The jury of the international children's and youth award "Ecology is everyone's business" has started work - choosing the best environmental activities of the competition, the shortlist is published on Rutube.

Acceptance of applications for the award ended in October. From April 1 to October 1, 2021, the project's website received more than 9.5 thousand applications from all regions of Russia and more than 300 from 27 countries of the near and far abroad. About 6 thousand works were accepted that meet the requirements of the nominations, the regulations and methodological recommendations of the competition.

"There is not a single region of Russia that would not respond to our initiative. A flurry of work awaited the moderators in the final days, when 2,000 applications were received almost simultaneously two days before the end of their acceptance. All 12 participating cities of the Clean Air project of the national Ecology project are covered - 170 works. More than 200 works were sent from orphanages, social rehabilitation centers, orphanages, boarding schools for children with disabilities from Russia and foreign countries," commented Svetlana Radionova, Head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Environmental Management.

The head of Rosprirodnadzor noted that China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Latin America were the most active in terms of international involvement. In total, more than 300 works were received from 27 countries – Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Ecuador, India, People's Republic of China, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, USA, Turkey, Poland, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Estonia, Belarus, Armenia, Abkhazia.

"The children showed us how they see the ecological future and what worries them. Adults are now starting their work - respected people who were included in the jury of the award. There are about 650 works on the shortlist. They are published on social networks and on Rutube. We are already getting a great response from the jury. They say: "We did not expect that the children would tell us very meaningfully and qualitatively about the environmental problems that they are concerned about." Many members of the jury say that the works of children are moved to tears. We have many children with special needs. They are on an equal footing with the rest. There will be big battles and heated arguments, that's why there is a jury to choose the best. The winners will be announced to the whole country," said Svetlana Radionova, head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Environmental Management.

The representative of the jury, Deputy Director General of the Center for Arctic Initiatives, Rustam Romanenkov, noted that the award received a great response from the public and there were a lot of applications, interesting and unusual works too. "We are watching the works with the whole family - the nominations "Eco-family" and "Eco-school". It is very difficult to make a choice, there are many worthy and interesting works. For example, there is a job where two families from Moscow and Grozny joined together - the dads together with their children made an ecological swim "For clean Baikal". One of the schools sent a work where it uses butterfly therapy in its practice and installed innovative garbage containers on the territory of the institution," Romanenkov said.

On the site Rutube formed the short-list for members of the jury, which included about 650 of creative works in 12 categories: "let's Save the planet together", "My academia is my team," "the Young ecobroker", "the eco-trends", "Ekoskola", "Ecoproject", "Korisnik", "Ecofocus", "Acomastylis", "Ecovolunteer", "Young this issue draw attention, Ecology in the world."

Recall that the competition commission of the award is headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Victoria Abramchenko. The jury consisted of: Svetlana Radionova — Head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Nature Management, Vyacheslav Fetisov — National Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Environment Program, two—time Olympic champion, politician, Rustam Romanenkov — Deputy Director General of the ANO Center for Arctic Initiatives, Nikolai Drozdov - zoologist and biogeographer, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor of Moscow State University, presenter of the program "In the World of Animals", Margarita Simonyan — editor—in—chief of the Russia Today (RT) TV channel and MIA "Russia Today" (RIA), Nikas Safronov and Sergey Andriaka - People's Artists of the Russian Federation, Aniset Gabriel Kochofa - Associate Professor of the Moscow State University. Lomonosov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of R.Benin to the Russian Federation and CIS countries (2012-2016), Boris Mashkovtsev — director of the Soyuzmultfilm studio, Alexander Oleshko — Honored Artist of Russia, TV presenter, Alexey Venediktov — editor—in—chief of the Echo of Moscow radio station, Vladimir Sungorkin — editor—in—chief of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Dmitry Dibrov – TV presenter, member of the Academy of Russian Television Foundation, Elena Bondarenko — editor—in-chief of Children's Radio , Mikhail Kolosov - head of the preparation of the broadcast of the channel "Russia 24", Alexey Kaklyugin - General Director of JSC "TV Channel 360", Andrey Feofanov - composer and film producer, Olga Skazkina - eco-activist and designer, Lika Lemeshko - art director of TASS Newm.

The Ecology is Everyone's Business Award was established by the Federal Service for Supervision of Environmental Management in March 2021 and is held in accordance with the national development goals of the Russian Federation. Among the main objectives of the project are environmental education, popularization of the theme of ecology and the culture of responsible attitude to natural resources, increasing social activity among young people, including through social networks and "green" volunteering.

For 6 months, children and teenagers from 7 to 16 years old, including pupils of special institutions, posted drawings, videos, reports, challenges, actions, flash mobs, projects dedicated to the idea of caring for the environment on social networks (VKontakte, Instagram, Tik-Tok, YouTube, Rutube). The publications of the participants were marked with special hashtags of the award: #ecologydelocity #ecologyiseveryone #rpndetam #rpnforchildren.

Winners and laureates will receive valuable gifts, 50 participants-leaders from November 28 to December 18 will go to the environmental shift in All-Russian children's center "Orlyonok".

The general partner of the award was the ANO Center for Arctic Initiatives. Federal partners were: PJSC "SIBUR Holding", VCD "Orlyonok".

The project was supported by the Soyuzmultfilm film Studio, RUTUBE, the All-Russian organization "Russian Movement of Schoolchildren" (RDS), the All-Russian public organization of environmental volunteers "Do!", the grand hotel "Pearl", the airlines "Utair" and "Azimut".

Information support for the project was provided by: radio station "Children's Radio", MIA "Russia Today", news agency "TASS", TV channel "Russia 24", radio station "Echo of Moscow", TV channel 360, MIC "Izvestia", "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", ID "Komsomolskaya Pravda", ID "Arguments and Facts", "Arguments of the Week", Public Television of Russia (OTR), information and educational project TASS "Newm", media holding "FANABI" (Uzbekistan).