Organisation: Latvian Environment Protection Club

The organisation wasn’t created just because of Chernobyl but it still is the oldest and biggest environmental NGO in Latvia (it was created when we were still part of USSR). They mostly fought against building a new hydro electricity station in 1987/1988 which would have destroyed various culture and nature objects nearby river Daugava in Latvia.

This is the information they have put in English in their homepage www.vak.lv :

Non-government Environmental Protection Organizations Union – Environmental Protection Club (VAK) was founded on February 25, 1987.

In the beginning VAK united common work groups, which saved sacred places, culture and nature objects from destruction and oblivion.

VAK was the first non-government awakening time mass organization in Latvia. The first activity organized by VAK during Soviet regime in the Fall of 1987 was titled “For clean Air, Water and the Earth”, it was followed by a number of other actions… Several new political movements – LNNK (Latvian National Independence Movement), Informal People’s front,  Latvian Green party, found their roots in the Club.

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