Save Utrish!
A big public campaign to prevent Russian government plans to destroy unique pristine nature in the Black Se coastal nature reserve Utrish is under way in Russia and Ukraine. Citizens and green activists from the coastal places protest against the construction of a big holiday complex in the Utrish Lagoons area, close to Anapa and Novorossisk. The local citizens have not been admitted to the public hearings of plans for what is going to be yet another special government residence in a place where nature should be preserved for all the people. Yet another controversial project is targeted by the campaigners, the construction of a road through the Utrish reserve and the destruction of large areas with Red Data Book tree species. The Environmental Watch of Northern Caucasus has been very active in the campaigning and challenged the construction projects in court. To support the appeal of the Russian President to save Utrish visit www.save-utrish.ru
Upgrade BSS
Upgrade Black Sea SCENE is a project aimed at developing the research infrastructure of marine environmental institutes and organisations from the Black Sea countries. It started in 2009 and is running until 2011 (www.blackseascene.net). The project is funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for research. Upgrade Black Sea SCENE builds upon the successful experience of its predecessor Black Sea SCENE, adding 19 new organisations to reach a total of 51 partners. Among the principal objectives of the project are: to implement common communication standards and adapted technologies to ensure the interoperability of data centres around the Black Sea; to network the existing and new Black Sea data centres, active in data collection, and provide integrated databases of standardised quality online; to realize and improve online access to in situ and remote sensing data, metadata and products; to adopt standardised methodologies for data quality checking to ensure the quality, compatibility and coherence of the data generated and issued by many different sources.
A substantial amount of data is already available through the Black Sea Common Data Index version 1 (CDI V1) data access service which contains currently more than 90 000 individual entries. In the coming months additional data centres from the network will further populate the CDI metadatabase and other institutes will be encouraged to participate. The data services are aimed to make Black Sea scientific information and data more easily accessible for scientists and the general public in order to be better informed and prepared to approach issues related to the sea.
Black Sea Day 2009
The regional NGO community and the wider public celebrated International Black Sea Day 2009 with various public awareness events. Despite the bad weather young people and green activists held the traditional clean ups of beaches along the coast. School exhibitions dedicated to the Black Sea environment and educational events were held as well. Mare Nostrum, Romania held a photography competition ‘The Black Sea through You Perspective’. The Black Sea NGO Network conducted its seventh media competition dedicated to International Black Sea Day.
Round table
Bulgarian and Romanian NGO activists, municipal officials, business and media representatives held a round table to discuss good practices in democratic governance. The event took place in Varna on 11—12 September 2009 and was hosted by the BSNN. It was part of the project “Initiative for Effective Citizens’ Control on Governments: Practical Aspects of Transparency, Accountability and Efficiency” supported by USAID and Bulgaria Fund of the BTD/GMF. An exchange of good practices was accomplished between experts of the two countries. NGO activists, volunteers and journalists have improved competence to review the cross-border aspects of good governance. The project has improved the visibility of good governance issue in media and society. More information about the project in English is available at www.bsnn.org/bulgariafund/. The information and publications in Bulgarian are at www.bsnn.org/bg/bulgariafund/. An informal network of experts in the two countries continues the exchange on good governance issues.
NGO Statement
The regional Black Sea NGO community with support from the ECBSea Project (www.ecbsea.org) prepared two political documents that were presented at the Ministerial Meeting/Diplomatic Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution in the Bulgarian capital Sofia on 17 April 2009.
The set of documents comprised an NGO Statement and Recommendations to the National Governments of the Contracting Parties to the Convention and to the national governments of the Black Sea basin countries. The two analytical items, adopted at a regional workshop in Kyiv in March 2009, were presented at the Conference by the coordinator of the Black Sea NGO Network. The statement voiced the concern of civil society and the regional public about the future of the Black Sea environment. It urged the Contracting Parties and the national governments of the Black Sea basin countries to enhance their cooperation for the protection of the environment and the development of the region.
The NGO statement clearly focused on the need to reform the Black Sea regulatory instruments and to ensure their effective enforcement on national and regional level, as well as the promotion of regional and cross-border cooperation. It put a special emphasis on the need to amend the Convention in order to allow the accession of regional economic integration organizations, like the EU.
Exchange of expertise
The European Seas Environmental Cooperation, a coalition of regional seas environmental networks, has invited the Black Sea NGO Network to be involved in the process of EU maritime policy. The representatives of Romania and Bulgaria received expert support about work on the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, the EU Maritime Policy review and the reform of the EU Common fisheries Policy. A meeting of the coalition was held on the European Maritime Day 21 May back to back with the stakeholder conference. The ESEC coalition includes also Coalition Clean Baltic, the Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development, and Seas at Risk.
