D A N U B E
At the first meeting of the Danube Task Force in 1992, the Environmental Programme for the Danube River Basin launched a three-year work plan setting out short-term, strategic, environmental management and institutional development activities. Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Danube Grants Programme was part of the Environmental Programme, aimed at enhancing the institutional capacity of local groups and NGOs working on Danube River-related issues.
By 1995, the programme had provided grants of up to ECU 4,000 per year for 96 individual projects. Public awareness was raised through campaigns, information and participatory actions. Accurate data was collected, analysed and used to develop alternative strategies. Threatened areas were saved by NGO management projects and the status of ecologically important areas was revealed.
These activities highlighted the contribution that citizen associations can offer to solving Danube problems. Results clearly showed the success of NGOs and community groups in monitoring the environmental situation of the Danube, supplying information on its status to the general public and carrying out projects and research to manage parts of the basin's ecology. Bulgaria's Union for Nature Protection, for example, completed a project to monitor Danube fish diversity and Hungary's Green Action Society undertook to document illegal polluters. There were many others.
NGOs generated valuable, independent data to inform the public and press for changes to policy - an activity which should be included in any action plan for continuing and improving the sharing of water quality data.
The REC's manual on public participation summarises areas where information resources are a precondition for public participation. It states that we should "ensure that environmental databases are compatible with access to information rules" and that "NGOs collect and publicise data themselves, with the help of universities, students and specialists."
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe is currently preparing, in accordance with the Ministerial Declaration in Sofia in 1995, a Convention on Access to Environmental Information and Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making. The Convention will be ready for the next "Environment for Europe" Conference in Aarhus in June and it will apply to a right to information on water quality.
It is obvious that the involvement of NGOs and the general public in the sharing of data is not a luxury but a basic right. NGOs can help governments to improve the environmental situation of the Danube - provided they are given a fair place on the stage.