The Novozybkov Project
Living Earth's participation in the Novozybkov Project was initiated
in 2003 at a retreat with Joanna Macy.
Joanna had conducted workshops in 1993 in Novozybkov, a Russian
city downwind of Chernobyl. The Novozybkov Project raises funds
to provide radiation monitors and education to the people of Novozybkov,
which was heavily drenched with radioactive fallout when the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor melted down in 1986.
In 2007, generous support for the Novozybkov Project was received from Joanna and Fran Macy; the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation—RCW Treadway Earthcare Donor-Advised Fund; and many participants at Joanna Macy’s workshops.
Background
In 1986, when the radiation-laden clouds from Chernobyl were seeded
to protect the larger population centers of Moscow, their toxic
rains fell most heavily on the light industrial and agricultural
area of Novozybkov. Many people were forced to evacuate and move
away from the region where their families had lived for generations.
Cancers and related conditions have affected almost the entire population
and continue to create a legacy of pain, loss, hardship, and grief.
The deciduous forests surrounding Novozybkov, where regional culture
evolved over generations, are saturated with radiation and have
been declared permanently off-limits by the government--toxic essentially
forever, at levels up to 100 times that of background levels. One
village of 900 families at the time of the disaster, is now home
to just four remaining elderly residents, who subsist by growing
kitchen gardens and gathering mushrooms and berries from the surrounding
woods.
The radiation levels shift and change in relation to environmental
factors, such as the presence of other environmental pollutants
and chemical toxins, winds and dust, and rains. Toxicity also shifts
with changing weather, seasons, and other conditions; different
structures as well as open spaces hold unstable levels of radioactivity.
Soil, crops, cattle fodder, firewood, and building materials are
all contaminated in varying degrees, and new, unstudied diseases
are emerging, the product of radiation combined with other toxins.
Today the population in the Novozybkov region is slowly growing,
as economic and political conditions drive people from other regions
into areas where housing is cheap. It has been less than twenty
years since the disaster at Chernobyl, but its devastating nuclear
legacy will continue to unfold for generations.
The Program
You can help
As of 2007, Living Earth donors have contributed to more than $8000 to provide radiation monitors, education, and services for the people of Novozybkov. MORE>>
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The goal of Living Earth's Novozybkov Project is to support people
in the radiation zone in making informed decisions regarding where
they can safely live, work, plant gardens, and send their children
to school. Radiation monitors and educational materials for the
people of Novozybkov are being provided through VIOLA,
an environmental organization in the regional capitol of Bryansk.
The monitors and information empower families and individuals to
make thoughtful decisions and regain some modicum of control of
their lives as they cope with the short- and long-term impacts of
nuclear radiation. Read
a report by VIOLA about their program and activities.
The radiation monitor program is one small, direct way to help
the people of Novozybkov, to support them as they face the profound
dangers being created by the industries, economics, and politics
of contemporary society.
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