The Lake Baikal Foundation and Siberian Health Corporation’s World Around You Foundation signed an agreement on cooperation on the Roscongress Foundation’s new social platform NPO Laboratory on 15 February. As part of the agreement, The World Around You will finance the Lake Baikal Foundation’s projects for the current year in the amount of RUB 6.5 million.

The World Around You Foundation has been engaged in charitable activities since 2012 to preserve the country’s largest body of water – Lake Baikal. According to Siberian Health Corporation President Tatyana Gorokhovskaya, the decision to cooperate with the Lake Baikal Foundation makes it possible to consolidate efforts to preserve the lake and make them as efficient as possible: “We expect a synergistic effect from our work. As a business, we have a desire and an opportunity to help preserve our treasure – a unique UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our colleagues have the necessary expertise and experience of working with significant projects. I am confident that our cooperation will enable us to obtain qualitative results that aim to preserve the ecology of the lake.”

For her part, Lake Baikal Foundation General Director Anastasia Tsvetkova stressed that the Siberian Health Corporation’s World Around You Foundation is the Lake Baikal Foundation’s first corporate partner. Prior to this, the Foundation had carried out its activities through the support of private donors. “We highly value the trust of our trustees and are committed to justifying it with each new project, which are growing in quantity and quality with the increased support. In the Siberian Health Corporation, the Foundation has found a reliable strategic partner that is willing to not only use its financial resources, but also its specialists for joint work,” Ms. Tsvetkova said.

The Lake Baikal Foundation is a private charitable organization. The Foundation’s mission is to promote natural science, humanitarian projects, and initiatives that aim to preserve and develop the Baikal natural area and Lake Baikal. A number of projects will be implemented as part of the Foundation’s activities in 2018 to support scientific institutions, protected areas, projects to harmonize the regulatory and legal framework governing the protection of Lake Baikal and the Baikal natural area as well as educational projects, in particular as part of a previously awarded presidential grant. In 2017, thanks to the Lake Baikal Foundation’s support, the closure of ‘Point No. 1 Long-Term Monitoring Programme’, which is unique in terms of its duration and the value of its contents, was averted and the programme and was included in the American Meteorological Society’s State of the Climate global report for the first time.

The Siberian Health Corporation has been developing, manufacturing, and selling products for health, beauty, and sports since 1996. Siberian Health’s business operates in 46 countries on three continents. The World Around You charitable foundation has raised and distributed over RUB 25 million for good causes for six years. The foundation has implemented more than 130 environmental measures. More than 10 specially protected natural areas are involved in the implementation of World Around You projects, including the Barguzin State Natural Biosphere Reserve, the oldest of its kind in Russia, which the foundation has been helping since its inception.