Land quality and conservation in Central and Eastern Europe

Excerpt

Protecting and restoring the environment have become serious global concerns, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. In these countries widespread agricultural and industrial activity have resulted in environmental pollution. Regional and/or country-specific quality criteria often do not exist for pollutants. Where standards do exist there is often an inadequate means of informing farmers or others in the agricultural business sector. Although environmental damage and/or concern crosses national borders, regional cooperation that could reasonalbly enforce these standards does not exist. The recent history of “post-Eastern-bloc” countries is similar. After World War II, all these countries were under the direct influence of the Soviet Union; that is, a period of centrally-planned industrial scale, overly concentrated production. As one participant noted, words and concepts such as market-oriented, profit(able), alternative(s), and private were strictly prohibited and in the centrally-pressed quantity-oriented artificially uniform system, the concept of “collective” became the key word in all fields of endeavor.

The collapse of the Soviet-controlled communist system has created a great sense of urgency within the region. There is a need to bring order to their newly decentralized/decentralizing economies but there …