Alexander KAFFKA, editor-in-chief of CJ: Hello and welcome to Caucasian Journal video interviews!
Our guest today is Martin SKALSKÝ, chairman of the Czech non-governmental organization Arnika and leader of Centre for the Support of Citizens. He coordinates many projects in the countries of the former Soviet Union and Western Balkans in the field of environment protection.
Dear Martin, welcome to Caucasian Journal. At the launch of our Journal we have installed an air quality widget right on our main page. So, no wonder that environment protection and especially air quality is our top concern. Let me start with the alarming phrase from your website “Tbilisi is among Europe's top three most polluted metropolises”. How bad is it now, in simple words? And what are the other two cities?
The situation is quite serious, because in Tbilisi the level of the pollution is three times higher than the recommended safe levels. Also the report of WHO shows that this pollution is not only “today”, but it’s long-term pollution: People live in polluted environment for very many years, so it's affecting their health. WHO says that almost 40% of people in Tbilisi suffer from lung issues. They compare also the number of deaths and number of the people with serious diseases that are connected to air, and they conclude that every year almost 4,000 people in Georgia die in relation to serious air pollution. So it is definitely something that we should be concerned about.
It is necessary to mention that it’s difficult to understand how serious the situation is, because of a lack of valid and reliable data in Georgia - something that we are now trying to overcome in our activities, because the state monitoring of air pollution is not fully developed, and there are not many sources of adequate information to assess what is happening.
AK: Let me ask you why Arnika became interested in the South Caucasus, and how did your cooperation start?
MS: Personally I first visited Georgia in 2001, so I know the country since then. 2001 was also the year when my organization Arnika was established. Why we are interested to work in Georgia there are actually very many reasons. One of the most important ones is that Georgia belongs to the environmental and biodiversity “hotspots”: Its amount of untouched nature and variety of landscapes and biodiversity is unique in whole Europe. There are basically only two regions that are similar in whole Europe, and they are Western Balkans and Caucasus. So these areas are extremely valuable concerning the nature conservation and nature values. The environmental organizations are very interested to support efforts to protect and preserve this heritage that you have, because it's really something that you cannot see, for example, in Central Europe - there's nothing comparable.
That's one aspect. The second, which is also important to mention, is that Georgia for decades is somehow balancing the protection of its valuable nature, and social and economic challenges of development. So there is a big risk that some values might be lost because of economic projects.
This is what we
have seen in many EU countries, and it is very important now to find different
ways of development for Georgia to avoid mistakes and damage of those values.
That's another
reason. And the third one is that though Czechoslovakia was not part of the
Soviet Union, we were under its strong influence, so some of the problems that you
are facing are similar, as we have quite long history similar with Georgia. We
also have experience of country transformation - from post-Soviet to current
version of Czech Republic. So this is
the story that we would like to share, and we would like to tell what our good
experiences are, and experiences that we would not suggest repeating.
AK: Can you share some of the brightest impressions or episodes
from your experience in Georgia or Armenia?
MS: Since my first visit
in 2001 till nowadays I'm always impressed by extreme hospitality and welcoming
attitude of Georgians, especially when I go to any rural area. That's related also to very nice cuisine and traditions
that are preserved. So for me working in Georgia is always positive and nice
experience, because the people are extremely friendly.
AK: May I ask you about your local partners: What can be
improved in the local organizations, from your view point? What are the
know-hows that Arnika can contribute through your cooperation activities?
MS: What we see as a
very big benefit of them is how they work with the public, and how they work
with the information. They are able to influence very large segment of Georgian
society. Because they are young, they are not afraid of sensitive topics or
some controversial campaigns, and this is something that we really like. We think
that they need more stable financial support, which we are now trying to
provide - because if an organization is young there is always a risk that the
resources will end up, and they will not be able to continue. They need to have
more stable structure to be able to continue their activism.
The other thing that
we are bringing is technical knowledge. Our organization is not young anymore,
we have a lot of expertise and experience with previous projects; we have many
experts inside, and we also work with external experts - from several
universities in Czech Republic, and we also have good relationships with the
state authorities in the Czech Republic. All these connections, experts, and some of
the experience is something that we would like to transfer to our partner
organizations, so they can work more professionally.
Because activism
is most important anyway, but what is also very important is expertise and arguments
based on facts, and that is something that we consider absolutely necessary for
any public campaign.
AK: Now perhaps can we talk about the concrete projects that you
have implemented, or will be developing in the future?
MS: We are now working
only for the second year in Georgia, so we are very new concerning projects. We
were interested in Georgia for a long time, but we didn't really have activities
as such in the country.
What we started now
to develop together with “My City Kills” is the citizen monitoring of air
pollution. As I mentioned at the
beginning of our interview, there's a lack of reliable data for Georgia. Now we are manufacturing relatively cheap devices
that can measure the air quality, and we are creating a network of volunteers
who will participate in the monitoring network. In a few years there will be
hopefully enough people interested to join, and enough devices to measure, so we
will have much more clear picture of situation in the country.
The project is
quite unique, because that's the first project of “Citizen Science” in Georgia.
The approach of building a network of volunteers is not quite unique, but it’s
a little bit innovative. We are not trying to build a structure that will need huge
financing in the future, so everything is volunteer-based. At the end of 2025
we will see some result, hopefully, and then we will decide what to do next.
AK: I wish you a lot of good luck with this. We have seen your data
on Georgia’s air pollution as seen from the space, which is very impressive.
But even more important is the follow-up activity. Is there something that must
be done to make your findings more widely known and better understood? How to
ensure that the countermeasures would be adequate – and what about the Czech
experience in this regard?
MS: Yes, this is actually
crucial, how to make sure that something will happen. It is also our question, and we are still not
sure about the answer. But the most important as a first step is the knowledge
and access to information. So, the fact that we are now talking with each other
today is very important, because you as a journalist are helping us to
distribute information - to general people, and to authorities, municipalities,
decision-makers. That's the first step,
and we need to focus on this first step a lot, because now still many people in Georgia are not fully aware of the situation, and many decision-makers
are not fully aware.
After that there's
very important role of the civil society and NGOs active in the field of environmental
protection, because those actors usually initiate the changes. So we would like
to support some more civil organizations this year in other cities. “My City
Kills” campaigns work mainly in Tbilisi, but as we see from our recent report,
there is very concerning situation also in Rustavi, Kaspi, and other places in Georgia.
Now we would like to focus more on these locations to support active civil society
organizations that are there.
Then we believe
that slowly some municipalities will start joining, because those are also the actors
that are on the low level, and are in daily touch with the situation. In the
future it will be necessary to affect the political decisions, but this is the
most difficult, as Georgia is lacking some regulations of the industries, and
other legal and political tools to change the situation.
AK: How can you compare the environmental situation in Georgia
or Armenia with other countries, in Europe or elsewhere, so we could see our
situation in a global context?
MS: Now actually
European Union is one of the leaders of nature conservation and protection of
environment. But if we look at the past, then EU countries mainly destroyed their
nature because of industrialization. We are now in EU protecting what we still
have, but most of what we had before is already destroyed. So Georgia now has a
unique chance not to repeat the same mistakes and somehow find more sustainable
solutions.
What is also the experience
of the Czech Republic in particular is that Czechoslovakia was an industrial
country during last 200 years or even longer, and this caused a lot of problems.
At the end of communism in 1980-90s Czechoslovakia was one of the most polluted
countries in whole Europe, and our levels of air pollution were absolutely
extreme. The first demonstrations in Czechoslovakia
were not demanding democracy or freedom, but clean air. Nowadays - 30 years
later - we still have industries but they are not polluting that much because the
technologies changed. Georgia should also not focus on industries too much. You
should keep focus on nature, tourism, services, some smart technologies.
AK: Would you like to mention any of your organization’s
achievements in other countries, or at home in Czechia?
MS: Relatively recently we managed, in cooperation with a local organization in Alaverdi (Armenia), to close down the factory that was in Alaverdi. There was also a metallurgical plant that was heavily polluting the town. We see it as a good improvement, because the factory was not able to modernize, so it was better to close it down. Also Alaverdi is a place with amazing nature around, and there are very old monasteries that are now not much visited, because the town was known as a polluted place.
AK: Let me ask you about the relations with the government agencies. Do you find the state bodies helpful and friendly to the public-initiated projects in our countries? Can you comment on your experience of interacting with the official environment protection agencies?
MS: This is not a very
positive experience. We invited your Ministry
of Environment to the project,
because we expected that they would be
interested in getting new information
about air pollution, and we also offered
them bringing experts from the Czech institutions to Georgia, and making some workshops, trainings or discussions with the Georgian state officials, to exchange experience and maybe bring some knowledge from
the Czech governmental organizations to Georgia.
But they were not interested in anything,
in any cooperation, and they also didn't want our citizen monitoring to start. They
were even asking our donors to cancel the project, because they were saying that
it is illegal for the civil society organizations to do air pollution monitoring,
because it's a duty of the state organizations. We were very surprised, because
we expected that our offer of experts, resources and knowledge can be useful
for your Ministry.
Unfortunately we
are not able to find some understanding till nowadays. Even after several
reports that we published, the governmental structures of Georgia are not interested
at all. So we hope - for us it's also something that we would like to see -
more interaction and more friendly communication.
We are criticizing
government a little bit - it is true that the government is not doing enough - but
it is also our role as NGO. At the same time we are offering cooperation, experience
and knowledge from the Czech Republic. We
will see what will happen next.
We have quite positive communication with some of the members of the parliament, and at lower levels of the state administration, with municipalities and some state organizations, so it's not entirely negative experience. But at the high level of the ministry, unfortunately, we still cannot find positive communication.
AK: Is such a problem unique to Georgia, or you had similar negative
experiences with governmental agencies in other countries, or in Czech
Republic?
MS: The situation in each
country is unique, so in some cases we have more friendly communication with the
governments, in some countries not. It's also very much affected by elections,
and which political parties are currently at the power. For example at the
beginning of the Czech Republic in '90s there was a very strong will to deal
with environmental legislation and environmental concerns. It was basically one
of the priorities of our new government. Now it's a little bit different, and
in past years environment was not a priority at all.
AK: I have a very concrete question. Thanks to your activities many air quality monitors have been installed in Georgia, and many people – including myself – would like to install them, too. But what else can the people do, in practice? What actions must the citizens in Georgia take to ensure the environment is in fact improved?
MS: We are very happy that people are interested in installation of the citizen science pollution monitoring stations. Our production capacity is not very big We finished installation of 30 stations last year, and we expect to have maybe 30 more this year. Now we have quite a lot of people who are interested to join the network - which is amazing. Now the stations are mainly installed in Tbilisi, some in Rustavi and Kaspi, but we need to expand the network to cover whole Georgia.
The necessary next step is that people must be active and demand some changes. It's also important to support some local NGOs, or maybe establish your own NGO. It is also important to mention that we all need a good political representation. Georgia will have elections soon, and if we will not help those who have some environmental focus, then we will have politicians with completely different agenda. So this is really crucial, it can change many things if you will have better political representation.
Maybe the last thing I would like to mention is that people should also think about their personal impact on nature and environment – to avoid buying things of plastic, or driving a car. Sometimes we can just implement small changes in our lives that will help to save our planet for the future generations, and it's also very important.
AK: Thank you very much, and we wish you a lot of success in this very important work. Of course if there is anything that we can do for you as Caucasian Journal please contact us - we would be very happy to assist. Again thank you very much!
MS: Thank you, it was a pleasure on my side. See you soon again.
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