Green group WWF has written to Russian President Vladimir Putin in what it called a last-ditch attempt to stop the destruction of rare wildlife habitat to make way for the country's 2014 Winter Olympics bid. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is due to fly to Sochi, on Russia's Black Sea coast, next week to evaluate the Russian bid which has been shortlisted alongside Salzburg in Austria and Pyeongchang in South Korea to host the Winter Games.

However, IOC inspectors might reject the bid unless it is changed to lessen the impact of planned construction work on the local environment, home to wild bears and deer, the WWF told Putin. "Letters to the government did not lead to any action and we wanted to warn the president that Sochi's bid was in danger of failing," Igor Chestin, director of WWF's Russian operations, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Law changes last year shifted control of the mountains and forests around Sochi to the Ministry of Economic Development and partially stripped it of national park status. The ministry says it is necessary to develop the area for the Olympics and as a ski resort, but ecologists say the real beneficiaries are business interests who want the land for lucrative resort projects.

"Part of the area taken off the nature reserve list is of special biological importance, such as the winter hibernation places for deer, chamois and the brown bear," WWF wrote in its letter to Putin, dated Feb. 12. But the CEO of the Sochi bid committee, Dmitry Chernyshenko, said his team was having a constructive dialogue with green groups to tackle their concerns and that these groups would be given an opportunity to speak to the IOC inspectors.

"Everybody understands that no construction project can be (conducted) without influencing nature. But the only question is how we control this process, how we minimise the impact," he said. "We have got more than enough allocated budget to run the ...programme to minimise all the impact on nature." The Kremlin wants to stage the Olympic Games to showcase Russia's economic revival under Putin, who holidays and entertains foreign leaders at his villa in Sochi and personally supports the bid.

WWF's Chestin said that since sending the letter to Putin, he has had useful meetings with the Sochi bid team, which is overseen by Economy Minister German Gref. "Environmentalists are listening to the bid committee and the bid committee is listening to environmentalists," he said. "We think we can find a solution which works for both nature and investors." The IOC will announce the host of the 2014 Games at Guatemala City in July.
(By James Kilner, Reuters, 15/02/2007)
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