When Tatiana Klepikova first met fellow Siberians Ariana Reida and Andrei Suknev, the conversation turned to the 1,200-mile trail Reida and Suknev were helping to construct around the world’s oldest and largest freshwater lake, Lake Baikal. But it wasn’t until Klepikova, then a member of the Rotary Club of Irkutsk-Baikal, recounted their chat to Vladimir Donskoy, 2004-05 governor of District 5010, that the idea of a club with an ecological focus was born.

In 2005, the Rotary Club of Baikal-Eco Centennial was chartered with Donskoy, Klepikova, and Reida among the founding members. The club was born with a promise to build a 100-kilometer stretch of the Great Baikal Trail in celebration of Rotary’s 100th anniversary.

Since then, the Baikal-Eco club has dedicated itself to protecting the Siberian wilderness and fostering sustainable development. Through the club’s educational programs, local children are learning about environmental preservation. In addition, the club has organized free health fairs in poor communities and provided funding to a drug addiction center in Irkutsk and small business loans to low-income entrepreneurs in remote coastal villages. But the club’s most significant partnership, Klepikova says, has been with the Great Baikal Trail.

Largely rural and thinly populated, the Baikal region boasts an abundance of natural resources, including 20 percent of the earth’s fresh water. Long exploited for timber, minerals, and game, the area is now home to the first national trail system in Russia. According to Natasha Luzhkova, international coordinator for the nonprofit Great Baikal Trail Association, the trail is helping foster an eco-tourism-based economy, including a network of homestays – the region’s answer to bed and breakfasts.

Baikal-Eco club members have done hands-on work as well as securing financial support for the trail. “In 2007, we received a Matching Grant from [the Rotary Club of] Roseburg in Oregon that allowed us to purchase a boat for safety when volunteers are working on remote areas of the trail,” says club member Vladimir Khidekel. Matching Grants from other clubs, including Homer-Kachemak Bay, Alaska, USA, have funded the club’s trail-building and educational programs.

The trail itself is striking, Klepikova says, but even more inspiring is the social impact the project is having on local communities.

“We can see that our relationship with the trail has helped to develop an environmentally focused education program for children in Bolshoe Goloustnoe [a small coastal town] and a bed and breakfast in Ust-Barguzin,” a village bordering Zabaikalski National Park, she says.