Secrecy vs. the Need for Ecological Information: Challenges to Environmental Activism in Russia

Nowhere is the connection between environmental protection and national security clearer than in the case of weaponry as a polluter. Even within this category of environmental threats, there is a hierarchy. At the top, both in terms of environmental priorities and international security, are weapons of mass destruction. They represent not only classic environmental problems— health hazards  and threats to species— but also create an obstacle to economic well-being. Plus, they tend to affect neighboring nations to the same degree as the country on whose soil they are produced or stored. Nuclear, biological, and chemical accidents are truly global polluters, through transportation of contaminants in ocean currents and in the atmosphere.

This article will explore how an individual environmental organization ventured through the minefields of international security and diplomacy, forging obvious as well as unlikely alliances along the way.