BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

The short review of the Polish institutions for water protection.
The Republic of Poland is situated in the Central Europe. Its
population is about 38 million, 62% in towns and cities.
Poland's water resources are scarce.
Presently, there is a process underway of accommodating an
existing structure of managing water resources in accordance
with environmental guidelines of the country.
This process takes into account both requirements of
international standards and modern methods of environmental
protection as well as expertise in making decision procedures
and institutional solutions traditionally examined in Poland.
It should be underlined that this process is, in reality,
shifting from economy to another and using all positive
experiences with simultaneous modernization of used procedures.
This activity proceeds in the following ways:
- accommodating legislative procedures to increasingly present
mechanisms of market economy;
- allowing for more and more decision making at lower levels;
- making financial mechanisms which would allow for means
necessary in proecological restructuring of industry,
agriculture as well as diminishing conflicts in urban ares.
We have gained a number of considerable achievements allowing
for a concrete progress and, simultaneously, we found number of
mistakes arising from, inter alia, the fact that legislative and
institutional changes are not up with political decisions. It is
a document entitled "National Environmental Policy" adopted by
the Parliament which is the basis for legislation,
organizational structure and financial procedures as well.
Within the Polish government the central organ on water
protection - which performs governmental water policy is the
Minister of Environmental Protection, Natural Resources and
Forestry.
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