Floods and sustainable development in Czech Republic
"The World Summit on Sustainable Development has concluded successfully", reads a headline on the summit's official website. The Johannesburg summit took place shortly after the devastating floods hit the Czech Republic in mid-August. While the conference received a lot of attention from news organisations around the world, with the Czech media still focused on the aftermath of the floods, the World Summit went largely unnoticed in the Czech Republic, to the great disappointment of the Czech delegation.
One member of the delegation was Zuzana Drhova, the head of the Green Circle - an umbrella organisation coordinating nineteen NGOs from all over the Czech Republic. When the Green Circle called a news conference to sum up the outcomes of the Johannesburg summit one month later, only one journalist turned up. Ms Drhova explains why in her opinion the media takes such a low interest in the matter.
"There were some commentaries and articles in the newspapers during the summit but after that there were very few responses to this event. For instance, today, the interest of the media is very very low. I think that the reason is that to Czech journalists this seems very general and that the impact on the lives of Czech people is also low."
"We need to discuss how we shall treat our landscape from now on. None of us could have guessed that such a short time after the 1997 floods in Moravia, another wave would hit the Czech Republic in 2002. We should not forget that a natural landscape or a landscape carefully tended by men, such as the south Bohemian region of Trebon or around the confluence of the Morava and the Dyje in Moravia, was able to withhold a great amount of water and protect villages from flooding."
The August floods caused substantial damage in many spheres of life: they closed factories, ruined human dwellings, swept away roads, spoilt crops but also damaged the environment. Minister Libor Ambrozek.
People should be more sensitive in managing the landscape and respect its natural cycles and development, nature preservationists say. Especially during the communist regime, people interfered with the landscape's natural functions and now, when a natural disaster hits, we face the consequences of the insensitive interventions. Minister Ambrozek explains.
"It's not only the way to manage the landscape, the share of arable land which in the Czech Republic is one the highest in Europe, it's also about the extent of regulation of rivers which is as well one of the highest in Europe. Our creeks are regulated all the way to the hills, below the mountains and of course, in case of lower precipitation it causes an accelerated flow of water through the landscape. It is a reminder that we must not underestimate the issue of landscape management, it is foolish to think that if we build barriers around towns, we will be safe."
Instead of trying to conquer nature, people have realised they should try to accommodate human activities to nature's cycles. Instead of raising barriers and regulating rivers, it is necessary to repair the damage and help the landscape return as close to its original shape as possible.
"We cannot rely on our technical skills, building of higher and higher barriers and perfect dams. If we really want to minimise damage inflicted by floods, we need to respect rivers as a phenomenon, to provide them some space - precisely the way they are doing it now in Germany and Austria - and to renew the natural functions of the landscape so it can fulfil its water withholding function."
In cooperation with other countries in the region these efforts could be more successful. And just like Zuzana Drhova from the NGO Green Circle points out, broader, that is global coordination, would be even more efficient.
"I think that in the Czech Republic we generally think very little about our role on the globe as a whole. We think about our life here in Central Europe, maybe about our role in the framework of the EU, but we don't think about the role of the Czech Republic and this region in the whole of the globe. I think it's a thing of education, our foreign policy for instance, we need to talk more about Czech development assistance for instance, that we are a rich country and we need to think about the impact of our life on the poorer countries. And this is the way, I think, we need to go."
The Czech Republic itself still needs assistance from wealthier countries. The European Union offers financial aid for various environmental projects in the candidate countries, including the Czech Republic. Radka Bucilova is the head of the State Environmental Fund of the Czech Republic.
"In most cases the European Union ISPA fund can cover up to 75 percent of the cost of any given environmental project. The remaining 25 percent is up to the individual town, regions and the State Environmental Fund. However good our project are, if we don't have enough money to co-finance them, it would be difficult to push them through. To have enough funds to be able to co-finance the projects is one of the conditions of the European Union."
This is one example of cooperation crossing national borders. What the Czech participants in the Johannesburg Summit would like to see is more cooperation going beyond the borders of continents. In the matter of environmental protection and sustainable development, we should be broader-minded, as Environment Minister Libor Ambrozek points out.
"We cannot shut ourselves away in the cities and only try to improve the environment there, although that is important as well, because we live in this country as a whole and our duty as a good owner is to renew the face of the Earth, as the biblical saying goes."
And just like we cannot shut ourselves away in the cities, we shouldn't neglect international cooperation in the issue of sustainable development, experts say. And who knows, if we treat our environment in a more sustainable manner, next time when a flood hits, its consequences don't have to be as dramatic.
