It’s time to conserve water resources and rethink our attitude towards water, urge the members of the Working Group on the Dniester river basin Planning and Management of the Dniester Commission (Moldovan side) in connection with World Water Day that is celebrated on March 22. In a news conference at IPN, Ana Jeleapov, the Working Group’s head, said the theme for World Water Day 2021 is “Valuing Water”.

In the context of celebration of this important day, Ana Jeleapov said they intend to make an evaluation of the activities that have been done so far, “the problems we face, the vulnerabilities we are exposed to and the solutions we can propose and implement in order to improve our water resources. The problems related to water are many, they are complex, but the continuous ignorance from society, from everyone, leads to serious consequences for both the environment and human civilization.”

Ana Jeleapov said that even if water occupies more than 70% of the planet surface, only 2.5% of the existing water volume is fresh. “For the Republic of Moldova, water resources are represented by surface waters: rivers and reservoirs as well as by groundwater. The most important volumes of water are provided by the Dniester River - the transboundary river, which accumulates its waters in the Carpathians, flows through Ukraine and crosses the territory of the Republic of Moldova,” stated Ana Jeleapov.

Executive director of Eco-TIRAS International Association of River Keepers Ilya Trombitski, a member of the Working Group on the Dniester river basin Planning and Management of the Dniester Commission, said that the Dniester Commission was founded in 2018 to implement the Dniester Treaty of 2012. The Republic of Moldova is represented by 19 persons on the Commission and Ukraine is represented by a similar number of persons. Several working groups were set up to deal with daily activities and the Working Group on the Dniester river basin Planning and Management is one of them.