2002 Nuclear-Free Future
Lifetime Achievement Award
Alexei Yablokov, Russia, and Francis Macy, USA
Two men from seemingly different worlds, Alexei Yablokov, a Russian, and
Francis Macy, an American, noticed that they have an enemy in common: dead
ignorance. The Cold War is said to be over. But these two men know better,
know that uranium mining sites, nuclear weapons production sites, and nuclear
warhead testing sites are the most poisonous tracts of land on earth. Both men
know that studies have documented that radioactivity is escaping from these
sites by earth, by air, and by water. Both men know that there is no safe level of
exposure to Plutonium 239, the man-made, bomb-grade metal with a radioactive
half-life of 24,400 years. Alexei and Fran know that, in human terms, the Cold
War will go on forever.
Alexei Yablokov, founder and president of the Center for Russian
Environmental Policy, correspondent member of the prestigious Academy of
Sciences, and former environmental advisor to Boris Yeltsin, is the
acknowledged dean and elder of the Russian environmental movement. Already
interested in environmental processes as a young boy, Alexei became a Ph.D
biologist with a profound grasp of how radioactivity alters the living tissue of
the earth. After joining the Soviet Parliament as a deputy member, he succeeded
in declassifying and making public information detailing the ravages of
radioactivity across his country, particularly as regards the hitherto top-secret
South Urals nuclear catastrophe. Alexei has lead for years Russia's largest
federation of grassroots organizations, the Socio-Ecological Union (SEU) --
MinAtom's chief debunker.
Francis Macy is a Soviet scholar who organizes exchanges of environmental
activists and specialists, particularly in the area of nuclear contamination. In the
1980-90s, Fran participated in the Nuclear Guardianship Project initiated by his
wife Joanna, and edited its publication, The Nuclear Guardianship Journal. The
Project promoted citizen involvement in the long-term safe management of
radioactive waste. Fran is a director of Tri-Valley CARE, an NGO that monitors
the badly contaminated lands surrounding the Livermore Laboratory in
Califormia. Since 1961 Fran has made over forty working visits to the USSR
and its successor states.
Cooperation between Alexei and Fran began in 1991 when, at the invitation of
Lydia Popova and the Green World organization, Fran arrived in Russia with a
high level delegation of environmental specialists to observe the fifth
anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe. Together with Alexei and Lydia, the
delegation held presentations in Moscow, Minsk, and Kiev – presentations that
drew much media interest. The friendship and understanding that grew between
Alexei and Fran over the course of the tour culminated in the establishment of
the Nuclear Watchdog Network—a coalition of grassroots organizations
monitoring nuclear sites through Russia and the Ukraine. In the intervening
years the two men have organized numerous renewable energy presentations and
seminars, arranged exchanges of scientific delegations, and strengthened NGO
capacities in both their lands by pooling scientific data and sharing specialist
expertise.
Two men who have battled for their lifetimes –- and ours -- against dead
ignorance.
--Craig Reishus
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