BIOMES: Nataliia Lisitcyna and Dmitry Lisitsyn present "Victories in Russian Nature Conservation: Freeing Whales from Jail, Protecting Forests, and Other Stories from Russia’s Pacific Coast"

About the Seminar:
The world's largest nation, Russia, has a dynamic environmental movement that much of the world cannot observe in action. Nataliia Lisitcyna and Dmitry Lisitsyn--primary organizers of multiple recent environmental victories along the Pacific coast of Russia--will narrate three case studies of environmental successes: 2010 culmination of a multi-year effort to limit the impact of oil exploration on endangered Pacific grey whales; 2016 termination of gold-mine pollution of multiple salmon rivers; 2018-2019 lawsuits against Russian government agencies and for-profit companies that led to the release of 10 young orcas and 87 young beluga whales that had been captured for sale to aquariums in other countries. Such successes offer lessons for advocacy worldwide in challenging contexts.

Nataliia Lisitcyna and Dmitry Lisitsyn joined the Yale School of the Environment in October 2024 as Associate Research Scholar and as Executive Fellow. Beginning in 1998, they worked together on the resource-rich island of Sakhalin, where Dmitry since 1997 was leader of Sakhalin Environment Watch, for which Nataliia was lead lawyer. Their efforts have received multiple international awards, including the 2011 Goldman Environmental Prize to Dmitry, which honored Dmitry and their organization as "the region’s foremost defenders of the environment" as well as for "forging relationships with indigenous villagers, fishermen, scientists, government officials, and Sakhalin Energy industry leaders."

Margaret D. Williams, Senior Fellow at Arctic Initiative, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, and Fred Strebeigh, Senior Lecturer Emeritus in English and Forestry and Environmental Studies, will facilitate and moderate this seminar.

About the Series:
Over the last fifteen years, the Yale School of the Environment has held a weekly seminar series, called BIOMES, which has been the School’s flagship forum for bringing cutting-edge research and impactful work to the community. BIOMES stands for ‘Bridging Issues & Optimizing Methods in Environmental Studies”

The series is a community-sourced and student-led effort designed to bring different perspectives to YSE’s main stage.