Heritage Site. This was hardly a surprising choice; the lake is truly staggering. Its surface area is as large as Belgium and its depths penetrate the mantle of the earth. It contains 20% of the world's non-frozen freshwater and is home to over 1000 endemic species. It is also, as yet, relatively unpolluted. Some Western scientists and environmentalists find it difficult to believe that any ecosystem located in the notoriously polluting former Soviet Union could be even somewhat pristine. "It is slightly hypocritical of European scientists to be so concerned about pollution in Lake Baikal, when its waters are currently much cleaner than those of Western European lakes", says Erik Verheyen, an evolutionist from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (Brussels), who has been involved with studies of Baikal for over a decade. However, the lake's relative purity is not due to high standards of environmental protection, but to its enormous size and capacity for absorbing pollutants. Much of the chemical contamination PCBs and dioxins absorbed