INTRODUCTION. PROBLEM DEFINITION

The Dnipro River is Belarus major water thoroughfare. The state of its biodiversity and forests as well as groundwater quality to a large extent depends on the environmental status of the Dnipro River and its tributaries. Currently, anthropogenic pressures on the Dnipro River floodplain have been increasing resulting in the deterioration of the quality of water, and of drinking water in particular, shoaling of the river, withering of forests and the loss of animal and plant life. Of great concern is land degradation as a result of unsustainable land reclamation practices, setting up of unsanctioned waste dumps, waste discharges into the river and construction of industrial facilities regardless of environmental standards.

Thus, the data provided by the republican sanitary services indicate that in 2001 between 5% and 9% of water samples collected in urban areas did not meet bacteriological standards. In addition, from 9 to 72% of the water samples did not meet chemical standards. In rural areas, the situation was even worse: 7.4% of water samples taken from the centralized water supply system did not satisfy bacteriological requirements. Besides, the majority of country residents (some 90%, or 2.8 mn people) use open-air wells prone to contamination. In 2001, from 34% to 51% of the water samples collected by the Sanitary and Epidemiological Service did not comply with bacteriological standards, while 33 to 64% of the water samples did not meet respective chemical standards.

The greatest problem is the continued use in Belarus of some 1.2 mn ha of erosion-sensitive lands and of substantially eroded lands (500 thou ha). Of most concern is the situation in southern Polesiye whose wetlands have been converted to drylands to increase the area of agricultural land and whose land reclamation infrastructure badly needs repairing. As a result, we have been witnessing further land degradation and saturation by rising groundwater as well as further destruction of what has been left of the wetlands. Scientific estimates indicate that potential environmental benefits - improved biodiversity conservation due to the restoration of the land to its natural state and its use for flood control purposes as well as benefits from wetland conservation activities - will outweigh potential losses related to the decline in agricultural production.

Unfortunately, more often than not the unsustainable use and degradation of natural resources are the result of rash administrative decisions. Apart from this, because the general public is unaware of the legal mechanisms envisaged by the Belarus legal system to ensure public participation in the adoption of decisions affecting the Dnipro River environmental status and conservation of its biodiversity it rarely takes part in the decision-making process. These legal mechanisms are based on the provisions of the Aarhus Convention (Denmark, 1998) ratified by the Republic of Belarus in 1999. They ensure the right to access to environmental information, the right to public participation in environmental decision-making and the right to access to justice in environmental matters.

Therefore, as part of this Project our organization set itself the task of preparing and publishing three brochures on the basis of analysis of relevant regulatory and legal acts. The intent was to brief the general public on ways of gaining access to environmental information, adopting environmentally important decisions and seeking recourse in law courts in environmental matters. It was expected that the brochures would be made widely available to the general public whose most interested members would receive training at an educational seminar designed to detail them on the information contained in the brochures.