Sustaining in Siberia

Published in The Post-Star (D1)
10/15/06

Jen Kretser, education director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, often discusses land management issues -- but she's usually in an office, not sitting around a sacred fire in a yurtlike structure called an ail.

And while she's used to helping spruce up camp sites and remove trash from park land, there are usually pickup trucks involved, not packhorses.

Kretser and three other Americans traveled to the Altai Republic of Russia to help lead workshops about familiar Adirondack principles like "leave no trace" land use and interpretive visitor's education.

The Altai Republic, a mountainous region of southern Siberia that borders Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan, is new to the park management business and eager to learn from those with more experience.

"They're really starting from ground zero -- all their nature parks have been established in the last eight years, since the fall of the Soviet Union," Kretser explained.

Staff members from the Altai parks and related nongovernmental organizations have traveled to the United States for the past two summers to study the way its parks are managed. They settled on the Adirondacks as a model because it has sustained a balance between preserving and utilizing the land's resources, explained Kretser.

"We have the same sort of mosaic of small communities existing within park land," she said. "And they really liked the work we were doing, in terms of promoting responsible recreation and educating visitors about the natural and cultural history of the park."

When Kretser was invited on the trip -- co-sponsored by the Altai Assistance Project and funded by private grants -- she was honored, but unsure what to expect.

"When you think of Siberia, you think cold. You think gulags. I mean, that's what I was originally thinking, 'Siberia? What?'" she remembered, laughing. "But it was absolutely amazing."

Kretser traveled with Adirondack Mountain Club botany steward Julia Goren; Karen Boldis, a professor of ecotourism at Paul Smith's College; and Susan Cutting, director of the Altai Project. French, Russian, and native Altai participants joined them for workshops in the foothills of Siberia's highest mountain, the 15,000-foot Mount Belukha.

The geography in that region looks similar to the American West, Kretser said, with a lot of "sweeping mountains and valleys" covered in a mix of coniferous and deciduous trees, some already turned to autumn gold when she arrived in early September.

"We were staying in these traditional ails...with mountains all around outside, right on the banks of this incredibly blue glacial river," she said. "In the little village across the way, you'd see people going out in the morning with their livestock."

The indigenous people of the Altai region view their land from a spiritual perspective that she found foreign, Kretser said, but fascinating.

"They have a lot of sacred sites in the park -- petroglyphs, standing stones, springs, and mountain passes," she explained. "There's one valley we visited that they believe is the birthplace of the whole world! And then you start talking about developing a land use plan for something like that. How do you do that?"

One way to start, the group decided, was expanding the core "leave no trace" principles developed by the Adirondack Mountain Club to include an eighth precept: Respect local traditions and cultures.

After two weeks, Kretser went home feeling she had received as much education as she had given.

"There's a lot to be learned from experiences that make the familiar strange," she said. "It really gave me an appreciation for what we have here, and what we can do with it."

It took nearly three full days of travel for the American delegation to reach its destination in the Altai Republic's nature parks, but Kretser said she would "absolutely love" to make the trek again.

"I feel like I just kind of barely scratched the surface of understanding their perspective," she said.

LOGGING ON:
The Altai Assistance Project: www.altaiassistanceproject.org
Adirondack Mountain Club: www.adk.org

LEAVE NO TRACE PRINCIPLES:
1. Plan Ahead and Prepare
2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
3. Dispose of Waste Properly
4. Leave What You Find
5. Minimize Campfire Impacts
6. Respect Wildlife
7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors
(More details on www.lnt.org)
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