The annual Whitley Awards, set up by the U.K.-based Whitley Fund for Nature, are designed to provide winners with international recognition to enhance their credibility, increase global attention to their projects, and provide financial and other support for their projects.
Sergei Bereznyuk, the head of the Phoenix Fund, was awarded one of the prizes Wednesday night for his efforts to save the endangered Amur Tiger in Russia's Far East. Apart from recognizing the Fund's outreach campaign to educate local communities about saving the habitat of the estimated 450 tigers left in the wild, the Whitley shortlist credited his organization as helping influence an April decision to re-route a major oil pipeline from East Siberia to the Pacific Ocean.
Bereznyuk himself was less bullish about ecologists' ability to influence the authorities.
"Unfortunately, it is sometimes easier to get through to the British princess and to gain recognition abroad than to achieve understanding in our region," he said.
Two other Russians received awards and the accompanying 30,000 pounds ($55,600) at the Royal Geographical Society.
Alexander Arbachakov, 41, was honored for his 15 years of work to conserve precious cedar forests in the Siberian region of Kemerovo. The Whitley shortlist highlighted his efforts to show indigenous people in the area how to use the local environment without harming biodiversity.
Dmitry Lisitsyn, 38, was presented with his award for campaigning to protect wild salmon on the Far East island of Sakhalin, which have been endangered by industrialization and wide-scale poaching.
