The World Bank/WBI's CBNRM Initiative

Case Received: January 23, 1998

Author: Ewa Borkowska, Institute for Sustainable Development

Tel: +48 22 6460511

Fax: +48 22 6460174

Email: ine@ikp.atm.com.pl

The town of Elk is located in North-Eastern part of Poland, the cleanest region of the country. This is where the idea of the -- Green Lungs of Poland -- comes from. In order to protect the assets of the region a Development Strategy for Green Lungs of Poland was prepared, based on the idea of sustainable development. The Strategy was target on central government, local authorities, regional administration, local businesses, ecological movements and entrepreneurs.

Elk is a well known town because of pro-ecological initiatives of Local Government and a great scale of public involvement in that activities. (Ford- European Conservation Award - Elk - a sustainable town. The Polish National Winner. 1993)

Since 1994 to 1997 Polish National Environmental Action Program Pilot Project (NEAP) has been carried out in Elk. NEAP Pilot Project was a two year project to develop practical laboratories of local environmental management and sustainable economic development. Two Polish communities - among them Elk - demonstrated how local governments and citizen-based project committees can work together to set environmental priorities, educate and involve the public, and develop local environmental action plans. The plans are now in the implementation phases.

General aims of the project were:

• The undertaking, by the local community, of actions targeted at identifying and evaluating the importance of the environmental problems facing their town from the point of view of threat which their pose to the health of residents, the eco-system, the economy and quality of life;

• Defining of strategies, solving the most important environmental problems, which can be applied under given conditions;

• Starting the implementation of the selected strategy;

• The strengthening of local environmental protection movements by directing them and concentrating their operations around the public Program Committee, providing them with educational materials and organizing necessary training

• Dissemination of the concept of the project as well as the experience gained during its implementation.

The main features which distinguish the project from the others:

• A scale of public involvement in the all activities undertaken within the program;

• Using comparative risk analysis for ranking of local environmental problems;

• If we keep in mind all mentioned above we can say that the most important factors which are relevant to the case of Local Environmental Action Program in Elk are political and social factors.

Main project partners were: Local Community, local authority, regional authorities, Institute for Sustainable Development (Warsaw) Institute for Sustainable Communities (Vermont - USA)

The Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) and Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) worked closely together to transfer the methodology and US experiences on local environmental management to Poland. ISD was extensively involved in managing the entire project

Over the last few years Poland has adopted new laws which provide a legal framework for addressing environmental problems and which restructure the economy. These laws give local government increased responsibilities for managing environmental problems and stimulating local economic development. With a range of environmental and economic issues facing local government there was a need to develop a system for targeting limited financial resources towards the most urgent environmental problems. There was also a need to learn how to involve public to the process of decision-making in that field. Generally it was understood that political and economic changes in Poland must be followed by some changes in environmental and social management and the role of NGOs in that. Nevertheless on the local level there was either experiences no theoretical knowledge how to do that. The previous communist's system didn't allowed for any public participation.

According to recommendation of Agenda 21 process of development Environmental Action Plan (local Agenda 21) should be initiated by local authority but the key role in that process should be paid by local communities.

Public Project Committee (PC) which was formulated in Elk had almost 40 members of volunteers representing different groups of citizens as well as different professions. A very active group of PC's members was a group of young people from local NGOs. They were very eager to do something for their city and very proud of taking part in all the work undertaking in the framework of the project. Thanks to a lot of training which had been provided for the PC, the Committee not only gained a full knowledge which was necessary to develop Environmental Action Plan and the Implementation Plan. Much more important was that the members of the Committee started to look at the environmental problems from sustainable point of view. They also gained a great experiences of building a real team - they have learned to present the ideas, to negotiate, to communicate and to work together.

Securing the commitments of local and regional government bodies was a critical to the success of LEAP in Elk. Municipal officials from Elk signed agreement pledging their commitments to the project, as did representative from the voivodship. Local government staff, city council members and voivodship staff participated on Public Project Committee (PC) either as a member or as a liaison. PC members gave regular presentations as city council meetings to keep council members abreast of the program. These regular presentations not only provided council members with the opportunity to learn about the Project Committee's work, but it also helped increase their support for the PC's decisions.

Environmental Priorities Established

The project was the first all Polish comparative risk project wherein Polish citizens and Polish experts worked collaboratively to identify health, ecological and quality of life risk associated with environmental problems in their communities.

Local Environmental Action Plans and Implementation Plans Prepared and Adopted

Project Committee (PC) prepared an Local Environmental Action Plan (LEAP) that identified a range of strategies for solving the top priority problems. These plans were approved by Elk City Council.

Elk is targeting its clean up efforts on Lake Elk. LEAP spells out a program to reduce pollution from non-point sources. In the framework of the project the Elk PC has also prepared a guide on how to initiate a local sustainable development program by promoting Elk as a regional center for ecotourism and  clean food production and distribution..

Elk community have also prepared Implementation Plans which provide detailed description and budget for implementing the priority strategies identified in the LEAP as well as plan for on-going monitoring and evaluation of implementation efforts.

Public Involvement Solicited through Diverse Forums

Elk PCs' efforts represent one of the first Polish experiences in which citizens have played a direct role in local environmental decision-making. First, PC members acting as citizen volunteers, worked to set environmental priorities and developed appropriate solution to these problems. Second, PC members initiated numerous public outreach activities to involve the greater community. Third, each PC sponsored community environmental initiatives to actively involve the public in making environmental improvement (Among the others: a) Ecological competition among elementary school with help of elementary school teachers was organized. The contest "Step by step" encouraged children to complete small actions for the environment. Each step was recorded on a paper leaf and each school made a "tree". The competition sough the philosophy that every small step is important. b) Removing rubbishes from Elk's lake by members of local diving club. c)Planning of first bike-routs in Elk, d)Participation in World Clean up action)

Results Disseminated and Replication Ready to Commence

As a pilot project Elk community served as test site to establish ways to make local environmental programs work in Poland. The efforts of these community have provided Poland with models in priority setting, public involvement and action planning that can be adopted and utilizes by other Polish communities. As part of the project, the PCs undertook a variety of dissemination activities to share experiences and lessons learned with other Polish communities.

Practical presentation of a great potential embodied in local communities. A great lesson of cooperation between local authority and community.

The application of the Comparative Risk Analysis (CRA) as the basis for ranking of local environmental problems made possible the noting of the multi-sided effects of environmental pollution as based on studies and public discussions. It also demonstrated the potential for extremely differentiated assessments of those effects, depending on knowledge and experience.

Learning that using CRA in a procedure of ranking of local environmental problems makes possible to look at environmental problems from different perspective -and to integrate healthy, ecological, economic and social aspects of environmental degradation which gives as a final result a context of sustainability.

Learning that CRA may not be applicable for all communities, particularly smaller communities where environmental and public health data may be extremely limited. Even if a community decides not to conduct a full CRA process, it is still valuable for communities to "qualitatively" discuss ecological and health risk as a means of rising the issues.

Learning that in the process of planning sustainable development, the outcome of that planning - the actual sustainable development action plan - is as important as the course of the process of drafting and implementing that plan. The Mayor of the city emphasized at the end of the project that he had never expected that the public can play such a important role in municipal environmental management.

The idea was formulated 1982 by the group of regional non-governmental organizations and next has been supported by different authorities and agencies. The idea is based on the sustainable development concept for northern part of Poland. "The Sustainable Development Strategy for the Green Lungs of Poland - Functional Area" have been prepared by a team of specialists from the ISD. The strategy pertains to 15% of the country's territory and was built on the basis of environmental analyses. Today the concept and the region of "Green Lungs of Poland" constitute a permanent element of the national environmental policy. The results of the work resounded all over Poland and abroad. The idea and its practical implementation were awarded by the Ford European Conservation Award -- 1992 (the Polish National Winner}.

CBNRM Workshop, Washington, D.C., May 1998