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Since the start
of the war in Yugoslavia concerns have been raised by various groups and
individuals on the effect of the bombing on the environment both in Yugoslavia
and its neighbouring countries. Frane Maroevic looks at the likely problems
raised by this issue.
Last week at the
London conference of the World Health Organisation, Klaus Topfer, director
of the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP announced the creation
of a special task force which will analyse the issue of environmental
damage caused by the war in Yugoslavia.
Klaus Topfer
Given the gravity of potential environmental consequences of the conflict
and NATO bombing in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the regional ramifications
a more detailed assessment of the full extent of the environmental impact
is urgently required. To implement this recommendation I decided to upgrade
the Balkan task force and I ask Pekka Haavisto the former minister for
environment and economic co-operation of Finland until some weeks before
to join UNEP and to be responsible for the work of this task force.
Pekka Haavisto
The purpose of this task force is to asses the environmental consequences
of the conflict, environmental damage of the area, We don't know too much
about the current situation.
The task force is
not expected to complete its analysis of the situation until October of
this year. Some environmental organisations, like the Regional Environmental
Centre for Central and Eastern Europe have been closely following the
situation through their offices in all of the countries concerned. Its
executive director is Jernej Stritih.
Jernej Stritih
There are several types of damage, some of them are short term, some of
them are longer term, and of course a lot of attention was given to the
depleted Uranium missiles from what we hear there is not much confirmation
from measurements that radiation levels would be seriously increased over
the region. What is perhaps more important is the destruction of industrial
facilities, especially some of the refineries and chemical plants in Yugoslavia.
There a lot of pollution has either gone into the air and into the rivers,
especially into the Danube.
The pollution of
the river Danube has caused grave concern in the countries that it flows
through. It is not just a major waterway, but in Bulgaria and Romania
it provides some of the drinking water and as the Policy and Campaigns
director for the independent environmental pressure group Friends of the
Earth, Tony Juniper explains - it needs protection for many other reasons.
Tony Juniper
The Danube delta is one of the finest wetlands in Europe, it's a world
heritage site, it's got one of the biggest reed beds in the world, enormously
important for migratory birds. That place is now under threat because
of the pollution travelling downstream in the Danube. We don't know what
that pollution is, I don't think the European Union knows what it is,
and I would be surprised if the people who rely on fishing in the Danube
Delta and the Black Sea have been told about the public health hazard
they will be facing. [Serbian people have been told not to fish in the
Danube. The chemical pollution is deadly, it could kill people, that pollution
is going downstream towards the Black Sea and the Danube delta where there
are very important fisheries. We don't know if the people down there have
even been told to watch out for pollution let alone being told what that
pollution is].
Philip Rushbrook,
who was a member of the World Health Organisation task force for Bosnia
explains how the environmental damage is assessed, before you even visit
a country.
Philip Rushbrook
If you look at the types of targets that were hit they really group into
four main categories. You have the military sites where the main chemicals
there are related to the military use, explosives and military materials.
The second target were engineering plants and facilities. The third were
chemical and petro-chemical plants, and the fourth, later on were infrastructure,
particularly power-plants and power distribution. From those four groups
of industries one can come up with an initial list of the types of chemicals
or residues that you would expect to find, so you can do some pre-screening
if you like or some homework before you go on the types of contamination
you can expect to see.
The authorities in
Yugoslavia have been doing their own monitoring of the environmental damage
resulting from NATO bombing. Slobodan Zelenovic, is Belgrade's municipal
secretary for the protection of the environment.
Slobodan Zelenovic
We're conducting daily surveys and gathering data on Pancevo. In the air
around the refinery and other facilities of the chemical products industry
the level of toxic gases and substances has increased. Some of them have
to be monitored closely for a long period of time in order to establish
any long term consequences, not only to the area of Belgrade but beyond,
even to Romania and Bulgaria, because the cloud of toxic fumes, which
was travelling at a high atmospheric level, reached these countries.
In neighbouring Macedonia
the government is very concerned about the possible consequences of an
increase in radioactivity, Dragan Daniloski is Macedonian Minister for
health.
Dragan Daniloski
It is a fact that our measurements show an increase in the level of radioactivity
in our country, we cannot state it's a consequence, a repercussion of
any war activities. We just registered that the level of alpha radioactivity
has increased.
But there are some
problems in precisely determining the level of radiation as the Macedonian
Deputy Minister for Environment, Marijan Dodovski explains
Marjan Dodovski
We do not have sophisticated monitoring in all of these countries also
we do not have precise data about the possible chemical capacities in
Yugoslavia and bombing of these capacities. It is real that all of these
countries construct some kind of common monitoring with changing of information
and this radioactivity level especially alpha radioactivity and concentration
of depleted Uranium was not needed to be measured in the previous period
so we do not have the possibility to make comparison between the two periods.
The biggest concern
raised by the Non Governmental Organisations and the public is about the
environmental consequences connected to the depleted Uranium issue. Head
of the UNEP Balkans Task force, Pekka Haavisto.
Pekka Haavisto
This is a very brief picture that I have got after discussing with I hope
the best specialists I have found on this issue. On the depleted Uranium
issue there likely is no direct immediate consequences or many of the
scientists say that OK, if there are long term, medium or long term consequences
we have to work with the scientifically research work on this, but it's
likely that immediate, very serious consequences doesn't exist, at least
at that extent as in some of the information which has been around is
saying.
The main problem
for governments of the countries neighbouring Yugoslavia is availability
of the sophisticated equipment required for establishing precise level
of radiation and other types of polution. Marjan Dodovski.
Marjan Dodovski
So we did ask for provision of some equipment we did have a lot of promises
but until now we did not set up online monitoring for depleted Uranium
we are doing this analysis with other kind of techniques and the data
is at this moment analysed. So we do not have proof about the increasing
of the contamination with the depleted uranium and other possible chemicals
in the surroundings of the bombing area.
In Albania the government
is less concerned with the depleted Uranium issue, and much more concerned
by the effect of the large influx of refugees. Maxim Deliana is the Chairman
of the National Environmental Agency - effectively the Albanian Minister
for Environment.
Maxim Deliana
In Albania we don't have these problems because the war was not in Albania
and I think that the most important damage is the damage to environment,
not from bombarding but from refugees and the impacts on health and water,
drinking water, rivers but not from bombarding
Jernej Stritih of
the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe elaborates
Jernej Stritih
Another environmental effect is the problems in sanitation and basic water
supply for the population, here also probably the biggest suffering was
the refugee population, the people who left Kosovo. They were exposed
to shortage of water and other environmental services. The fact that there
were so many refugees in Albania and Macedonia has caused some overburdening
of the environmental infrastructure.
As Maxim Deliana
explains, Albania has a very large problem
Maxim Deliana
This moment in Albania there are 400,000 refuges, it's normal that when
this population is in this camp of refugees to damage the environment,
to produce impacts and the Albanian government is very interested in do
do some projects on this impacts on the environment in Albania. For example
we have impacts in the camps for refugees in waste management in the water
supplies and we have need for some equipment in this areas for monitoring
of soil in this area, because of all this movement of population has damaged
the environment of Albania.
The war in Bosnia
and Hercegovina ended three years ago, but it is still trying to cope
with the damage. Bozo Ljubic is the Bosnian Minister for Health.
Prof.Bozo Ljubic
First of all I would say that Bosnia and Herzegovina is primarily polluted
with land mines. This pollution daily takes it toll in lives and injuries,
secondly in Bosnia and Hercegovina throughout the war there were imports
of large quantities of materials, primarily medicines, which were past
their sell-by date at the time they were imported, but because of ineffective
control we couldn't prevent this. Now the problem is how to dispose and
destroy these medicines, as it is a very expensive procedure.
Bosnia also has experience
of some of the problems that Yugoslavia is now facing.
Prof.Bozo Ljubic
Many waterways are polluted by the destruction of infrastructure during
the war, water supply, which was not originally at Western European standards
was further damaged during the war, this caused various illnesses and
infections that are caused by polluted water. Today the situation is better,
but still a large number of the population does not have controlled and
tested drinking water. Another aspect is refuse, very few places in BiH
have resolved this problem satisfactorily.
Croatia also suffered
a war on its territory, but as Zeljko Reiner, Croatia's Minister for Health
explains, it escaped some of the more dramatic environmental consequences
Zeljko Reiner
Fortunately, despite the fact that Croatia was really a victim of Serbian
aggression, of Yugoslav aggression the nature of this war as well as the
technological possibilities of the Yugoslav side which were far behind
those of NATO didn't cause any substantial damaging effects on the environment
so I think it would be very difficult to compare these two situations
because there were no rockets, no cruise missiles. Fortunately I have
to say also there was no substantial bombing of oil refineries of chemical
and fertiliser factories as it happened in Serbia, this is the reason
why we did not face any such problems.
Some governments
in the region have been accused of exaggerating the problems caused by
this war, to cover up the problems that existed before. Pekka Havisto
is prepared to look to the situation objectively.
Pekka Havisto
I got a picture that not only due to the conflict, not only due to this
crisis they need actually upgrading of this kind of measuring equipment
so there is urgent need despite this conflict, crisis. But this upgrading
will also help in the future with all other problems. There have been
oils spills always in the Danube, not only during this kind of conflict,
this is also something that we have to take into account, or when we speak
about waste water treatment plants, there is a question that I know in
Belgrade there is some problems after the conflict, but you can put the
question - what was the situation before the conflict, how well it functioned,
Such widespread destruction
can also be an opportunity to start afresh. As Jernej Stritih points out
the industry that was destroyed was not very ecological in the first place.
Jernej Stritih
What can be learnt out of this is that after this war one shouldn't go
there and say we want to restore everything the way it was before. A destruction
like this actually provides an opportunity to bring in new technologies,
better ways of doing things, more modern industry which actually will
pollute less than the obsolete industry which was destroyed during the
war. I mean it may be a bit cynical but it can be also in a way a solution
that gives a better perspective for the population for the future, that
the country can leapfrog some of the things in the aftermath.
After all in many
parts of Western Europe recent years have seen former polluted mining
and industrial regions transformed into computer parks and a venue for
tourists, providing a clean and ecologically sound alternative
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