EkoMrezaBiH, the environmental NGO network, organized signing of the petition for the occasion of the World Environmental Day, the 5th June.
We are satisfied with the number of signatures. This is an important step towards proper representation of the civil society with significant participation and influence in decision making process, policy and environmental management in B&H? ? said Viktor Bjelic, project manager of EkoMrezaBiH.
By signing the petition the citizens of Banjaluka, Sarajevo, Livno, Tuzla, Jablanica, Mostar and Zenica expressed their wish to participate in environmental decision-making process, to have access to environmental information and to access justice if these rights are not respected. Continue reading →

Representatives of Danube biosphere reserve and 3 other organizations with sadness had to document death of tern colonies ? Sandwich tern (Sterna sandvicensis) and common tern (Sterna hirundo) ? that nested at the Ptichya (the Bird) spit near the Bystroe estuary.

On July 16 joint group recorded the following:
On the location of two large Sanwich tern colonies (previously recorded 950 and 430 nests at June 28) and one common tern colony ( 120 nests recorded at the same date) remains of many hundreds of tern eggs were found. The egg damage shows that no chicken appeared. The chicken were expected to come out of the eggs around July 20. Continue reading →

Non-timber forest products – such as berries, mushrooms, and herbal medicines – are among the most important forest resources for local communities around the world, even though the actual ‘products’ may vary from place to place.

Interest in these products has grown enormously in recent years, and NTFPs are increasingly viewed as a key part of local sustainable livelihood strategies. However, better information on marketing opportunities, equipment and technologies and sustainable harvesting practices is needed to ensure the sector’s sustainability. IUCN has been working with local communities in Far-Eastern Russia on developing sustainable NTFP-related businesses since 1998, and the NTPF fair is expected to boost similar initiatives across the country and beyond.

“Oxfam strongly urges the Board of the World Bank to accept the recommendation to only support projects that have the broad acceptance of affected communities.                                                                                                                

However we want to see more explicit detail about how this would be carried out in practice.”                                     

The Bank’s resistance to pulling out of investing in extractive projects in conflict zones is not acceptable and we urge them to reconsider.

Its failure to follow the recommendation to phase out of coal and oil projects was widely expected and completely inadequate.”

The conduct of the review itself was unimpressive. The idea of placing ultimate power in the hands of an “eminent person” – in this case Emil Salim, former Indonesian environment minister under the dictatorial President Suharto – is flawed. It encourages damaging battles for that person’s ear rather than constructive consensus among different views. Mr. Salim’s habit of making sweeping criticisms of the bank well beyond his brief hurt the credibility of his conclusions. Continue reading →

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday 26th June 2004

Environment and human rights groups have called for suspension of construction on major BP oil pipeline, following new evidence published in today’s Independent of major technical failures on the project.

Four senior pipeline experts who worked on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in Turkey have revealed a catalogue of incompetence, cost-cutting and shoddy workmanship, which raises major questions about the safety of the pipeline. Continue reading →

The School for Leaders Association kindly invites you to participate in the Young Leaders Forum where young people from Central and Eastern Europe will be able to exchange ideas about the current situation in the region and exchange their views and opinions. The Young Leaders Forum is an event accompanying the Economic Forum in Krynica. Young representatives both from the EU as well as from neighbouring East European countries will participate in the Forum. Continue reading →

The grants will be awarded exclusively to rural NGOs, which serve the impoverished populations. The size of a grant varies between 3,000 and 15,000 dollars, and the maximum duration of implementation is one year, programme coordinator Sergiu Buruiana told reporters. The fourth phase is the most attractive for potential beneficiaries, as SDC has decided to finance NGOs which have received Swiss assistance in the previous programmes. Continue reading →

THREATENED WEBSITE: ROSIA MONTANA.ORG, ROMANIA
The Rosia Montana Gold Corporation is taking Alburnus Maior, a local non-profit organisation, to court to stop them from publishing the [url=http://www.rosiamontana.org]www.rosiamontana.org[/url] website, informs APC member in Romania, StrawberryNet. Continue reading →