Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

In relation to the environment, the following basic principles are obligatory forthe EU and Bulgaria (Anguelova et al. 2003):1. Preventive principle – preliminary to avoid the unfavourable influences on theenvironment2. Principle of ‘contaminant pays’ – i.e. the costs for avoiding, removal and compensationof the negative effects on the environment to be at the expense of the person(s)or organization(s) responsible.3. Principle of combating the unfavourable influences on the environment at thesource.4. Precaution principle – refraining from activities that are likely to have adverseinfluence on the environmentTo achieve the requirements of EU environmental policy it is necessary forBulgaria to:• develop, apply and distribute technologies, practices and processes that control,limit and decrease the anthropogenic impact on the environment• elaborate and apply strategies and measures that should be complex and shouldcover all scope of human activity• work for sustainable management• ensure the public training, preparation and awareness with regard to the environmentalproblems such as climate change or water deficit.Main legislative documents in the field of water and climate policy. What doesBulgaria do?The main legislative documents in the field of water and climate policy are the WaterFramework Directive 2000/60/EC and United Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change (UNFCCC). The Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC establishesa framework for Community action in the field of water policy (Directive 2000).It has a practical importance for water industry, business, agriculture, NGOs. Sustainableuse of water and protection of ecosystems form the basis for the framework ofapproaches, tasks, principles, definitions and measurements. The Water FrameworkDirective ensures strong legal support for integrated water resources management(IWRM). IWRM is the process, which stimulates co-coordinated development andmanagement of water, land and water resources for maximum increase of economicand social well being without compromise or damage to sustainable ecosystems(GWP, 2000).The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) wasadopted in New York on 09.05.1992 and was signed by Bulgaria on 05.06.1992. TheBulgarian Parliament ratified the UNFCCC in March 1995. UNFCCC put in the foregroundthe agreement of the nations to work together on the problem of the climatechange, the consequences of which will have greater importance for the future thanfor the present generation (United Nations, 1992). The UNFCCC gives also the frameand the process of negotiation on concrete future activities. Such activities couldbe regulated by protocols to it. The Kyoto Protocol was accepted in 1997, signed byBulgaria on 18.09.1998 and subsequently ratified in 2002.321