Environmental Politics on Russia’s Pacific Edge: Reactions to Energy Development in the Russian Sea of Okhotsk

Abstract

In two regions of Pacific Russia, Sakhalin Oblast and Kamchatka Krai, emergent environmental politics are associated with political and socioeconomic transformation in the post-Soviet period. While transnational development of hydrocarbons in the Sea of Okhotsk is in the spotlight, the socio-cultural milieu and ecological settings in which extraction occurs is also replete with change. As in resource peripheries in other global locales, long-time residents of Sakhalin and Kamchatka question their cultural identities, socioeconomic futures and rights to land and resources as transnational development continues, leading to multiple politicized actions related to the environment.

Keywords

• Kamchatka
• Sakhalin
• environmental and indigenous activism
• oil and gas development
• Sakhalin-2
• West Kamchatka Shelf