The municipality of Chisinau does not have important normative documents regulating environmental issues, said the head of the Urban Ecologist Movement Vladimir Garaba. In a news conference at IPN, he stated that Chisinau is practically the only city in Europe that does not have a local environment plan.
According to Garaba, there are only two strategic documents, such as the General Urbanistic Plan that was adopted in 2007 and the Municipal Waste Management Program. “Both of the documents are outdated and should be modernized. We will ask the Municipal Council to review the existing documents and make radical changes to them,” he stated.
“The Chisinau City Hall has worked out several more documents. Among them is the Ecological Security Strategy, which is a specific document about natural disasters, but this aroused interest neither when it was drafted nor now.”
Vladimir Garaba said that another draft document is the Urban Transport Development Plan, which has stayed in the drawers of public servants for four years. “The impact of this document was assessed. I don’t know what happened to it afterward, but the city needs it, given the acute environmental problems faced in Chisinau,” he stated.
The local environment plan drafted in 2004, which was endorsed by the Ministry of Environment, wasn’t approved by the municipality. This is very old and needs to be replaced. The municipal plan on health in relation to the environment, worked out by the Public Health Center, but got stuck in the municipal divisions.
“I analyzed the situation and compared it with the situation in other European cities and also studied the environmental trends in the world and ascertained that the following documents must be drawn up in the near future: the local environment plan, which should be thought up in 2016; the green areas management strategy; the updated waste management plan; the climate change adjustment plan, which is an acute necessity; the water safety plan for ensuring high quality drinking water; the Byk River protection program and the plan of action on environment and health in relation to transport,” stated Garaba.
According to him, these documents can be worked out and there are the necessary funds for this. “Such donors as the UNDP, EBRD and the National and Municipal Ecological Funds are ready to allocate money for such documents. Only will on the part of the authorities is needed. The NGOs could take part in the constitution of a council that would monitor the process of drafting and implementing the necessary normative documents,” said the head of the Urban Ecologist Movement.
