All news

International forum to discuss problems of ecotourism near Lake Baikal

Participants will exchange experience and establish a dialogue on problems of creating ecological resorts

ULAN UDE, July 11 (Itar-Tass) - An international forum Baikal Ecotourism +20 opens in Ulan Ude on Thursday. It will be held within the framework of the Russian Year of Environment Protection.

According to the organizers, the forum will bring together government officials, Russian and foreign experts in the areas of science and education, investors, and travel industry specialists. They will discuss prospects for the development of rural tourism in the Baikal area, environment pollution problems, measures to protect the eco system of the region, creation of tourist infrastructure in such special economic zones as the Baikal Harbor. A special meeting will be dedicated to the tourist project Russia’s Eastern Ring, which includes the Siberian republics of Buryatia, Yakutia, the Far eastern Khabarovsk and Kamchatka Territories, and the Island of Sakhalin.

“The forum will be a good platform for the exchange of experience, for discussions of modern tendencies and standards of ecotourism,” organizers say.

“The forum was co-organized by the Russian Tourism Agency and the Ministry of Culture and is timed to mark the 20th anniversary of the General Plan for the development of ecotourism around Lake Baikal,” said Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, the head of the republic of Buryatia. “Over these two decades, Buryatia, which has 60 percent of Baikal’s coastline, has done much to implement key provisions of this document. It actively develops the ethnical and ecological traditions that are called to preserve and protect the region’s natural and cultural heritage.”

Participants will exchange experience and establish a constructive dialogue on problems of creating ecological resorts, on the development and introducing eco tourism standards, on the use of alternative energy sources and innovation technologies, Nagovitsyn noted.