Why Ecologists Are Closing the Danube to Ukraine
4,230 people would get jobs at enterprises located in the lower Danube areas if a navigable passage were made from the Danube to the Black Sea through the mouth of Bystre. That is the main idea of a project developed by experts with the Delta-Lotsman [delta pilot] state-run enterprise. It is aimed at both reviving economic activity in the region and improving the use of natural resources in those unique parts. The proposals must have been quite serious if they were recently considered by the Government Committee for Industrial Policy, Fuel and Energy, Environment, and the Emergencies. It is possible that this issue will be specifically addressed at a session of the Cabinet of Ministers.
The crux of the matter is that Ukraine still lacks its own waterway from the Danube to the Black Sea. Ukrainian ship owners have to pay in hard currency for using the passage that belongs to Romania. But if Ukraine built its own waterway, the nation’s budget alone would be replenished by up to UAH 12 million [$2.2 million] annually, and the local budget would receive an additional UAH 1.7 million [$200,000].
Nearby, in the Romanian part on the Danube delta, is the Sulyn Canal which brings our neighbors over $1 million annually from Ukrainian shipping companies alone. Experts insist that the use of the Romanian waterway damages Ukraine’s political and economic interests. Why does the problem remain unsolved?
As it turned out, the project is blocked by Ukrainian environmentalists. To explain where they disagree with the shipping companies, we will refer to the requirements set by international documents. For example, the Concept on Biosphere Reserves adopted in 1974 says that they are to be determined, preserved, developed, and supported by national governments. In 1995, another conceptual document was adopted, the Seville Strategy, aimed at the preservation of and abidance by all conditions for human life and the environment. Ukraine joined the drive in 2000, adopting a 15-year program for building a national ecological network. Its basic provision is facilitation of the rational use of biological resources in economic activities. The program says that man is an integral part of the biological variety and is unable to exist apart from it. In other words, neither national nor international laws rule out altogether economic activity on conserved territories, they only insist on harmonizing it with their inherent functions.
As far as the Danube itself is concerned, its major problem consists in the environmental cleanup of dry land and water areas, especially the river’s channels and branches, in improving the overall ecological condition of its ecosystems. This task could be solved within the frameworks of proposals suggested by Odesa scientists on the TACIS project for the Lower Danube lakes. According to Delta-Lotsman experts, Ukraine still has not taken any decisive step toward introducing European standards (within the Seville program). Little has been done to implement the national program. As a result, not a single Ukrainian biosphere reserve is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The question thus arises of whether Ukrainian reserves have any international status. Apparently not. The presidential decree On the Creation of the Danube Biosphere Reserve, in particular its clause relating to the procedure of the inclusion of the Danube Reserve into the international network of national reserves, awaits implementation. Also, when the reserve was created, the decree’s provision on the procedure of agreement with the interested local executive bodies was neglected. The Ecology Ministry did not divide the reserve into appropriate zones, thus failing to meet the mandatory condition observed by all countries when they create biosphere reserves: to preserve the traditional economic activities of the local population.
Moreover, the Delta-Lotsman experts claim that initially the Danube’s branches and inner wetlands were never part of the Danube reserve. This is proven by the carelessly drawn-up act of February 5, 1999 on the inventory of land to be deeded to the Danube Biosphere Reserve. However, without agreement with the authorities concerned, a total of 2,541 hectares of tributaries and internal wetlands were included in the reserve’s territory. As a result, its international status remains undefined. It is not on the UNESCO list which includes all biosphere reserves (under the Man and Biosphere program). On the other hand, this enables its administration to ignore the recommendations of the Seville Strategy and to harm the development of life and economic activity in the region. This is aimed against those who live in the Danube areas and know too well what it is like to be unemployed and have to fend with a host of other social problems.
