B.EN.A- the Balkan Environmental Association was established on November 19, 1998, in Thessaloniki, Greece, as a non-governmental and non- profit entity. For the last three years, the offices of B.EN.A have opened in almost all Baltic countries, among which are the following: starting with Greece, Turkey, Albania, then Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and finally recently in Bosnia. The latest B.EN.A opened were in Ukraine and Russia. The office in Belgrade was opened on July 13, 2001, in the Faculty of Chemistry at Belgrade University.

The work of these B.EN.A offices is focused on the problems of protecting the environment, finding out about the pollution, and also finding possible solutions to push the polluting at the lowest level. Therefore the focus is placed on finding and fighting the problems, and also establishing various kinds of projects. After that the focus is on finding resolutions which would be than be given, as a kind of an assistance, to the governmental bodies in Yugoslavia (or other countries) responsible for environment issues.
At this moment, said Aleksandra Mihajlidi Zelic, secretary of BENA organisation, the emphasis was put on the river Danube, actually the Black Sea, as a potential polluter of the Mediterranean in the Southern parts of Europe, which is important also for tourist reasons. Therefore all rivers flowing in the Black Sea are included in this project, and are therefore interested in BENA. For the BENA office in Belgrade the most interesting would surely be the river Danube, as it is one of the largest rivers.

Mrs. Zelic said that at the moment a few projects are underway, among which the most important would be The Regional Network of the Green Corridors of the Black Sea. In this project, as Mihajlidi- Zelic stressed, the BENA office from Belgrade will also participate, and it plans to make some sort of precise examination to see in what ways, and how much does every European country, through which the Danube flows, participate in the pollution. However, this project is still waiting for its realisation, and is actually still being considered by the World Bank to whom B.EN.A applied for financial support. Zelic- Mihajlidi said that their main donor is the European Union, but that they also have a lot of sponsors who are mainly covering the conferences.
The next conference of BENA will be on October 18, in Edirne, Turkey.
According to Zelic- Mihajlidi, recently B.EN.A has been engaged in a research proposal entitled "Trans- boundary Pollution in Bulgaria- Romania- Yugoslavia through the Danube River due to the war in Yugoslavia", which has been prepared for submission to REC/REReP for funding. The aim of this proposal is the investigation of the Danube pollution level in this region around the Iron Gates, as well as on the Black Sea coast.
Also these modern ways of pollution and problems are not the only ones damaging the 587.35 kilometres long river inside the FRY boundaries. Besides the major towns through which the Danube flows, like Novi Sad, Petrovaradin, Beograd, Smederevo, Veliko Gradiste, Golubac, Donji Milanovac, there is also Negotin, where one interesting project is being prepared. This part of Danube around Negotin, (between Djerdap and Prahovo) is full of wreckage. The wreckage has been lying in 12 to 16 meters of depth since September 1944 when the Germans withdrawing up to Belgrade, sunk around 200 of their boats. The sum estimated that is necessary for this project of pulling out the 20 of these navigation objects is presumed to be around 400 million dollars.

Experts from Yugoslav River Navigation expressed significant interest in this kind of project stressing the importance of the Danube being cleared of such elements. Furthermore they explained that in the case of not doing so, sailors coming from all over the world would just choose alternate ways, other than passing through Yugoslavia. For instance they would use the one passing through Romania.(Politika, July 15, 2001)

B.EN.A, Kancelarija u Beogradu
Koordinator: professor Predrag Polic
Prirodno- matematicki fakultet
Beogradski Univerzitet
Studentski Trg 16
11000 Beograd
Tel. +381 11 32 82 111