Eko Kvarner: Serious Deterioration of Environmental Safety in the Adriatic

ZaMirZine

18 March 2008

The Eko Kvarner environmental association estimates that the suspension of application of ZERP (Protective Environmental and Fishing Area) adopted last Sunday, March 16, will lead to serious deterioration of environmental safety in the Adriatic.

The first reason lies in the fact that, in case of possible oil-tanker disasters, Croatian navy can`t intervene except on specific request of a vessel`s captain, and the right to intervention is reserved to ships that sail under the same flag. That should not be problem with Italian or Slovenian ships, but for more remote EU countries the delays could be fatal for the Adriatic.

Also, the suspended environmental component means that the ships sailing under the flags of EU member states can release their ballast water into the sea with impunity on the Croatian side of the Adriatic, while they don�t have that same option in the Italian seas, because of the Italian Economic Zone.

The second reason for the deteriorating situation is the increased activities of Italian fishing boats, as reported by the fishermen from Sibenik and Dubrovnik, with increasing intrusions into Croatian territorial waters.

Eko Kvarner expressed its gratitude to all citizens that were prepared to join protests agains the decision to suspend the ZERP. The association ultimately decided that protests would be of little use because of low fighting spirit among the fishermen, being under firm control of political parties. Instead, Eko Kvarner invites the citizens to join an environmental organization and the coming debate and discussion regarding ZERP.

The association`s Board for Supervision of ZERP Implementation decided to start stronger monitoring operations and, should the promise for faster accession to EU fail to materialize, organize a symposium in January 2009 to propose creation of Croatian Exclusive Economic Zone, under International Maritime Law.