Europe - UNEP

View of the Velikaya River and the city of Pskov, in western Russia, from the Pskov Kremlin. Photo credit: Sergei Rubliov, via Wikimedia Commons.
environment and the Russian first deputy minister
of natural resources. A number of joint working
groups have also been established under the
auspices of this commission covering issues of
water protection, water management, monitoring
and research, and cooperation with local
authorities, population, international, and nongovernmental
organisations.
In 1999 the commission adopted a decision
to start preparing a comprehensive basin
management programme in line with regional
commitments contained in various agreements
including the 2000 EU WFD and the 1992
Helsinki Convention. Preparation of the Lake
Peipsi Basin Management Programme started in
2001. The project sought to substitute
uncoordinated small-scale projects with
coordinated basin-wide projects, as well as
provide practical recommendations for the
nutrient load reduction and prevention, promote
sustainable conservation of habitats and
ecosystems within the region, strengthen capacity
of all stakeholder groups and promote their
engagement in preparation of the programme,
promote education and public awareness of the
programme and resulting issues (Peipsi, 2005).
Information networks of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and other community
groups, such as the Peipsi Centre for
Transboundary Cooperation (Peipsi, 2005a),
have taken an increasingly significant role in
developing and implementing the programme.
Support for the Basin Management Programme
has come from the Global Environment Facility,
the Estonian and Russian Governments, the EU
TACIS Baltic Line 2000 programme, the EU 5 th
RTD programme project MANTRA East, EU Life
Programme in Estonia, MATRA programme from
the Dutch government, US Baltic NGO fund, the
Swedish EPA project on joint monitoring, and
Danish infrastructure projects in Pskov.
5.4 CONCLUSION
This chapter discussed the hydropolitical situation
in three European basins, the Dnieper, Danube,
and the Narva. While steps toward basin-wide
agreements have been taken in the Dnieper River
basin, no basin-wide agreements exist. This basin
is largely comprised of economically poor
78 — Hydropolitical Vulnerability and Resilience along International Waters: Europe