ROWING TO BAIKAL
FOLLOW ME
ONE THOUSAND MILES
OF ADVENTURE
“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
—E. B. White
OUR SUPPORTERS
Chimed-Ochir Bazarsad
Chimed-Ochir is the former director of WWF Mongolia. He has more than 25 years of experience in nature conservation, including transboundary work in Russia and China.
Darron Collins
Darron is the president of the College of the Atlantic. During his time at the World Wildlife Fund, he worked for nearly a decade on river conservation in Mongolia and the Russian Far East.
Matthew McKinney
Matt is director of the Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy at The University of Montana. During the past two decades, he has worked with diverse groups of people to design and facilitate transboundary conservation initiatives and published research on international water law, policy, and governance.
Peter W. Fong
Peter is a writer, photographer, and flyfishing guide whose work has appeared in Fly Fisherman, Fly Rod & Reel, Gray's Sporting Journal, the New York Times, and many other publications. He has been the head guide at Mongolia River Outfitters for more than a decade.
Sabra Purdy
Sabra Purdy studies the impact of long-term grazing practices on native fish habitat. She is a former whitewater guide and a veteran of the Nobody’s River Project (nobodysriver.org), an all-female expedition from the headwaters of the Amur River to the Sea of Okhotsk.
Lanie Galland
Lanie is a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her conference presentation, “Genotyping by sequencing and analyses of geographic genetic structure to guide conservation of the world’s largest salmonid: Hucho taimen,” was delivered at a 2017 American Fisheries Society special symposium.
Mikhail Skopets
Mikhail is the author of more than 80 scientific papers and the discoverer of several species of fish, including Salvethymus svetovidovi, the long-finned char. After 30 years at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Biological Problems of the North, he now works as an independent researcher and flyfishing guide.
Guido Rahr
An artist and avid flyfisherman, Guido has collected data on both taimen and invertebrates in the rivers of eastern Russia. He is currently a senior at Lincoln High school in Portland, Oregon, and will attend the University of Vermont.
Rebecca Waters
Rebecca is the executive director of the Wolverine Foundation and the director of the Mongolian Wolverine Project. A graduate of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a former Peace Corps volunteer, she has worked on environmental issues in Mongolia for 17 years.
Expedition Members
Chimed-Ochir Bazarsad
Chimed-Ochir is the former director of WWF Mongolia. He has more than 25 years of experience in nature conservation, including transboundary work in Russia and China.
Darron Collins
Darron is the president of the College of the Atlantic. During his time at the World Wildlife Fund, he worked for nearly a decade on river conservation in Mongolia and the Russian Far East.
Peter W. Fong
Peter is a writer, photographer, and flyfishing guide whose work has appeared in Fly Fisherman, Fly Rod & Reel, Gray's Sporting Journal, the New York Times, and many other publications. He has been the head guide at Mongolia River Outfitters for more than a decade.
Jeff Forsee
Lanie Galland
Charlie Conn
Lanie is a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her conference presentation, “Genotyping by sequencing and analyses of geographic genetic structure to guide conservation of the world’s largest salmonid: Hucho taimen,” was delivered at a 2017 American Fisheries Society special symposium.
Matthew McKinney
Matt is director of the Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy at The University of Montana. During the past two decades, he has worked with diverse groups of people to design and facilitate transboundary conservation initiatives and published research on international water law, policy, and governance.
Mark Portman
Mark earned a master's degree in marine affairs and policy from the University of Miami. He has worked with a diverse array of fish species—from cobia to pompano to tilapia—and is Fish Mongolia’s resident Instagrammer.
Sabra Purdy
Sabra Purdy studies the impact of long-term grazing practices on native fish habitat. She is a former whitewater guide and a veteran of the Nobody’s River Project (nobodysriver.org), an all-female expedition from the headwaters of the Amur River to the Sea of Okhotsk.
Guido Rahr
Rebecca Waters
Rebecca is the executive director of the Wolverine Foundation and the director of the Mongolian Wolverine Project. A former Peace Corps volunteer, she has worked on environmental issues in Mongolia for 17 years.
An artist and avid flyfisherman, Guido has collected data on both taimen and invertebrates in the rivers of eastern Russia. He is currently a senior at Lincoln High school in Portland, Oregon, and will attend the University of Vermont.
Mikhail Skopets
Mikhail is the author of more than 80 scientific papers and the discoverer of several species of fish, including Salvethymus svetovidovi, the long-finned char. After 30 years at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Biological Problems of the North, he now works as an independent researcher and flyfishing guide.
Jeff is the head guide at Fish Mongolia and a resident of New Zealand.
Jeff is the head guide at Fish Mongolia and a resident of New Zealand.
Charlie started guiding in Mongolia in 1998 for Hovsgol / Sweetwater Travel and has been returning there ever since. In 2010, Charlie was a driving force behind the creation of the Taimen Fund for the Tributary Fund. When the Taimen Fund established itself as a separate nonprofit organization in 2013, he became its first executive director.
News & Views
Baikal Without Boundaries
October 11, 2013
This video, produced by the United Nations Development Programme, Global Environment Facility, United Nations Office for Project Services, and Atlas of Culture, deserves a look. If you're pressed for time, the portion from 4:20 to 6:47 focuses specifically on the Selenge basin.
Baikal Blues
September 14, 2016
This documentary by Russia's RT network describes the threats to "Russia’s greatest national treasure."
September 2016
Hands Across Borders
This workshop, organized by team member Matt McKinney and others at the University of Montana's Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy, gathered participants representing 28 different transboundary conservation initiatives across 70 countries.
A Cautionary Tale?
December 24, 2018
The headline for this New York Times story by Nicholas Casey and Clifford Krauss is blunt: "It Doesn’t Matter if Ecuador Can Afford This Dam. China Still Gets Paid." The parallels between Ecuador and Mongolia may not be exact, but the implications for the Selenge are definitely not pretty.