Post by Bozur on Dec 2, 2007 14:56:08 GMT -5
Tirana - Choking on Growth
By Ergys Gjencaj in Tirana
27 11 2007 Albania’s capital becomes a victim of its own phenomenal growth, as the city’s environmental problems multiply.
“All this dust is killing us,” complains Merita a Tirana resident in her thirties as she walks her dog.
“Taking a stroll along the street is not the same thing any more, it’s hard to breathe amidst all this pollution,” she adds.
With a population that has more than tripled in the last 15 years to nearly 800,000, fuelled by internal migration and a construction boom unprecedented in its history, Tirana is a city that faces an increasing menace to public health as respiratory diseases multiply and cancer rates reach alarming rates.
Studies have shown that 56,000 tonnes of dust is generated in Albania’s capital every year, 70 kg for each of its residents.
Most of this dust is produced by small particles, known as particulate matter, or PM10, which have been found to be a major cause of cancer.
According to the Ministry of Health more than 1,400 cancer cases are directly linked to increased levels of environmental pollution in Albania, the majority of them in the capital.
A study published in October by the World Health of Organization found that air pollution alone was responsible for more than 200 deaths every year.
“Action must be taken - just as against a criminal who kills somebody in the street or robs a bank” says Xhemal Mato, executive director of the Eco Movement, an environmental group.
For Mato the Albanian public is having a crisis of conscience over the environment, from politicians to plain folks.
Many like him among the green community are worried that the government and the city authorities are doing too little to safeguard the environment, while at the same time they are creating a deadly legacy for future generations.
Arjan Gace, a Coordinator for the World Bank-financed Global Environment Facility, believes that it all has to do with the fact that Albania does not have a tradition of environmental awareness, hence green issues are far from the minds and hearts of it people - and also of its decision makers.
Gace, whose organization funds various environmental NGOs in Albania, blames the authorities for not considering the harm done to the environment while giving new building permits for apartment blocs.
“One has only to look at the neglect and at the ugly assault that is being made on one of the oldest and most prominent national parks, literally on the doorstep of the capital,” Gace says, referring to the Dajti Mountain National Park.
“Instead of being well managed and offered to the citizens of Tirana as an example of what a national park should be like, Dajti is becoming a jungle of relay stations and satellite dishes, strange steel and glass structures that do not belong to a place that should be an oasis of nature.”
Every city in modern history that has seen the kind of instant, chaotic growth that Tirana has been undergoing, has had to deal with a costly legacy of environmental harm that will take a mammoth effort to undo.
For Albania’s Deputy Minister of the Environment, Taulant Bino, a major cause of the worsening pollution in Albania’s capital is to do with the large number of aging vehicles that are crowding its streets.
As Tirana mutated after the fall of Albania’s hermit communist regime in 1991 from a capital where population movement was tightly controlled into a metropolis where people have been flooding in search of better economic prospects, the scale of its growth has brought its environmental degradation.
During the communist era the private ownership of vehicles was banned, and only a select few among senior officials had a car. Now more than 100,000 cars are registered in Tirana alone. Most of them are more than 10 years old, running on diesel and poorly maintained.
Bino contends that the government has tried to regulate the problem through customs tariffs and by setting maximum levels for the emissions of old vehicles, but Gace and others like him are not convinced.
He points out that often the quality of fuel that is sold is far below standard.
“It is common for the Albanian driver to pay a premium price for a low sulphur diesel fuel, only to realize later - from the black smoke belching out of its exhaust pipe - that he has been cheated and given some low-grade fuel,” says Gace.
Various investigations by the authorities have found that fuel pumping stations have sold low quality-fuel, however the problems remains rampant because controls remains sporadic and few.
The Ministry of Environment, which controls the quality of fuels in Albania, denies the magnitude of the problem, arguing that much of the air pollution is created by the building industry, which is regulated by the municipality of Tirana. As part of the capital’s construction boom, an average of 600 apartment blocks were completed every year in the first half of this decade.
“Though there have been improvements in the infrastructure of the capital these past few years, very little has been done about public transport and urban planning which have much to do with air pollution,” says Bino.
For its part, the municipality blames the police for failing to take action, as massive amount of construction materials are trucked around the city every day, without respecting environmental standards.
However, while the municipality and the government play the blame game, the air that Tirana residents have to breathe is becoming with every day that passes a greater risk to their own health.
“It’s amazing, as everything gets covered in a thick layer of dust, if you leave it outside for just a day or two,” says Gezim, a mechanic in central Tirana’s busy Fortuzi Street. “How scary to think that all of that is ending up in our lungs.”
www.birn.eu.com/en/114/10/6573/
By Ergys Gjencaj in Tirana
27 11 2007 Albania’s capital becomes a victim of its own phenomenal growth, as the city’s environmental problems multiply.
“All this dust is killing us,” complains Merita a Tirana resident in her thirties as she walks her dog.
“Taking a stroll along the street is not the same thing any more, it’s hard to breathe amidst all this pollution,” she adds.
With a population that has more than tripled in the last 15 years to nearly 800,000, fuelled by internal migration and a construction boom unprecedented in its history, Tirana is a city that faces an increasing menace to public health as respiratory diseases multiply and cancer rates reach alarming rates.
Studies have shown that 56,000 tonnes of dust is generated in Albania’s capital every year, 70 kg for each of its residents.
Most of this dust is produced by small particles, known as particulate matter, or PM10, which have been found to be a major cause of cancer.
According to the Ministry of Health more than 1,400 cancer cases are directly linked to increased levels of environmental pollution in Albania, the majority of them in the capital.
A study published in October by the World Health of Organization found that air pollution alone was responsible for more than 200 deaths every year.
“Action must be taken - just as against a criminal who kills somebody in the street or robs a bank” says Xhemal Mato, executive director of the Eco Movement, an environmental group.
For Mato the Albanian public is having a crisis of conscience over the environment, from politicians to plain folks.
Many like him among the green community are worried that the government and the city authorities are doing too little to safeguard the environment, while at the same time they are creating a deadly legacy for future generations.
Arjan Gace, a Coordinator for the World Bank-financed Global Environment Facility, believes that it all has to do with the fact that Albania does not have a tradition of environmental awareness, hence green issues are far from the minds and hearts of it people - and also of its decision makers.
Gace, whose organization funds various environmental NGOs in Albania, blames the authorities for not considering the harm done to the environment while giving new building permits for apartment blocs.
“One has only to look at the neglect and at the ugly assault that is being made on one of the oldest and most prominent national parks, literally on the doorstep of the capital,” Gace says, referring to the Dajti Mountain National Park.
“Instead of being well managed and offered to the citizens of Tirana as an example of what a national park should be like, Dajti is becoming a jungle of relay stations and satellite dishes, strange steel and glass structures that do not belong to a place that should be an oasis of nature.”
Every city in modern history that has seen the kind of instant, chaotic growth that Tirana has been undergoing, has had to deal with a costly legacy of environmental harm that will take a mammoth effort to undo.
For Albania’s Deputy Minister of the Environment, Taulant Bino, a major cause of the worsening pollution in Albania’s capital is to do with the large number of aging vehicles that are crowding its streets.
As Tirana mutated after the fall of Albania’s hermit communist regime in 1991 from a capital where population movement was tightly controlled into a metropolis where people have been flooding in search of better economic prospects, the scale of its growth has brought its environmental degradation.
During the communist era the private ownership of vehicles was banned, and only a select few among senior officials had a car. Now more than 100,000 cars are registered in Tirana alone. Most of them are more than 10 years old, running on diesel and poorly maintained.
Bino contends that the government has tried to regulate the problem through customs tariffs and by setting maximum levels for the emissions of old vehicles, but Gace and others like him are not convinced.
He points out that often the quality of fuel that is sold is far below standard.
“It is common for the Albanian driver to pay a premium price for a low sulphur diesel fuel, only to realize later - from the black smoke belching out of its exhaust pipe - that he has been cheated and given some low-grade fuel,” says Gace.
Various investigations by the authorities have found that fuel pumping stations have sold low quality-fuel, however the problems remains rampant because controls remains sporadic and few.
The Ministry of Environment, which controls the quality of fuels in Albania, denies the magnitude of the problem, arguing that much of the air pollution is created by the building industry, which is regulated by the municipality of Tirana. As part of the capital’s construction boom, an average of 600 apartment blocks were completed every year in the first half of this decade.
“Though there have been improvements in the infrastructure of the capital these past few years, very little has been done about public transport and urban planning which have much to do with air pollution,” says Bino.
For its part, the municipality blames the police for failing to take action, as massive amount of construction materials are trucked around the city every day, without respecting environmental standards.
However, while the municipality and the government play the blame game, the air that Tirana residents have to breathe is becoming with every day that passes a greater risk to their own health.
“It’s amazing, as everything gets covered in a thick layer of dust, if you leave it outside for just a day or two,” says Gezim, a mechanic in central Tirana’s busy Fortuzi Street. “How scary to think that all of that is ending up in our lungs.”
www.birn.eu.com/en/114/10/6573/