the end of the 1990s, work began on creating an ethno-nature park to protect these lands and the local communities living there from privatisation. The movement was steered through the vision and leadership of Danil Mamyev. In 2001, a protected area called Karakol Nature Park Uch Enmek was established. The park is managed by indigenous people who respect the traditional principles and ethno-ecological consciousness of their cultural heritage.

Today, there are five ethno-parks like Uch Enmek Nature Park in Altai Republic, and protected areas constitute more than 23% of the entire Republic's land area. This is a positive situation for this fragile landscape and its people. The development of these ethno-parks is an important precedent for the world - where people who choose to live respectfully towards their cultural and natural heritage, are able to establish legal recognition to govern their bio-cultural landscapes according to their Earth-centred laws.

However, neither the UNESCO nor the ethno-park status provides a total safeguard for these sites. The threat of a gas pipeline which would tear straight through the Ukok plateau is gaining momentum and poses a devastating threat to the biological and cultural diversity of the region.

Gas Pipeline Threatens the 'Golden Mountains'

Gaia is supporting our Altain partners from the The Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai (FSDA) and the Uch Enmek Nature Park, to resist the renewed negotiations for the construction of a 1,700-mile gas pipeline cutting through the sacred Ukok Plateau. The proposed gas pipeline would have a hugely damaging impact on both the pristine biodiversity of the Ukok Plateau and the indigenous peoples of the region. It also threatens the Kanas National Park, which lies adjacent to the Ukok Plateau on the Chinese side of the border.

The proposed pipeline would run mostly underground, through mountainous, seismically-active permafrost areas, which carries an unacceptably high risk to the ecosystem, to public and to the indigenous communities that live there. In 2007, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee noted with concern that "construction of a gas pipeline through this World Heritage site would represent a clear case for inscription of the property on the List of World Heritage in Danger." This warning was repeated in the report following a World Heritage Centre/IUCN reactive monitoring mission in September 2007.

In 2010, Gaia visited Altai and Uch-Enmek Nature Park to witness how UNESCO World Heritage Site status is being disregarded in plans for the gas pipeline. We called on our global network of partners to join the voices of other organisations and individuals in signing a petition letter to various networks, from the People's Republic of China to the Russian Federation. The letter urged them to reconsider plans to build the pipeline.

In September 2011, Gazprom, the company set to construct the pipeline, said they were at the final stages of preparation for the pipeline and were planning to sign contracts by the end of the year. A campaign has been launched by The Altai Project to reroute the natural gas pipeline from Russia to China. Please click on the links below to raise awareness of the campaign to stop the gas pipeline, and to write a letter to the Russian and Chinese authorities detailing these demands.