The Aarhus Centre - a model for environmental co-operation
Aarhus Centres - which aim to raise people's awareness of environmental issues and encourage their participation in decision-making - are springing up across the OSCE region. Particularly in the Caucasus and Central Asia, which are facing serious environmental challenges, these OSCE-supported centres promote dialogue among NGOs, the public and state officials. They are also reaching out to the youngest members of society with environmental education initiatives.
The Aarhus Convention
Since 1999, the OSCE has been promoting the Aarhus Convention throughout its participating States. Adopted on 25 June 1998, the Convention establishes a number of environment-related public rights and calls on authorities to promote them.
It outlines the following key rights:
- the right to receive environmental information held by public authorities,
- the right to participate from an early stage in environmental decision-making, and
- the right to challenge in court public decisions that have been made without respecting the first two rights or environmental law in general.
Environmental information centres
To promote the convention and its goals, several OSCE participating States in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe have, or plan to, set up Aarhus Centres. The centres are a meeting place for NGOs, state officials and the public for discussing problems and promoting activities on environmental protection and sustainability. They also provide easy access to environmental information, raise public awareness and provide legal advice.
Based on an agreement between the OSCE and the Ministry of Environment, the centres are run by a board of experts that ensures NGO representation.
Aarhus Centres are supported by the Office of the Co-ordinator for OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities and by OSCE field operations.
The Aarhus Centre in Yerevan
The centre in Yerevan was established in May 2002 with OSCE support, shortly after Armenia ratified the Convention. As the first such centre in a former Soviet country, it became a model for the region.
Nelly Voskanyan is an Advisor to the Ministry of Nature Protection and a member of the centre's board of experts: "This is one of the few places where state officials and NGOs can meet eye-to-eye to discuss environmental issues. Co-operation is developing and spreading to other areas."
A successful example is the national report on the Aarhus Convention - a draft of which was posted on the centre's website for public comments in order to incorporate them in the final draft. The centre's website, funded by Germany, regularly posts news updates.
The centre is also co-operating with the Constitutional Court on drafting a provision for the Constitution on sustainable development. Previous discussions in Parliament raised the issue back in October 2004. "As a result, several Parliamentarians are already aware that there needs to be a provision on sustainable development," says board member Aida Iskoyan, President of the Environmental Public Advocacy Centre and Head of the Department of Civil Procedure Law at the Yerevan State University.
Raising awareness
Another key activity of the centre in Yerevan is promoting public awareness through the media by hosting an annual competition for journalists. A special award is offered for coverage of remote regions. At last year's event, 11 journalists from across the country were recognized for their work covering environmental topics in TV and print media. Since the competition was launched, reporting on environmental topics has increased significantly.
Environmental education is an on-going project supported by the centre and carried out by Khazer, an NGO which has been producing thematic brochures to help educate schoolchildren. Positive feedback prompted the Netherlands to finance another five brochures.
"We would like to distribute more copies to the regions," says Iskoyan, "where the environmental situation is often more delicate and access to information more limited."
A strategic goal of the board of experts is to establish regional Aarhus Centres. Plans to set up the first one are underway in the province of Syunik, where a large study on social and economic development was carried out in 2004.
A regional approach
Although co-operation on a political level among the Caucasus countries is limited, the centre's outreach activities extend beyond Armenia's borders. "Because these issues are global, the centre can promote confidence-building and better co-operation between countries," says Voskanyan.
Iskoyan adds: "We have a lot of subscribers from Azerbaijan and Georgia on our information distribution lists."
Regional co-operation is important, as the large-scale Environmental and Security Initiative (ENVSEC), of which the OSCE is a founding partner, stresses the connection between the environment and security. Environmental security threats are often cross-border, requiring a co-operative approach to finding solutions.
In Baku, Azerbaijan's Aarhus Centre has been operating since September 2003, providing free access to an environmental library, the Internet and conference rooms. Some 100 visitors use the library every week and over 60 meetings and training courses were hosted by the centre in 2004.
The Ferghana Valley
Central Asia's Ferghana Valley is a hot spot for environmental problems because of its legacy of Soviet uranium mining and its contaminated waste, as well as a high risk of landslides and flooding. The valley stretches from Uzbekistan through Kyrgyzstan and into northern Tajikistan.
In Khujand, the only Tajik region contaminated by radioactive waste, a regional Aarhus Centre was opened in July 2005. The capital Dushanbe has had a centre since September 2003.
Kyrgyzstan opened the Ferghana Valley's second centre in December 2004 in Osh. It regularly hosts meetings relating to the ENVSEC's in-depth assessment of links between environment and security in the region. Plans for a third centre in the valley are underway.
The OSCE will continue to support the creation and activities of environmental information centres promoting the implementation of the Aarhus Convention. Centres in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are planned and discussions on the convention have been held in several other OSCE participating States.
Implementing the Aarhus Convention is one of the keys to finding co-ordinated solutions for environmental problems in the OSCE area, and the regional information centre networks are an indispensable part of this process.