ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses the region of eastern and Central Europe, an area rich in biodiversity and blessed with beautiful rivers, waterways, mountains and forests. But it is also a region cursed by a gross neglect of the environment combined with little public awareness of the issues. Decades of neglect and mismanagement by past Communist authorities in Central and Eastern Europe have left behind a bitter legacy of polluting power plants, coal mines and chemical factories, badly designed hydroelectric projects, depleted forests, dying lakes and a host of other environmental catastrophes. According to the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, the conflict in the Balkans has several environmental faces: the destruction of industrial and infrastructure facilities, causing increased pollution; sanitation problems for refugees and for populations where the infrastructure is overloaded or damaged; and an overload on environmental institutions, including NGOs, that may lead to their breakdown.
