Russia is experiencing a profound social, political and economic transition. Communities with closing nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons facilities, and other nuclear issues face especially difficult environmental and socio-economic challenges. To help local governments and citizens find productive solutions to these difficulties, ECOLOGIA and its international partners launched the Local Agenda 21 in Nuclear Regions project in 1999. ECOLOGIA enables nuclear communities in the Tomsk and Rostov oblasts (states) to take advantage of the opportunities while reducing the difficulties of this transition by creating and implementing local sustainable development plans.

ECOLOGIA also trains citizen groups in effective public participation methods. This educated citizen participation leads to more informed decision making about a broad range of socio-economic and environmental issues. It strengthens democracy on the local level.

Recent News: in February 2004, ECOLOGIA's Russian National Coordinator Olga Deryabina organized a seminar for high-level authorities in the formerly closed nuclear weapons producing city of Seversk (near Tomsk, Siberia). Titled, "“Sustainable Development as a Major Principle of State Environmental Policy”, it involved 59 participants from the Seversk Administration (including the Vice Mayor), the Duma, the Seversk Committee of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources,educational institutions, and mass media. Among the many positive outcomes of the seminar were increased cooperation between the governmental, non-governmental and business sectors around the concept of sustainable development planning and economic diversification of the region, and an increase in resources devoted to public education and participation on these topics. See the full report, in English.