Where in the World is Kamchatka?

Unless you’ve played Risk or daydream about fly fishing, you’ve probably never heard of eastern Siberia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, one of the last truly wild places on Earth. The volcanic 1,250 kilometer long peninsula is a place where between one sixth and one fourth of all wild salmon spawn, a place with some of the densest brown bear populations in the world, a place with no dams, no massive extractive resource operations, less than one person per square kilometer, only one major highway, and some of the best unexplored whitewater rivers on the planet.

Kamchatka, however, is no protected Eden. As you read this, oil and gas companies are lining up to drill wells and build pipelines, illegal salmon poaching is a billion-dollar-a-year industry, and local inhabitants and politicians are desperate for any source of income that will keep food on their spartan tables.

The Kamchatka Project is an effort to build an open-source community of people who care and want to learn more about this important place and its complex set of issues. The project is being organized by a team of expert whitewater kayakers and filmmakers who will travel to Kamchatka in summer 2010 to navigate previously un-run steep rivers, help scientists survey salmon stocks and habitat, and document perspectives and stories from a diverse range of inhabitants that explore the complex relationships between the place, its people, and its fisheries.

This week The Kamchatka Project is launching the Schoolhouse, an online forum where people from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to discuss and learn about Kamchatka and the salmon that form the backbone of its ecosystems and economy. Over the next five months team members will introduce weekly topics related to Kamchatka’s land, rivers, ecosystems, economy, social dynamics, politics, laws, international relations, and more. The information presented by the team, bolstered by contributions and feedback from The Kamchatka Project community, will form the foundation for a unique and powerful educational tool that will be converted into a high school curriculum and remain online indefinitely.

The Schoolhouse’s weekly topics swill start off with primers on salmon and Kamchatka, and gradually get more focused as the weeks progress. What topics are presented, when they’re presented, and how they’re presented are all dependent on feedback and recommendations from people like you. Topics for the first ten weeks will include:

Salmon Basics
History of Salmon in North America
History of Dams in North America
Salmon: It’s What’s for Dinner
Kamchatka: Why it Matters
Who’s Who in Kamchatka
Money Matters in Kamchatka
Development and Conservation in Kamchatka
Stories from Supporters of The Kamchatka Project
History of Salmon in Kamchatka

WIN this bag!

Prize drawings will be held weekly on the Schoolhouse site as an incentive to join the action. Entering is easy: for every constructive comment or contribution made within each week’s posts, you’ll be entered (up to thirty times/week) to random drawings for sweet gear contributed by friends of The Kamchatka Project.

This week’s topic is Salmon Basics, and we’ll be giving away a shiny new DAKINE backcountry pack to one lucky contributor. Drop in today to share, learn, and enter the drawing!