I N T E R V I E W

Below Stritih gives his thoughts on environmental issues in the region and a glimpse of his vision for the REC.

Q. What do you feel are the most pressing environmental concerns in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) today?
A. Central and Eastern Europe is a very diverse region, therefore the environmental concerns also vary from country to country and it is hard to generalize. I would say that the worst environmental hotspots that we remember from the late eighties have improved to some extent or are being tackled at the moment. From the point of view of human health, the main problem is urban air pollution in major cities, where the improvement brought about by cleaner fuels and filters has been offset by the increase in traffic. In the institutional sense, the environmental institutions in the countries - ministries, inspections, environmental funds, NGOs - are still far from stable functioning and are very vulnerable to political influences. On the positive side, a major concern is how to preserve the biological and landscape diversity in the region, which is richer than in the West today.

Q. With so much attention focused on economic and political issues in the region, how has the environment fared over the last five years? Have things improved much?
A. Over the last five years, the environment has come from being one of the top political issues to being a political orphan. We haven't seen the dramatic improvements based on dramatic Western assistance that everyone was expecting before 1993. But as politics started forgetting the environment, the environmental sector entered a process of deep structural change, involving in most countries new legislation, reorganized or new ministries and agencies, private consulting companies and suppliers, and a new generation of NGOs which are much more professional in their work and very target-oriented. This is a change that will take a longer time to show results in the actual environment, but results are starting to show.

Q. What role do you think the REC has played in improving the health of the environment and building civil society?
A. The Regional Environmental Center, as all international organizations and programs, had little direct impact on the environment in the region. It certainly has had an indirect impact, which would be very hard to measure. The REC helped NGOs to survive the "winter" of social restructuring and to shape up for the work in democratic societies which is very different from the work in previous systems. REC, by its mere presence, has helped maintain environmental issues on political agendas. And it assisted numerous environmental activists and experts from the CEE countries to receive and exchange vital information and experience that they need in their everyday work.

Q. Nongovernmental organizations are at the heart of the REC's activities. What trends do you see for public participation in environmental decisionmaking in the region? What role will business and industry play in environmental protection?
A. Most CEE countries have legal provisions for public access to environment information and participation in decisionmaking - usually Environmental Impact Assessment. From the legal point of view, many of the CEE countries are more advanced that several Western countries. The next step will be, when NGOs, and interested individuals start really using these legal provisions. This will probably still take some time, but may become quite dramatic when it happens.
Business and industry have a vital role in environmental protection. First thing is that they will have to clean up their pollution - from production and from products. The second thing is that they can provide many environmental services that public authorities will not be able to finance. Many businesses and industries realize their responsibility and are striving to use Environmental Management Systems and other methods of reducing their negative impact on the environment. But for most industries, to perform their duties, environmental regulations will have to be introduced and enforced.

Q. Most important, what are your short- and long-term visions for the Regional Environmental Center?
A. In the short term, my vision of the Center is at least to maintain the current position in the environmental community and the course of development. The Center will have to further develop its services to governments - (environmental policy, local and national environmental action plans, harmonization with European Union standards...) and to business (information exchange, capacity building...) while not forgetting about the NGOs. In this manner the Center should develop towards a center of excellence for environmental management in the CEE where all the different actors could meet, share experience and tap into high quality resources - human, information, and other.
In the longer-term, much will depend on how the Center will perform and on the changes in the CEE. But I believe that there will always be a niche there for a high quality professional organization, able to serve governments, business and the civil society.