Text :
21.09.01: UK : Half of people
living in flood risk areas do not know
The Environment Agency has begun a big publicity drive following research
revealing that nearly 50% of people living in flood prone areas are
oblivious to the risk and only one person in ten takes any action
to prepare.
Hundreds of thousands of families across England and Wales are being
urged to wake-up to the dangers of flooding this autumn and winter
as high tides this week represented the first risk for many coastal
areas. As a result of a study by the Environment Agency showing that
nearly 50% of people living in flood prone areas were oblivious to
the fact and only 10% takes any action to prepare, the Agency is taking
awareness-building action. It embarked on a national television advertising
campaign from 17 September drawing on the memory of floods in 1998,
1999 and 2000, asking people if they "really need another warning".
The campaign urges people to call the Environment Agency's 24 hour
Floodline on 0845 988 1188 for advice on how to prepare and make homes
more resistant to flood damage. Floodline also gives details of flood
warnings in force and free information on local warning services,
clean-up and repairs.
Full article: http://www.edie.net/news/Archive/4702.cfm
20.09.01: Vietnam
floods claim 122, including 108 children
The death toll from floods in Vietnam's Mekong Delta in the past month
has risen to 122 people, 108 of them children, and waters are forecast
to rise further in coming days, a disaster report said Wednesday.
Full article: http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/09/09202001/reu_45035.asp
18.09.01: Creation of Latin
America's largest freshwater protected area (WWF)
GLAND, SWITZERLAND - WWF today welcomed both the largest
freshwater protected area and the first freshwater Gift to the Earth
in Latin America, with the designation by the Bolivian government
of three wetlands totalling 46,000 square kilometres - an area larger
than Switzerland - as sites of the RAMSAR Convention.
Located in the Department of Santa Cruz, in the lowlands of Bolivia,
the wetlands of Bañados del Izogog-Rio Parapeti, El Palmar
de las Islas-Salinas de San José, and Bolivian Pantanal are
home to healthy populations of hundreds of species of flora and fauna,
which are threatened in other parts of the country and in the rest
of the world. These include, among others, the jaguar, the tapir,
the giant river otter and the hyacinth macaw.
The newly protected sites are also very important freshwater reserves
for the surrounding human populations.
"The inclusion of these sites on the RAMSAR list of wetlands
of international importance is a huge achievement for both conservation
and local communities," said Dr Claude Martin, Director General
of WWF International. "The impressive expanse of land and water
that becomes protected thanks to this move, represents close to 10
per cent of the global conservation goal of WWF's Living Waters Programme."
The Bolivian government's decision has been recognized as a Gift to
the Earth - a first for freshwater in Latin America - by WWF.
On a global scale, Bolivia becomes the second country to designate
such a vast area of wetlands in the Convention's 30 years of existence.
The designation of RAMSAR sites implies that governments commit at
both local and national level to better conservation of the wetlands
and wiser use of the natural resources.
It means that development projects such as waterways, highways, drainage
and irrigation canals or oil and gas pipelines need to be carefully
planned and their environmental impact thoroughly assessed.
This is particularly important for the Bolivian Pantanal, confronted
with various large-scale development projects, including the Paraguay-Parana
waterway, the construction of which would necessitate land clearance
and dredging rivers in the region.
"Local actors, such as municipal authorities, indigenous communities,
farmers and private landowners have welcomed the designation of the
sites," pointed out Roger Landivar, WWF Country Representative
in Bolivia. "They showed not only interest but also hope and
commitment to participate in the conservation of these ecosystems
while at the same time accessing natural resources in a sustainable
way."
The Bolivian Pantanal is a mosaic of lakes, lagoons, rivers, flooded
savannas, palms, dry forests and cerrado. It regulates floods and
droughts in a vast area of Eastern Bolivia and sustains at least 197
species of fish, more than 70 species of amphibians and reptiles,
more than 300 species of birds and more than 50 species of large mammals.
The Palmar de las Islas and Salinas de San José system of wetlands
is the only source of water in a vast area in the Chaco ecoregion.
Its surrounding landscape has been traditionally and almost exclusively
used by the Ayoreo indigenous people.
Also located in the Chaco, the Bañados del Izogog and Rio Parapeti
wetlands are linked to the Amazon basin, forming a biological and
genetic corridor. They are a vital source of water for the Izoceña
indigenous group.
For more information:
Olivier van Bogaert, Press Officer, WWF - World
Wide Fund for Nature +41 22 364 9554 ovanbogaert@wwfint.org
Web site: http://www.panda.org
See also http://www.edie.net/news/Archive/4718.cfm
14.09.01: Eighty-nine percent
of the Black Sea contaminated
A study of the Black Sea has revealed that 89% of
its waters are contaminated, and the main source of the pollution
has been revealed as the River Danube.
The Black Sea city of Odessa is Ukraine's premier resort city
Despite the perception that oil spills are the main threat to the
sea, shared between Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and
Georgia, a recent study listed the Danube River as a major polluter
of the Black Sea, being responsible for more than half the pollutants
that endanger the sea’s ecology. According to the Association
of the Environment in the Balkans, responsible for the report, the
environment surrounding the Black Sea is worsening, with 89% of the
sea’s water contaminated.
The Greece-based organisation said that water up to a depth of 150
metres show signs of eutrophication, reducing oxygen content in the
sea water to a minimum, causing serious depletion of aquatic resources.
Besides pollution from the Danube River and others that empty into
the Sea, oil spills from ocean-going vessels constitute another major
environmental hazard.
The Black Sea has an estimated annual passage volume of 50,000 ships,
and in the last year oil spills caused by accidents and navigation
in defiance of regulations reached 110,000 tonnes.
According to the report, the worsening ecology in the Black Sea has
reduced the number of fish species to 3,775, less than half that found
in the adjacent Mediterranean. At present, seals and two species of
dolphins are on the verge of extinction from the Sea.
All the countries bordering the Black Sea recently established a joint
naval force to protect the environment and humanitarian operations,
at a time when oil tanker traffic is increasing dramatically.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
14.09.01: Court strikes
down threatened salmon listing
Washington, September 14, 2001 (ENS) - A federal judge has ruled that
hatchery born salmon are biologically indistinguishable from naturally
spawned wild salmon. The judge also reversed an action by the National
Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) listing the Oregon Coast coho salmon
as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-14-06.html
13.09.01:
International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) thinks that "The
WCD recommendations are not universally applicable" and could
lead to "potentially disastrous" results "for developing
countries".
This is how ICOLD President CVJ Varma expressed the
official position of his organization in Dresden, during the September
13th Symposium "Benefits and Concern About Dams".
Since it was founded in 1928, ICOLD leads the profession in ensuring
that dams are built safely, efficiently, economically, and without
detrimental effects on the environment. It is therefore eminently
qualified to collectively judge the content of WCD report, better
than many of the so-called individual experts, who have not had an
opportunity to deal with even one percent of world dams but have opined
on dams and development.
ICOLD shares the philosophy of the WCD recommendations, which fit
very well with its own 1997 Position Paper on Dams and Environment.
But ICOLD disagrees with the process, analysis and conclusions extracted
from the very limited WCD data base (only eight dams reviewed in depth,
most of them more than 30 years old). There is little in the report
about the development effectiveness of dams in regulating the world's
rivers for human use. In areas of the world like China and South Asia,
where approximately three billion people live and where river flow
in intermittent, flows are virtually unusable without development
of storage. The fast growing populations in such areas cannot possibly
be supported in future, without large-scale surface storage. One would
have therefore expected the WCD to have made a global evaluation of
the availability of water in the world's different regions without
storage and the minimum amount of water needed to support the particular
region's ultimate population.
The WCD also failed to make an objective and scientific assessment
of available alternatives (if any) to large dams for meeting with
needs of water for irrigation, flood control and for hydropower generation.
Over-optimistic views about the future of new technologies and their
economics, never tested on a large-scale, have been advanced by WCD,
without serious evaluation.
The report recognizes that about "30 percent of irrigated land
worldwide now relies on dams", which means that about 800 million
people benefit from food produced by dam related irrigation. A similar
figure is true for electricity ("19 percent of the world's electricity"),
which would mean about 800 million people worldwide. The benefits
of avoided air pollution from the thermal energy, benefits of flood
protection, water supply, including a better quality of life, further
extend to several hundred million people around the world. But, the
WCD presents a grossly exaggerated figure of 40 to 80 million people
displaced by dams during the past century. Even if one assumes the
figures as correct, it means for each person negatively impacted by
dams, about 100 other people benefit from the food, electricity, water
and flood control provided by dams. In effect the WCD report focuses
on the one percent of the people who have not benefited from dams
and ignores the benefits to the majority. It never estimates the colossal
human cost avoided by building the dams, as human and environmental
cost of not building dams has been founded to be very high, when compared
with that due to building them.
ICOLD thus feels that the guiding principles set by WCD for itself
(such as independent, open, transparent, knowledge-driven, inclusive
of diversity of views, accessible to all stakeholders informed on
issues and alternatives) were given a go-bye during the WCD process.
There is little doubt that the world is water short and the shortage
will grow, if dams are not allowed to be built. The need for structural
solutions including more dams, is undeniable because there are no
alternatives or practical available options. ICOLD favours a balanced
approach to dams and project development giving a stronger voice to
affected people and communities. ICOLD feels that procedures for development
are specific to each country. Each country would certainly review
the WCD recommendations in the context of their own standards and
ICOLD guidelines. However, each country will no doubt consider them
in light of their prevailing conditions, traditions, laws, needs,
ethos and aspirations.
The fundamental right of a nation to develop its water resources should
not be denied by some whose motives are not clearly understood and
accepted by the society, especially when the views create impediments
in financing of such facilities. The procedures suggested by WCD for
project evaluation are too cumbersome and would serve as a huge deterrent
to investment. They would de facto give to some a right to veto what
they consider contrary to their wishes, but would be detrimental to
the development of entire countries/societies.
ICOLD has decided to advance further critical work and has created
an "ad hoc" Committee to that effect, headed by Prof. Raymond
Lafitte, which will take into account the WCD Report and the responses
to it from ICOLD National Committees. The next version of its Position
Paper on Dams and Environment will include the results of that work.
But ICOLD is not able to understand the need for creation or to participate
in a so-called Dams Development Unit (DDU).
Note for reporters :
At the end of 2000, ICOLD had National Committees from 80 countries
with approximately 7000 individual members who are practicing engineers,
geologists and scientists from governmental and private organizations,
consulting firms, universities, laboratories and construction companies.
Further info on web site : http://www.icold-cigb.org
13.09.01: ICOLD Meeting: Large
Dams and the WCD - an NGO Perspective
Presentation by Peter Bosshard (*)
ICOLD Symposium, 13 September 2001, Dresden
ICOLD and NGOs have talked about each other for a long time. They
have occasionally yelled at each other. They have hardly ever talked
with each other. So I very much appreciate the symposium which takes
place today, and the invitation which was extended to the NGOs.
The symposium organizers are interested to learn more about the "counter-arguments"
to the construction of large dams. I am happy to briefly summarize
some concerns of the international NGO community relating to large
dams. I will also comment on the WCD process from an NGO perspective,
and will conclude by offering some thoughts on the reactions to the
report which we have seen so far.Social, environmental and economic
concerns
It is a basic principle of social justice that development projects
should not come at the expense of the poor, that "the people
directly affected by a project should always be the first to benefit",
as ICOLD's 1997 Position Paper on Dams and the Environment stipulates.
Personally, I have not seen one project in which affected people were
indeed better off after construction among all the large dams which
I had the chance to visit. All of us have however witnessed so many
cases in which the affected people lost their livelihoods, their cultural
identity, their human dignity and their hope due to large dams. The
WCD report confirms that affected communities have again and again
gone through traumatic experiences of involuntary eviction, and have
often ended in misery and marginalization. The document estimates,
conservatively, that large dams have displaced 40-80 million people.
They have also impoverished millions of other people, e.g. those living
in downstream areas, who are often not even officially recognized
as being project-affected.
Large dams have impounded an area of more than 400,000 square kilometers
or roughly ten times the size of my home country Switzerland. They
have thus disrupted most major river systems on the planet, and have
submerged some of the world's most diverse habitats and fertile farmlands.
Their impacts on the complex riverine ecosystems are not fully understood
yet, and can for the most part not be mitigated. As Alessandro Palmieri
from the World Bank documents in a presentation to this symposium,
300-600 new large dams would need to be built every year only to offset
the sedimentation of existing reservoirs. This fact alone demonstrates
that large dams are not a sustainable answer to the world's energy
and water problems.
Many ICOLD members argue that consumers of electricity and water are
an affected party of the large dams debate as well, and that NGOs
hinder economic development by trying to stop large dams. Indeed,
consumers are an affected party too, even if certainly to a lesser
degree than people who must sacrifice their livelihood for a large
dam. Yet is it really in the interest of consumers to invest scarce
resources in large dams, among all the water and energy options which
are available? The economic development impact of large dams is doubtful
at best. The WCD found that dam economics have never been evaluated
in a comprehensive, ex-post manner. And of all the large dams the
Berne Declaration has opposed, none was a least-cost option for providing
energy or water. Consumers in Brazil, China or Turkey, e.g., would
be better off if scarce resources were (or had been) invested in efficiency
gains or in the co-generation of power in heavy industries rather
than in the Itaipu, Three Gorges or Ilisu dams. Other projects - including
Bakun, Maheshwar, Manantali or Yacyreta - were and are outright economic
disasters.
The WCD report confirms that dams are often not planned and built
for economic reasons, but rather based on narrow, vested financial
and political interests. Poor societies which have pressing water
and energy needs cannot afford to squander public resources for vested
interests. Instead, a comprehensive and unbiased assessment of all
the needs and options as proposed by the WCD is an imperative of rational
planning especially in poor societies.
ICOLD President C.V.J. Varma argues that large dams should be built
not necessarily because they are a least-cost option, but because
they can more easily be implemented than efficiency increases or complex
demand-side management programs. I believe this argument confirms
that many dams are built not because they make economic sense, but
because they respond well to (and in fact, express) the unequal power
relations within a society. In India the pressing electricity gap
could be narrowed e.g. by increasing the efficiency of existing plants,
by abolishing the power subsidies to large land owners in order to
encourage an efficient use of irrigation pumps, or by building the
hugely controversial Tehri dam. For many decades, it has indeed been
easier to displace 100,000s of poor people for a large dam than to
touch on the interests of the powerful large landowners. The growing
resistance of NGOs and social movements is now changing this unequal
power relation. We may hope that this trend will encourage a more
democratic, balanced and comprehensive water and energy planning process
as it is promoted by the WCD report.
The WCD process
The creation of the World Commission on Dams was an expression of
the unresolved social, environmental and economic problems of large
dams, and of the strong resistance of social movements and NGO networks
against the construction of such dams. NGOs and movements such as
the International Rivers Network, the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the
Berne Declaration participated in the WCD process from the very beginning.
They hoped that the establishment of empirical evidence on large dams
in an independent and comprehensive process would make it more difficult
to defend such projects on the grounds of self-interest or ideology.
I personally participated in the WCD Forum and prepared several submissions
for the Commission, and the Berne Declaration supported the WCD financially.
While most NGOs generally supported the creation and the work of the
Commission, they still had some serious misgivings about the WCD process.
Even if the Commission made an effort to be more participatory than
any other such body, affected communities found it very difficult
to bring in their experiences. The lack of time and of translations
made participation difficult for anybody who was not familiar with
the professional jargon of experts. Conversely, consultants who had
made a carreer working for the dam industry had all the more influence
on the process. They wrote most of the WCD's input papers, thereby
judged the performance of their own profession, or were even paid
to evaluate their own projects. It is therefore not surprising that
the WCD report is not always as candid as it should be. Finally, NGOs
regretted that the Commission did not examine more ongoing projects.
It was prevented from looking at controversial ongoing projects by
the governments of China, India and Turkey - ironically the very governments
which are now the shrillest critiques of the WCD report.
In spite of such shortcomings, most NGOs have welcomed the WCD report
when it was published in November 2000. Even if it is a compromise
document, the report is the first independent and comprehensive review
of the impacts of large dams. The WCD's knowledge base is the richest
collection of comprehensive data on dams, and is based on the most
representative sample of case studies which exists. The report has
an added legitimacy because it was signed by all Commissioners, in
spite of their extremely different backgrounds.
It is encouraging to see the widespread support which the report has
already found. It was welcomed and is being used by international
organizations (including UNEP and WHO), governments (including Germany
and South Africa), multilateral development banks (such as ADB and
AfDB), companies (such as Skanska), and also some national committees
and prominent representatives of ICOLD. We already see how this support
is turning the WCD guidelines into soft international law. This will
not exclude the interpretation of guidelines within different national
contexts.
In contrast, the reaction of the World Bank to the report has been
a cause of great concern. The Bank applauded the WCD process as a
model case of multi-stakeholder dialogues as long as it could get
free public credit for it. Once the report was published, it chose
to side with the dam-building agencies of its borrowing countries,
thus supporting one single stakeholder in the conflict over large
dams. The Bank has made vague and non-committing declarations in public,
but has used every opportunity to discredit the report and block its
implementation behind the scenes. By doing so, it has annoyed many
NGOs, governments and international organizations, and has lost all
credibility as a convenor of future multi-stakeholder processes. Alessandro
Palmieri's assertion that "the World Bank role as honest broker
(...) is and will be more and more in demand" can only be interpreted
as wishful thinking.
Many representatives and members of ICOLD, including several national
committees, have also rejected the recommendations of the WCD report.
They have done so in public statements, and are certainly doing so
in their daily business practices. Right now, we can witness a scramble
of reputed international companies for contracts related to the Bakun
hydroelectric power project in Malaysia. There is no demand for this
project except for the greed of corrupt politicians and their business
cronies. By bidding for such contracts, companies will not do a service
to their public reputation. They indicate that they are not prepared
to learn from past mistakes or from the WCD report, and that they
rather try to profit from "business as usual" as long as
they still can.
The way forward
Many companies and national agencies are still grappling with their
response to the WCD report. I wish to call on these actors to formally
adopt the WCD guidelines, to follow them in their business practices,
and to support and participate in the follow-up processes on the national
and international levels. At this symposium, many ICOLD members have
expressed a strong confidence in the great benefits of large dams.
TRCOLD President Mümtaz Turfan e.g. claims that in Turkey, dams
are producing an agricultural and energy value of $ 64 billion each
year, or almost 40 % of the national GNP. With such confidence, it
is unclear to me why TRCOLD, or the dam industry more generally, is
not prepared to accept a comprehensive and balanced assessment of
needs and options, a process of gaining public acceptance by making
affected communities beneficiaries of their projects, or a responsibility
to help overcome the unresolved problems of existing dams, as stipulated
by the WCD report.
Personally, I am convinced that less and less large dams will be built
in the future. As President Varma has said, "change is inevitable",
or in the words of the symposium organizers, "the glamorous days
of unlimited barrage construction are definitely gone". Destructive
projects with hugely negative impacts on the poor and on the environment
are simply not acceptable anymore in today's world society. In his
presentation, Professor Asmal reminded us of the many bitter conflicts
over large dams which are still going on. If industry adopts the WCD
guidelines, if it engages in the follow-up process and in a dialogue
with dam critics, it will at least enjoy more predictability in its
operations, it will learn to early on screen out projects which would
certainly end up in political conflicts and legal disputes.
Thank you for having started this process of dialogue within the ICOLD
frameword, and for having invited me to address today's symposium.
(*) Peter Bosshard was with the Berne Declaration,
a Swiss advocacy group, from 1987 until March 2001. He presently advises
NGOs such as the International Rivers Network, Friends of the Earth/France,
and the Italian Reform the World Bank Campaign.
12.09.01: Hungary
designates two new RAMSAR sites on the Slovak border
The Bureau is very pleased to announce that the Government of Hungary
has designated two new Ramsar sites as of 14 August 2001, both contiguous
with the borders of the Slovak Republic and ecologically associated
with recently-designated Ramsar sites in that country. The "Baradla
Cave System and related wetlands" (2,075 ha; 48°28'N 020°30'E),
a National Park, MAB Biosphere Reserve, and World Heritage site, is
the Hungarian part of the astonishing 25 km long Baradla-Domica Cave
System and harbors a number of endemic little things, including the
shrimp Niphargus aggtelekas (left). "Ipoly Valley" is a
long, flat, and narrow valley containing oxbow lakes as well as shrub
and alder bogs, associated with Slovakia's Poiplie Ramsar site.
Source: European Water Management News
12.09.01:
Trilateral Ramsar platform Morava-Dyje floodplains
On 30 August 2001, the Ramsar authorities of Austria,
the Czech and Slovak Republics met at Zidlochovice Castle in the Czech
part of the Dyje floodplain to sign a Memorandum of Understanding
on Europe's third trilateral Ramsar Site (in addition to the Waddensea
with a common secretariat run jointly by the Netherlands, Germany
and Denmark; and the Prespa Park declared by Albania, Greece and the
FYR of Macedonia). Vice-Minister Josef Bele, of the Ministry of Environment
of the Czech Republic, welcomed Dr Jan Kadlecik, member of the Ramsar
Standing Committee and Director at the Slovak Ministry of Environment,
Dr Guenter Liebel, of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry, Environment and Water Management, their respective expert
delegations, NGO representatives, and Ramsar's Regional Coordinator
for Europe, Dr Tobias Salathé.
In the Memorandum, the three countries agreed to hold annual meetings
to coordinate their efforts to achieve trilateral status for the existing
Ramsar Sites along the border area of the Morava (March) and Dyje
(Thaya) floodplains and to develop its management according to the
"Guidelines for management planning for Ramsar Sites and other
wetlands". They consider that a trilateral platform, composed
of up to 15 experts, representing these ministries, water management
institutions, the national Ramsar committees and non-governmental
organizations, would form the most convenient way to further trilateral
cooperation. To this end, the three partners will make available and
exchange all relevant information and enhance their communication
efforts.
The Morava-Dyie floodplains harbour aquatic ecosystems that are typical
for European slow-flowing rivers with important fluctuations of water
level discharges, including game-abounding alluvial forests and wet
meadows. The existing, adjacent Ramsar Sites include the Danube-Morava
floodplains on the Austrian side, the floodplain of the lower Dyje
on the Czech side, and the Morava floodplains on the Slovak site,
covering together 55,000 ha. The floodplain benefits from European
Union-funded projects for conservation management, education and increase
of public awareness. The ministerial delegations underlined the important
role played by non-governmental organisations, notably Daphne (Slovakia),
Distelverein (Austria) and Veronica (Czechia), as well as the Danube-Carpathian
Programme of WWF International, promoting the concept and working
together to conserve a "nature without borders"
Source: European Water Management News
12.09.01: Long-awaited
report. RAMSAR mission report on Ebro delta now available
The long-awaited Ramsar Mission Report no. 43 on the
Delta del Ebro, Cataluña, España, is now available.
Led by the Ramsar Bureau's Dr Tobias Salathé and invited experts
Dr Patrick Dugan, consultant, and Dra María José Viñals
of the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia/SEHUMED, with the
participation of a number of Spanish experts, the mission visited
the site in September 2000 and the draft report and recommendations
have been under discussion for some time. At http://www.ramsar.org/ram_rpt_43s.htm
is the final report in Spanish, and at http://www.ramsar.org/ram_rpt_43e_summ.htm
is the English summary.
Source: European Water Management News
12.09.01:
No one's bathing in it yet, but the Seine River flowing through Paris
is less polluted and is attracting dozens of fish species, officials
say.
During the 1960s, the Seine was home to only about
10 types of fish because the river was badly polluted. Today, the
river counts 46 species, Gilbert Simon, director of the High Council
on Fishing, said at a Friday news conference.
The fish have returned to the Seine's waters because of programs to
clear up the pollution, he said.
Ammonium levels have dropped significantly during the past 10 years,
in part because of water purifying stations, the water agency of the
Seine-Normandy region said. However, the river still faces the problem
of high levels of nitrates and phosphates, he said.
12.09.01: International
River Drava Day September 28, 2001
Event: International Drava Day, Koprivnica, Croatia
Organiser : The Drava League
Partner: Municipality of town Koprivnica Date: September 28, 2001
Aim of the Drava Day: Promotion of the value and the sustainable development
of the Podravina and common platform for the region to vote for the
preservation of water.
Programme: a. Conference ( Town Hall, 10 a.m.): Main issues of the
conference are: potential for sustainable development of the Drava
region based on preservation and protection of environment and transboundary
cooperation as well as the current status of protection of the Drava
ecosystem. These issues will be approached by presentations of experts
in environmental protection, tourism, healthy food production and
discussed by representatives of local communities and counties along
the Drava river in Croatia and Hungary, NGOs, Ministries of tourism
and environment and Water, Forestry and Electricity Authorities.
b. Supporting events: ( Zrinski Square, Town Museum, Podravska Bank)
Conference topics will also be explored by children of Koprivnica
schools and kindergartens who will present thier view of the Drava
river by drawing the Drava in the Zrinski square ( 9 a. m. 2 p. m.).
An exhibition of photographs of the Drava landscape will be opened
in Podravska Bank ( Opaticka Street 7) and en exhibition of paintings
in Town Museum( Leandera Brozovica Square). Eco-clubs in the local
schools will work on their respective projects throughout the week.
c. Podravina bicycle route testing: Cyclists from Koprivnica and other
towns throughout the region are invited to test the planned Drava
cycling route which will be connected to the international cycling
route net connecting the Alps to the Danube. The testing ride will
involve Koprivnica-Molve-Hlebine section. Villages of Molve and Hlebine
will present their cultural, culinary and tourist attractions.
The organizers of the event hope and expect it to be a decisive step
in the positive orientation of the region towards a development strategy
which unites the overall protection of the natural heritage and traditional
cultural values to the sustainable development of the region's potential
based on the democratic right of the local community to determine
its own future.
Source: European Water Management News
