Campaign highlights

Successful policy work

During the last year, WWF's sustainable navigation campaign has gained attention of local to EU decision makers

• With help from external scientists, we developed a Position Paper in order to establish a common understanding of what sustainable navigation implies.

• In February 2006, WWF-DCP presented environmental concerns regarding the European Commission's proposal for development of inland navigation (NAIADES) at the European Parliament in Brussels and at the “International Conference on the Sustainable Development of the entire Danube Delta” in Odessa.

• About 100 people from 19 different NGOs in 9 countries participated and signed the ‘Resolution for a Living Danube and Navigation’, which also endorsed at the Ordinary Meeting (OM) of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River Basin (ICPDR) in December 2005. 

• We also produced a socio-economic study on how the EU's TENs-T plan for developing transportation is going to impact local and regional economic development. The study demonstrates who is going to win and who might lose after the implementation of the navigation plans.

• ICPDR requested our expertise for a Danube Basin-wide Strategic Environmental  Assessment.

• WWF is currently collaborating to set up an intergovernmental joint position for navigation development with Danube Commission, ICPDR, DG TREN, DG ENV, UNECE-ITC, ECMT, and Danube basin governments (for upper, middle and lower basin) and NGOs.

• After a joint intervention of WWF, the Danube Delta Institute and the REA in Galati, the Environmental Impact Assessment for one of the Romanian TEN-T projects was rejected.

Creating awareness

The support and participation of local people is crucial for achieving our goal of a multi-purpose, living river

• Ferenc Walks the Danube! With the successful WWF Hungary campaign, head of WWF-HU, walked the entire stretch of the Hungarian Danube. He addressed the environmental issues faces along the Danube, and collected signatures against TEN-T from local municipals.

• A public event parallel to Inland Navigation Summit held in Vienna in February 2006 included demonstrations in front conference hall, a press conference, and direct lobbying of transport decision-makers to stress the negative environmental impacts of inland navigation.

Coming up...

An international workshop on innovative technology and alternative solutions for sustainable inland navigation, organised by WWF in Bucharest in October 2006.