Environmental Transitions

Environmental Transitions is a detailed and comprehensive account of the environmentalchanges in Central and Eastern Europe, both under state socialism and during thetransition to capitalism. The change in politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowedan opportunity for a rapid environmental clean up in an area once considered one of themost environmentally devastated regions on earth. The book ilustrates howtransformations after 1989 have brought major environmental improvements, as well asnew environmental problems. It shows how environmental policy, economic change andpopular support for environmental movements have specific and changing geographiesassociated with them.

Environmental Transitions addresses a large number of topics, including a historico-geographical analysis of environmental change, health impacts of environmentaldegradation, the role of environmental issues during the anti-communist revolutions,legislative reform and the effects of transition on environmental quality after 1989.

Environmental Transitions contains detailed case studies from the region, which illustratethe complexity of environmental issues and their intimate relationship with political andeconomic realities. It gives theoretically informed ideas for understanding environmentalchange in the context of the political economy of state socialism and post-communisttransformations, drawing on a wide body of literature from West, Central and EasternEurope.

Petr Pavlínek is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Nebraska atOmaha. He is the author of Economic Restructuring and Local Environmental Management in theCzech Republic (Edwin Mellen Press 1997).

John Pickles is Professor of Geography and member of the Committee on SocialTheory at the University of Kentucky. He has recently published Theorizing Transition: ThePolitical Economy of Post-Communist Transformations, edited with Adrian Smith (Routledge1998) and Bulgaria in Transition: Environmental Consequences of Political and EconomicTransformation, edited with Krassimira Paskaleva, Philip Shapira and Boian Koulov(Ashgate 1998).

Environmental Transitions

Transformation and ecological defence inCentral and Eastern Europe

Petr Pavlínek and John Pickles

London and New York

First published 2000by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection ofthousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

© 2000 Petr Pavlínek and John Pickles

The right of Petr Pavlínek and John Pickles to be identified as theAuthors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproducedor utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataPavlínek, Petr, 1963

Environmental transitions: transformation and ecological defence inCentral and Eastern Europe/Petr Pavlínek and John Pickles

384 pp. 15.6×23.4 cmIncludes bibliographical references and index.

1. Environmental policy—Europe, Eastern. 2. Europe, Eastern—economic policy—1989– 3. Post communism—Europe, Eastern. I. Pickles,

J. (John) II Title.IIC244Z9E557 2000

333.7’0947–dc 21 99–059082

ISBN 0-203-44492-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-75316-X (Adobe eReader Format)ISBN 0-415-16268-8 (hbk)ISBN 0-415-16269-6 (pbk)

For Adam and LeonMay they always temper desire with compassion

and ambition with justice. May they live to see a cleaner and better world.

Contents

List of plates vi

List of figures viii

List of maps x

List of tables xi

Preface xiv

List of abbreviations xvii

PART I Introduction 1

1 The political economy of environmental transitions 3

2 Theorizing social and environmental change 19

PART II Nature, risk and the legacies of state socialism 37

3 Environmental quality in Central and Eastern Europe 39

4 Nature, society and extensive industrialization 83

5 Social and environmental regulation under state socialism 103

6 Constructing risk: environment and health 125

PART III Post-communist transformations and the environment 155

7 Post-communist reform and the democratization of nature 157

8 Environmental legislation and policy: regulatory successes andstrong opposition

191

9 State, environment and information in post-communisttransformations

213

10 Environmental effects of post-communist transformations 239

PART IV Nature in post-communist societies 283

11 Conclusion 285

Notes 297

Bibliography 319

Index 351

Plates

3.1 Pollution dispersal efforts in the 1980s resulted in the building of highsmokestacks throughout CEE. Tušimice power plant in the region of northernBohemia, Czech Republic

46

3.2 Neftochim petrochemical combinat (Burgas, Bulgaria) 523.3 The plume of smoke from the Neftochim petrochemical refinery drifts over

the entire region across a thirty-mile or more radius, with day-night reversalsof wind at the coast (Burgas, Bulgaria)

53

3.4 East German Trabant in Budapest, Hungary 543.5 High smokestacks of four large power plants (Prunéřov 1, Prunéřov 2,

Tušimice 1, Tušimice 2) located in close proximity in northern Bohemia,Czech Republic

58

3.6 Dead forest in the Ore mountains of northern Bohemia, Czech Republic 643.7 Waste products (including phenols) from Netftochim petrochemical refinery

(Bulgaria) are “filtered” through a system of seven open lakes next to BurgasBay and Burgas harbor. From the first lake (bottom right) pontoon boats skimoff thick oils into barrels and the “clean” water flows under gravity into thesecond settling pond. Asbestos lined oil containers lie around on the banks ofthe settling ponds

65

3.8 Groundwater contamination has been a major problem throughout CEE.Here, workmen replace a broken pipeline whose break had lain undiscoveredfor nearly three weeks (Burgas, Bulgaria)

66

3.9 Stripping the overburden for brown coal production (Leipzig, former EastGermany)

69

3.10 Stripping the overburden for brown coal production (Leipzig, former EastGermany)

70

3.11 Waste piles from the strip mining of brown coal in the Tagebau south ofLeipzig, former East Germany

71

4.1 Most-Kopisty Mine in the Most basin in the foreground (the old city of Mostwas located on this site). Chemopetrol is located in the background and the OreMountains on the horizon

86

4.2 Giant excavators used in open cast coal mining in the Most basin 1004.3 Giant excavators used in open cast coal mining in the Most basin 1005.1 Demolition of the old city of Most 1095.2 Demolition of the old city of Most 1105.3 Demolition of the village of Komořany in the Most District 1115.4 The Chánov neighborhood built for the Most’s Roma under state socialism 118

6.1 International cigarette manufacturers have found profitable new markets inCEE since 1989 (Prague, Czech Republic)

131

7.1 Opposition to environmental degradation took unexpected forms. This anti-development poster produced in the 1980s was used by the Committee onEnvironmental Protection in their 1989 publication Man and Nature (Sofia)

171

9.1 A curbside atmospheric pollution monitoring device for public information(Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic)

223

11.1 The fear of environmental violence expressed by ten-year-old childrenthrough drawings of their hometown, the city of Most, Czech Republic. Thedrawings were painted on a tram stop wall

290

vii

Figures

3.1 Sources of sulfur deposited on the Czech side of the Krkonoše Mountains inthe 1980s

55

3.2 Development of sulfur dioxide emissions in Czechoslovakia (CzechRepublic and Slovakia after 1992), 1950–98

56

3.3 Air pollution trends in the Czech Republic in the 1980s 56 3.4 Forest damage in the Czech Republic 624.1 Production of coal in the northern Bohemian coal basin, 1860–1996 874.2 Proportion of major industrial sectors on total industrial production in the

Most District, 1961–85 87

4.3 Production of coal in the Most basin, 1913–98 984.4 Index of industrial production in the Most District, 1961–85 1025.1 Area devastated by coal mining in the northern Bohemian coal basin, 1929–

91 113

5.2 Coal production in open cast and underground mines in the northBohemian coal basin, 1960–89

114

5.3 Particulate matter and sulfur dioxide emissions from the registeredpollution sources in the Most District, 1960–90

118

5.4 Sulfur dioxide pollution in the Most District 1195.5 Average annual levels of flying ash deposition at Komořany (in the Most

District), 1958–78, and in the Most basin and the Most District as a whole,1962–91

120

5.6 Air pollution by nitrogen oxides in the cities of Most and Litvínov, 1981–91 (in µg/m3)

122

5.7 Migration in the Most District (per thousand inhabitants) 1239.1 Soviet GNP growth rates, 1951–89 21610.1 Annual change in GDP and unemployment rate in selected countries, 1989/

90–98 242

10.2 Index of industrial production in selected countries, 1989–98 24310.3 Passenger car ownership in Prague and the number of motor vehicles in the

Czech Republic, 1990–8 246

10.4 Cargo and passengers transported by the Czech Railways, 1991–9 248 10.5 Growth in the number of motor vehicles in Poland, 1980–97 24910.6 Trends in transportation emissions in Poland, 1991–7 25010.7 Emission trends in Slovakia compared with trends in industrial production,

1989–98 251

10.8 Volume of armaments production in Slovakia, 1987–98 (in billions ofSlovak crowns)

253

10.9 Primary energy intensity of the Slovak economy, 1989–94 25410.10 Emission trends in the Czech Republic, 1989–98 25610.11 Emission trends in the Czech Republic, 1985–98 25710.12 End consumption of fuels and energy in the Czech Republic, 1990–7 25810.13 Annual emissions from Czech Energy Works power plants, 1991–9 25910.14 Primary energy intensity of the Czech economy, 1990–7 26010.15 Trends in the use of industrial fertilizers and pesticides in the Czech

Republic 264

10.16 Trends in the use of fertilizers and pesticides in Poland 26610.17 Trends in sulfur oxides emissions in selected CEE countries, 1980–96 26710.18 Trends in total emissions of particulate matter, 1990–6 26810.19 Air pollution trends in Poland compared with industrial production, 1989–

97 269

10.20 Trends in heavy metals air emissions in Poland, 1980–97 26910.21 Emission trends in Hungary, 1985–97 27010.22 Total annual sulfur dioxide emissions in Romania, 1990–5 27110.23 Trends in average annual particulate and sulfur dioxide concentrations in

ambient air in Romanian cities, 1990–6 273

ix

Maps

1.1 Central and Eastern Europe 53.1 Environmental “hot spots” and areas with severe environmental degradation in

Romania in the early 1990s 41

3.2 Air pollution by sulfur dioxide in 1988 483.3 Air pollution by nitrogen dioxide and acidity of precipitation in Europe in 1988 493.4 The “black triangle” 503.5 Transboundary pollution in Central Europe, 1985 543.6 Sulfur dioxide emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 603.7 Nitrogen oxides emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 613.8 Solid emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989 633.9 Heavy metals pollution in Poland, 1996 724.1 Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic 844.2 The district of Most 854.3 The Most basin 996.1 Comparison of life expectancy and environmental quality in the Czech

Republic, 1981–5, average figures 134

10.1 Estimated sulfur dioxide deposition over CEE in the early 1990s 24510.2 Environmental quality in Slovakia in the early 1990s 25210.3 Spatial distribution of environmental hazards in Slovakia in the early 1990s 25310.4 Environmental quality in the Czech Republic in the early 1990s 26210.5 Daily average concentrations of sulfur dioxide during the temperature

inversion on 4 February 1993 (in µg/m3) 263

Tables

1.1 Commercial energy consumption in CEE (consumption by fuel type as % oftotal), 1989

16

1.2 Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, 1989 (in grams per dollarGNP), 1989

17

3.1 Percent of area in the two worst categories of environmental quality 453.2 Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions, 1989 513.3 Sulfur and nitrogen oxides deposition in CEE from foreign sources, 1985 553.4 Sulfur dioxide emissions in the Czech Republic by region, 1985–9 (in tonnes/

sq. km annually) 58

3.5 Forest damage in the Czech Republic by region, 1970–2000 (% of forestedareas)

63

3.6 River pollution in Poland, 1964–89 (%) 663.7 Soil contamination in selected localities of Upper Silesia (in mg/kg) 723.8 Heavy metals content in arable soils of selected local government areas of the

Katowice province, 1983–91 (concentration ranges in mg/kg of soil) 73

3.9 Lead and cadmium contents in the soils of garden allotments in the Katowiceprovince (concentration ranges in mg/kg of soil)

74

4.1 Sectoral structure of economically active population in the Most District,1991

88

4.2 Population growth and national composition in the Most District (currentboundaries), 1861–1991

92

4.3 Czechoslovak coal production by district 1990 1014.4 Industrial employment structure by sector in the Most District, 1961–85 1025.1 Land use in the Most District and the Czech Republic in the early 1900s (in %

of district’s territory) 114

5.2 Villages and settlement units liquidated in the Most District, 1956–94 115 5.3 Large sources of air pollution (power plants) in the Most District and its

vicinity, 1987 and their rank in the Czech Republic (annual emissions in 1,000tonnes)

121

5.4 Number of foggy winter days in the Most District, 1980–91 1215.5 Change in average annual sulfur dioxide concentrations in selected districts of

northern Bohemia, 1970–85 (in µg/m3) 122

6.1 Quality of life in Bulgaria, 1980–7 1276.2 Number of people per physician in Bulgaria, 1939–87 1276.3 Life expectancy at birth and infant mortality in selected CEE countries, 1998 1296.4 Prevalence of regular smoking and obesity (%) 130

6.5 Health problems attributed to environmental degradation in CEE 1326.6 Comparison of life expectancy at birth in the districts of northern Bohemia

and the Czech Republic, 1989 135

6.7 Comparison of infant mortality and overall mortality in the mining districts ofnorthern Bohemia and the Czech Republic

135

6.8 Incidence of diseases observed in the population of northern Bohemiacompared with the Czech Republic in the early 1980s

136

6.9 Incidence of diseases observed in the pre-school, school and adolescentpopulation of the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia, 1990 (CzechRepublic=100)

136

6.10 Incidence of diseases per 100,000 inhabitants in the Czech Republic, northernBohemia and coal mining districts of northern Bohemia, 1990 (CzechRepublic=100)

137

6.11 Infectious diseases in the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia (CzechRepublic=100)

137

6.12 Public perceptions of health problems attributed to air pollution in northernBohemia (Answers to question: Does anyone in your family have healthproblems caused by air pollution?) (% responses)

138

6.13 Places where health problems related to the quality of the environment havebeen documented in the Czech Republic

140

6.14 Standardized ratios for cancer in the Czech Republic in the late 1980s (CzechRepublic=100)

140

6.15 Changes in male age-specific mortality in Hungary, 1970–85 (per 1,000) 1416.16 Blood lead levels among children in Hungary (in µg/dl) 1426.17 Selected locations with health problems attributed to pollution in Hungary 1426.18 Life expectancy in Poland, 1965–90 1436.19 Infant mortality rates in the cities of Katowice province, 1990 1446.20 Blood lead in children in various places within the Katowice region 1989, (in

µg/dl) 144

6.21 Selected places where health problems are associated with environmentalpollution in Poland

146

6.22 PCBs in human fat tissue at autopsy in selected districts in Slovakia (in µgPCM/kg fat)

148

6.23 Selected locations where health problems related to the quality of theenvironment have been documented in Slovakia

148

6.24 Selected places with documented associations between health problems andenvironmental pollution in Romania

151

6.25 Selected locations where health problems related to the quality of theenvironment have been documented in Bulgaria

152

8.1 Selected environmental legislation in the Czech Republic 1948.2 Selected environmental legislation in Hungary 2038.3 Selected environmental legislation in Poland 2058.4 Polish charges for air emissions of lead, sulfur dioxide, benzene and fluorine,

1991–3 (in zlotys and US$) 206

xii

8.5 Selected environmental legislation in Bulgaria 21010.1 Growth in total motor vehicles in use in CEE, 1990–4 (1990=100) 24710.2 Index of gross production in industrial sectors of Slovakia, 1948–88

(1948=100) 252

10.3 Share of GDP on environmental investment on in the Czech Republic, 1989–97

259

10.4 Sulfur oxide emissions per capita and per unit of GDP in selected CEEcountries 1994 compared with the OECD average

267

10.5 Environmental investment in Poland, 1990–6 27010.6 Wastewater treatment in Hungary, 1980–93 (in million cu. m) 271

xiii

Preface

In the early 1990s, while at the University of Kentucky, we each began our formalengagement with the study of the political economy of social and environmental change inCentral and Eastern Europe (CEE). One of us was a “young” (but aging) socialist from aworking-class background and region of the North of England, steeped in the traditionsand oppositions of Cold War geopolitics, grown politically and intellectually through thestudy of and engagement with the black consciousness and anti-apartheid struggles inSouth Africa, who completed doctoral and post-doctoral studies in the USA under Reaganand Bush. The other of us was a still young anti-communist from a working-classbackground and region of Eastern Bohemia in Czechoslovakia, forcibly steeped in thebureaucracies and ideological training of state socialist Mittel-Europa, grown of agepolitically in the Velvet Revolution in Prague, and steeled in Anglo-American traditionsof political economy and regional development in America under Clinton and Gingrich.

The transformations wrought by the events of 1989 were viewed by each of usvicariously as scholars working in critical geographical studies at the University ofKentucky and directly in various research sites in Central and Eastern Europe during thattime. At each point we have been suspicious of the rhetoric of “transition” (and thetriumphalism and neo-imperialism the term connotes). Instead, we have been drawn toalternative readings and renderings of the multiple processes of transformation that theterm “transition” hides. At each turn we have tried to ask how actually existing actors havestruggled to comprehend and build particular environmental practices and futures. In thisendeavor we have each benefitted from exchanges with many colleagues.

Colleagues at the University of Kentucky have provided a supportive environment forcritical studies and have contributed directly and indirectly to our thinking in many ways.Among them are Keiron Bailey, Dwight Billings, Martin Bosman, Stan Brunn, LarryBurmeister, Barbara Cellarius, Carl Dahlman, Michael Dorn, Oliver Froehling, John PaulJones, Mark Klar, Jennifer Kopf, Tom Leinbach, Peter Little, Eugene McCann, MattMcCourt, Patrick Mooney, Wolfgang Natter, Mohameden Ould-Mey, Jeff Popke, KarlRaitz, Herb Reid, Susan Roberts, Rich Schein, Chad Staddon, Karen Tice, Dick Ulack,and Ernest Yanarella.

We are fortunate over the years to have benefitted from discussion and collaboration withseveral scholars and institutions in CEE. In the Czech Republic Jiří Blažek, Michal Illner,Jan Kára, Zdeněk Kukal, Luděk Sýkora, and Jan Vozáb, in Slovakia Mikuláš Huba, and in

Poland Katarzyna Klich and Tomasz ylicz have helped along the way. In Hungary Sandorand Judit Peter have been engaged in parallel work on the economic and legal contexts ofenvironmental reforms, and have been both colleagues and friends in this endeavor. InBulgaria colleagues at the Institute of Geography at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences andthe Department of Geography at Sofia University have given unselfishly of their time andunderstanding, and also have become friends. In particular, we owe a debt of gratitude toAssen Assenov, Mariana Assenova, Roumiana Dobrinova, Christo Ganev, Zoya Mateeva,Didi Mikhova, Mariana Nikolova, Peter Petrov, Anton Popov, Poli Roukova, VassilVassilev, and Stefan Velev. Apostol Apostolov, Mitko Dobrev, Ivan Marev, and SimeonSimeonov were kind enough to share information, data, and insights into their work onenvironmental and agrarian change, and we are grateful. Staff of the RegionalEnvironmental Center in Budapest and its regional center in Sofia provided usefulmaterials and insight. In Germany Günther Taege introduced us to the Tagebau south ofLeipzig.

Adrian Smith has been a good friend and colleague in our efforts to come to grips withthe political economy of post-communist transformations. Bob Begg and Mieke Meurshave been wonderful companions and colleagues over these years, and we draw heavily ontheir work on agrarian transformation and environmental change in Bulgaria in thesepages. Mieke Meurs and Michael Watts provided a wonderful opportunity to learn fromthe parallel struggles to understand environmental change in post-communist societies indiscussions in Cuba with Piers Blaikie, Judy Carney, Carmen Deare, MargaretFitzsimmons, Joshua Muldavin, Mark Selden, Ivan Szelenyi, and many other colleaguesfrom Cuba, Hungary, Bulgaria, China, and Russia.

Others have contributed along the way: Eva D m t r, Dagmar Dzůrová, JimFriedberg, Jaroslav Halaš, Paweł Ka mierczyk, Greg Knight, Boian Koulov, NaděždaKučerová, Harmon Maher, Krassimira Paskaleva, Philip Shapira, Irena Vohralíková,Alžběta Rédlová,Jerome Simpson,Marietta Staneva,Andrew Tickle, Brent Yarnal, andZde ka Zdobnická. We also want to thank to Stanislav Štýs for his permission to reprintfour of his photographs, originally published in S.Štýs and L.Helešicová, Proměny měsíčníkrajiny (Changes of moon landscape) (1992), by Bílý Slon, Prague.

Chapters Four and Five are based on parts of Pavlínek (1997) and were thoroughlyrevised and updated for this book. Chapter Nine draws on Mikhova and Pickles (1994a,1994b) and Pickles and Mikhova (1998). Parts of Chapters Ten and Three draw on workwe have recently published in Post-Soviet Geography and Economics and Kosmas. The authorswould like to thank Didi Mikhova for her willingness to allow us to adapt this work to ourpresent needs, and Bob Begg, Christo Ganev, Michael Kennedy, Bob Lloyd, MiekeMeurs, Caedmon Staddon, and Stefan Velev for helpful comments on earlier drafts of theoriginal papers.

Parts of the research on which this book is based were supported variously byfinancialassistance from the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation and the NationalScience Foundation (Grants INT-8703742, INT-9021910, and SBR-9515244). TheInstitute of Geography (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Department of Geography at theCyril and Methodius University of Sofia also provided material and institutional support.

xv

The University Committee on Research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha providedfinancial support for Petr Pavlínek for his 1998 summer field research.

We want to thank Marvin Barton (University of Nebraska at Omaha) for theproduction of maps used throughout the book and Dick Gilbreath (Director of the GyulaPauer Cartographic and GIS Laboratory, University of Kentucky) for the production ofmaps for Chapters Four and Five.

Our editors at Routledge have been patient beyond belief as the book has gone throughunavoidable delays.

We are grateful beyond measure to all people from the Czech Republic (and the MostDistrict in particular) and Bulgaria who were willing to be interviewed in the course ofresearch for this book. The environment of which we speak is theirs, and the futures forwhich we hope are theirs to construct and in which they will live.

Our greatest debts are to our families, especially to our wives Gabriela and Lynn andchildren Adam and Leon. They have been patient and understanding at every point as wehave been drawn away to far off places and to our respective offices to research, write,edit, and rework this book. Our debts are great and we look forward to repaying themwith interest in the years ahead.

Petr PavlínekJohn Pickles

xvi

Abbreviations

AISA polling agency (Czech Republic)

BANU Bulgarian Agricultural National Union

BCE Business Central Europe

BCP Bulgarian Communist Party

BOD5 Biological Oxygen Demand

BSP Bulgarian Socialist Party

CAD computer aided design

Cd cadmium

CEE Central and Eastern Europe

CEP Committee for Environmental Protection (Poland and Albania)

ČEZ České energetické závody (Czech Energy Works)

Cl- chloride anions

CMEA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

CO carbon monoxide

CO2 carbon dioxide

COCOM Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls

COMECON Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

CPE centrally planned economy

CSO Central Statistical Office (Bulgaria)

ČSSR Československá socialistická republika (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic)

ČSÚ Český statistický úřad (Czech Statistical Office)

CURS Changing Urban and Regional Systems program

CxHy hydrocarbons

DNA deoxyribonucleic acid

EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

EC European Community

ECU European Currency Unit

EIA environmental impact assessment

EMEP European Monitoring and Evaluation Program

EPA Environmental Protection Agency; Environment Protection Act(Romania)

EU European Union

ESCBR Economic and Social Council of the Basin Region

FCE Federal Committee for the Environment (Czech Republic)

FDI foreign direct investment

FGR Federal German Republic

FSU former Soviet Union

FYR former Yugoslav Republic

GAO Governmental Accounting Office

GDP gross domestic product

GDR German Democratic Republic

GIS geographical information systems

GNP gross national product

GP Green Party (Bulgaria)

GUS Główny Urz d Statystyczny (Central Statistical Office, Poland)

ha hectare

HEI Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (Bulgaria)

HN Hospodářské noviny, Czech daily economic newspaper

IMF International Monetary Fund

IPM integrated pest management

IQ intelligence quotient

Kčs Koruna československá (Czechoslovak crown)

KDC Kralovodvorská Cement Works

kg kilogram

km kilometer

LIK Institute for Environmental Monitoring and Sustainable Development

LN Lidové noviny, Czech daily newspaper

MCC Most Coal Company (Czech Republic)

MERP Ministry of Environment and Regional Policy (Hungary)

MF Dnes Mladá fronta Dnes, Czech daily newspaper

mg/km milligrams per kilometer

MoE Ministry of the Environment

MOS Ministry of Environment (Bulgaria)

xviii

MW megawatts

MZ Ministry of Health (Bulgaria)

MŽP Ministerstvo životního prostředí (Ministry of the Environment, CzechRepublic)

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NBBCM North Bohemian Brown Coal Mines

nd no date

NGO non-governmental organization

NIMH Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology (Bulgaria)

NOX nitrogen oxides

NO2 nitrogen dioxide

NPK nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium

NSI National Statistical Institute (Bulgaria)

OECD Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development

OMRI Open Media Research Institute

ONV Okresní národní výbor (District Authority Office—Czech Republic)

OOČSÚ Okresní oddělení Českého statistického úřadu (District Division of theCzech Statistical Office)

OOSSÚ Okresní oddělení státního statistického úřadu (District Division of theState Statistical Office, Czechoslovakia)

OSS Okresní statistická správa (District Statistical Office, Czech Republic)

PAC Pesticides Advisory Committee

PAV Public Against Violence

Pb lead

PCB polychlorinated biphenyl

PHARE Pologne-Hongrie Assistance à la Reconstruction Economique (Poland-Hungary Assistance for Economic Reconstruction)

RDA Romanian Democratic Action

REC Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe

REM Romanian Ecological Movement

REP Romanian Ecological Party

RFE Radio Free Europe

RIOS Regional Environmental Inspectorates (Bulgaria)

SCE Slovak Commission for the Environment

SEF State Environmental Fund

SGTB Statisticheskii Godishnik na Tsarstvo Bulgaria (Statistical Yearbook ofBulgaria)

xix

SHD Severočeské hnědouhelné doly (North Bohemian Brown Coal Mines)

SMoE Slovak Ministry of Environment

SOX sulfur oxides

SO2 sulfur dioxide

sulfate

ŠÚSR Štatistický Úrad Slovenskej Republiky (Slovak Statistical Office)

t/km2 tonnes per square kilometer

TV television

UDF Union of Democratic Forces (Bulgaria)

UN United Nations

UNDP United Nations Development Program

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

US United States

USAID United States Agency for International Development

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

VAT Value Added Tax

VÚVA Výzkumný ústav výstavby a architektury (Research Institute ofConstruction and Architecture,Czech Republic)

Zn zinc

µg/m3 micrograms per cubic meter

µg/dl micrograms per deciliter

xx

Part I

Introduction

2

1The political economy of environmental

transitions

The environment is man’s first right. Without a safe environment, mancannot exist to claim other rights, be they political, social, or economic.

(Ken Saro-Wiwa 1996)

Humanity’s historical responsibility is an interpretive task, “naming” both thepotential of the new nature (now synonymous with nature’s “redemption”)and the failure of history to realize it.

(Buck-Morrss 1990:240)

In Milcho Manchevski’s 1995 film Before the Rain a London-based photo-journalist returnshome to his Macedonian village to discover a political and social environment wrackedwith hatred, violence, and suspicion, pitting friend against friend, neighbor againstneighbor, and family against family. The universalist goals of a federal Yugoslavia and thecontrol functions of the party state have, in this transition, given way to localisms ofviolence based on ethnicity and religion. In returning to the village of his birth, the photo-journalist finds a strange land re-configured along ethnic lines, in which the home of hisformer school-friend is now “alien” territory for a Slav, the boundaries of which aredemarcated by old friends now sentinels under the sign of “the border.” The land, state,and the mind of the inhabitants are being re-territorialized as prior commitments andnetworks are re-worked, new actors emerge, and new powers are exercised.

Throughout the film the landscape, sky, and weather play as a backdrop for thenaturalized identities of ethnic, gendered, and nationalized actors. The clouds before therain, the dry parched fields, and the rocky promontories are projected as the ominous andoverarching context within which human destinies are determined. Nature here standsresolute against the contingent and socially constructed borderlands: the journalist is tornfrom his new European world and thrust back into the environment of actually existingtransition on the ground. Here pre-existing ethnic and gender divisions have hardenedand, like the dry ground, seem to be cracking apart as hope of relief withers. In thissituation he is forced to act, to take sides, and, as a result, is eventually killed crossing afield; a symbolic space for the highly territorialized networks of permission andsanction

that have been constituted to guard against transgression of “natural” borders. He is killedby his “brother” in blood.

Before the Rain is a powerful account of the restructuring of violence from that of the stateto that of the fragmented social networks whose lines of articulation are based on race andpatriarchy. In it we are viscerally reminded of the ways in which cultural memories ofhistorical boundaries and religious divides have been masculinized through overlays ofpersonal injuries, family feuds, and war. The now-European photographer, Kiril, theGreek Orthodox monk who has taken a vow of silence (Gregoire Colin), and the MuslimAlbanian girlfriend (Labina Mitevska) sheltered by Kiril, are all smashed by patriarchal andfamilial tensions stretched so taught that they seem to break inexplicably in single wildacts of violence, and in ways that none can comprehend, even at the point of their deaths.

At one level the film forces us to recognize how particular understandings of culturalmemory and conceptions of Nature (as ethnic, gendered, and nationalized) can so easilylead to incomprehensible and unresolvable acts of violence against the individual body, thebody politic, and the land. In this sense, the film speaks directly of commonalities at theheart of state socialism, at the point of transition, and looks forward to the possibilities ofsocial and environmental reconstruction to come. But the film also teaches us that wemust be suspicious of claims about the predictability of transitions, and instead mustremain open to the ever present possibility of the generation of new powers, capacities,and actors. Throughout the region new naturalizations have emerged to provide axes ofintelligibility and action, and these naturalizations have drawn on those cultural memoriesand conceptions of “Nature” to a degree that has surprised many. In Before the Rain the“natural” is the social legacy of state socialism: a landscape of collectivities and differencesinscribed in the very structure of the land and the villages; a social geography of exiles,clerics, war-lords, and patriarchs. It is also the ethnicity of the protagonists: Europeanversus Oriental, Christian versus Muslim, Slav versus Turk. It is a fractured and ethnicizednationalism that polices a re-territorialized land and exercises immense, unpredictableviolence upon it. It is a “Nature” whose beauty and foreboding symbolize communities andlandscape practices struggling against each other, striving to achieve some new balance fora new world.

In this book we seek to clarify some of the ways in which social and environmentalchange are occurring throughout post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)(Map 1.1). In doing so we seek to elaborate on some of the ways in which specific“naturalizations” have contributed and continue to contribute to the construction of newaxes of power and new patterns of social, economic, and political life in the region as theold withers and in the interregnum monsters are born. In particular, we ask how “Nature”and “environments” are being re-territorialized as social projects as the transition fromcommunist to post-communist polities, economies and societies occurs. How wereNature, land, resources, and health “rendered” under state socialism and how are theybeing “reworked” in the combined processes of democratization, marketization, and re-institutionalization throughout Central and Eastern Europe today?

4 INTRODUCTION

Map 1.1 Central and Eastern Europe

INTRODUCTION 5

Environment and transition

In the late 1980s, all countries and many areas in Central and Eastern Europe wereaffected by severe environmental problems (French 1990). In these areas, centralizedbureaucracies, massive and inefficient agricultural and industrial enterprises, theprioritizing of production over other social goods, and weak civil societies all led to poorecological practices, dangerous working conditions, and heightened levels ofenvironmental and technological risk for substantial numbers of people. Populardissatisfaction with polluted and unsafe environments was one of the main factors intriggering and enabling the political unrest that brought down communist regimesthroughout the region, illustrated nowhere better than in the Bulgarian case of themothers of Russe, whose opposition to the deteriorating health of their children sparked amuch broader national movement for ecological defense and environmentalreconstruction that quickly became the mobilizing moment for political opposition to theregime of Todor Zhivkov. Throughout Central and Eastern Europe the fall of communismwas universally hailed as an opportunity for the region to “clean up” its public spaces (todemocratize them) and to “clean up” these environmental problems: transition was tomean the liberalizing of the economy and polity, democratizing civil society, and creatingcleaner and safer environments. Democratization was to mean the decentralization ofpower at all levels and the return of decision-making to the people.

Many assumptions were made at this time about how the transformation of the region’seconomic and political systems would improve environmental conditions. It was widelybelieved that Soviet-style heavy industry would be replaced by cleaner light industry andthe expansion of the service sector; communist era technologies would be replaced byless-polluting Western equipment; communist rulers and their narrow focus on economicoutput would be replaced by environmentally-conscious democratic politicians; and ruleby decree would be replaced by a system based on the rule of law, includingenvironmental laws. Many expected the clean-up to start immediately.

However, most analysts overestimated the rate of change of the socioeconomictransformation, and grossly underestimated the depth of the financial crises that soonengulfed the countries of the region. That environmental problems were not generallydealt with quickly was in part a result of the newness of transitions from communism todemocratic market systems and the particular problems posed by environmental clean-up,for which no blueprints existed, Jeffrey Sachs and the World Bank notwithstanding(Somogyi 1993). Furthermore, each country of the region has a unique socioeconomiccontext and each has exhibited distinct paths and patterns of transformation in the yearssince 1989 (Stark 1992). Technological and economic conditions have had differentenvironmental consequences within the reforming countries, and the lessons learned forone country, or from one sector within a single country, do not necessarily apply toanother. Nonetheless, one experience of all reform countries has been that environmentalpollution and health conditions have not improved rapidly or significantly, although thereare some notable exceptions, such as thereduction of solid and sulfur dioxide emissions inthe Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.1

6 INTRODUCTION

The paralyzing financial crises and economic collapse that have accompaniedtransformation in several reforming countries, and the changes to legal, economic andpolitical systems, have had important consequences for environmental conditions. On theone hand, there has been little money for environmental clean-up and investment in non-polluting, efficient technologies: individuals and institutions, having to scrape to makeends meet, have diverted their attention from environmental to economic concerns.While new environmental laws and institutions have been put in place, few reformingcountries have had sufficient available resources to implement the changes thoroughly. Onthe other hand, in many of the most polluting and dangerous industries economic criseshave resulted in the shutting down or at least cutting back of operations which, in itself,has substantially improved environmental conditions in some locales. “Clean-up bydefault” signals an important achievement, but at the same time it poses importantchallenges to environmentalists. First, because it does clean up the environment in theshort term, continued mobilization of popular support for environmentally soundprograms and policies has become even more difficult. Second, it means that, withoutsubstantial restructuring of practices and technologies used in production, transport andconstruction, new economic growth—if and when it occurs—may lead to new rounds ofenvironmental degradation in a context in which there has been little intervening changein public attitudes and practices.

The “environmental question” has become even more intriguing since about 1993 aseconomic crises and political developments have rendered initially single and linearmodels of transition inappropriate. As Pickles and Smith (1998) have demonstrated,transition has produced multiple political forms, divergent development paths, and hybridcapitalisms. In these “actually existing transitions” the fortunes of environmentalmovements and environmental health have themselves been influenced by broadertransformations, and their articulations with social, economic, and political life havesimilarly produced different paths and outcomes.

Equally important, however, is the role of environmental social movements in thepopular imagination as organizations at the forefront of public opposition to communistparty states in 1989, and which (with the possible exception of Poland) provided theinstitutional and ideological ground for the articulation of forms of anti-politics whichhave so typified the first decade of transformation in CEE. In this sense, challenges to statepolicies found their most direct expression through the movements for ecologicalresistance which emerged to oppose the ravages of the environment and the health of thepopulation under state socialism. And it was in these movements for ecological resistance(combined with civil defense movements) that a new “anti-politics” of transformationemerged, one that was skeptical of the formal institutions of the state, wary ofparliamentary solutions, and sitting in uneasy relation with the technocrats within its ownranks. It is this “anti-politics” that has been a major target of domestication by the formalpolitics of reform.

If the importance of geographical and sociological specificity are, thus,lessons we canlearn from the experience of the environmental movement in post-communist societiesundergoing reform, it is also important to acknowledge the universalizing influence ofinternational capital (whose primary goal has, from the first days of 1989, been to open

INTRODUCTION 7

markets and gain footholds in CEE economies), and of Western governments (whoseprimary goal has been to orchestrate a smooth transition of reform countries into theglobal economy at least geo-political cost to NATO and the West generally).

The articulations of local path dependent social and political struggles, the influence ofinternational and globalizing institutions, and the differentiation of social and demographicstructures in the region have produced a transition whose character is better described byLenin’s notion of uneven and combined development than it is by any general model ofmodernization and democratization. However, from our point of view, classic studies ofuneven development have too often externalized the role of environment andenvironmental politics and health, treating environment as something acted upon andexternal to the primary relations of society or as an arena of social action whose concernand effects are restricted to the level of household and family concerns, to the domain ofwomen, and somehow not a part of the economic and political life of the broadercommunity. The task before us is, as David Harvey (1996:184) suggests, one ofdemonstrating “the sheer necessity of always taking the duality of social and ecologicalchange seriously.”

This book is about these complex relations between environmental and social change.Specifically, it is about the ways in which environmental conditions have arisen and arechanging in the transitions in and from state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe.

Second, the book is about the ways in which environmental risks have arisen and have beenconstructed within a broader political economy, initially of forced industrialization andmore recently of liberal productivism and reform. In this sense, the book is about theenvironmental hazards faced by people in the region and about the ways in which theenvironment “works” and is deployed as part of a broader system of societal regulation, asenvironments of concern, as contested environments, and as environmental policy.

Third, the book is a conscious attempt to incorporate the environment into a socialtheory of environmental and societal change. To do this we seek to create articulationsamong various forms of political economy and political ecology from Marxian analytics, toregulation theory, to Gramscian analysis, to cultural studies, to Foucaultian genealogy. Indoing this we aim to show how these parallel and related traditions can inform a criticaltheory of society and a genealogical analysis of environment and environmental discourseand practice.

The structure of the book

Environmental Transitions has three primary goals. First, it describes the environmentallegacy of central planning and the geographical similarities and differences inenvironmental conditions among countries of Central and Eastern Europe that resultedfrom the rule of the Party. Second, the book describes andaccounts for the ways in whichthese legacies of environmental crisis are being addressed in Central and Eastern Europe.Third, the book locates the environment within theories of transition and analyzes theways in which newly democratizing, market-oriented societies are attempting to deal withthe challenges of environmental reconstruction. Specifically, the book:

8 INTRODUCTION

• describes air and water pollution and environmental degradation throughout theregion, drawing on information from seven countries: Poland, Czech Republic,Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania

• analyses actual environmental conditions in selected localities• explains the institutional and social contexts within which struggles over

environmental health occurred and are occurring at the present time• provides detailed case studies of environmental conditions in both specific localities

and specific sectors of industry.

A growing amount of published work has begun to address one or other of these issues. Muchhas been useful in providing basic empirical information about conditions in the mostpolluted regions and industries of Central and Eastern Europe, and in raising the questionof environmental conditions under central planning. Much of this published work is,however, descriptive and anecdotal, and much recites the now widely accepted mantra of“grey landscapes and polluted lands.” For those who travel throughout CEE, this image—while certainly accurate in some areas—does not ring true generally.

Some of the better published work on this issue does articulate the geographicallyuneven nature of environmental degradation (such as Frank Carter and David Turnock’sEnvironmental Problems in Eastern Europe (1993)), but this literature tends not to engageeither the literature of social theory and environment or that dealing with environmentand the political economy of transition. In both cases, state-centered approaches meanthat fundamental on-the-ground dynamics and their contradictory nature are elided.

Where analysis has focused on the role of social and political dimensions ofenvironmental conditions and change (such as in Elmar Altvater’s The Future of the Market(1993)), the environment has been addressed only in the most abstract of ways. In some ofthe detailed work on transition (such as that by Clarke et al., What About the Workers?(1993)) the environment does not figure at all, and where it does, as in the recent book byElster, Offe, and Preuss (1998), it is signaled as an absence in the literature. In each case,detailed case studies are missing of the interplay between social and environmentalprocesses at local, national, and international levels, a broader theorization of the socialactors involved, explicit attempts to show how environmental issues are part of a broaderregional political economy of transition, and a theoretical perspective that not only bringspolitical economy and environment together, but does so in a way that treats each as fullydialectical, and thereby also puts in question the terms of what counts as sound economicand environmental practice.

This book challenges simplistic and one-sided Western views of state socialism and itsrelationship toward the environment. For example, Klarer and Francis (1997:7–8) haverecently argued that “with practically no exception, production processes were wasteful[under central planning]…there were no incentives to introduce efficient or environment-friendly technologies…the neglect of environmental problems was pervasive throughoutthe system [and] environmental pollution officially did not exist” (emphasis added).Although we agree that there is some truth in these claims, the reality of state socialismand its approaches toward the problems of environmental degradation has been muchmore complex. We want to show, for example, that the state socialist countries seriously

INTRODUCTION 9

attempted to alleviate the extensive environmental degradation in the 1970s and 1980sthat resulted in gradually declining levels of pollution in the 1980s. However, we alsowant to show why the environmental effects of these efforts were limited as they weredeeply embedded in the existing state socialist political economic system.

Environmental Transitions is about the effects of central planning on environmentalconditions and the role the environment currently plays in liberal transitions from centralplanning. But it is not a celebratory text, nor do we intend to write a book about failedtransitions (see Manser 1993). Environmental Transitions is meant to signal the importanceof thinking of environment and environmental change as fully embedded in particularsocial conditions and projects. More directly it signals the post-socialist condition movingbeyond the shadowed atmospheric lows of state socialism, but at the same time putting inquestion the triumphalism that often accompanies much writing on transitology. The filmBefore the Rain signals the liminal status of transformation: a period of anxiety andforeboding as people await and hope for the cleansing rains. Environmental Transitionshopes for a new brighter day, but tries to ask how state socialist legacies and practicescondition or continue to influence the re-workings of the modernization project that is“post-socialism.” Detailed local case studies are used to illustrate the mixed and complexnature of the transition in process, the importance of investigating environmental changeat a variety of temporal and spatial scales, and the necessity of revitalizing dialecticalarguments to understand how social and environmental change are related. In particular,we hope to locate the “environment question” squarely within a critical political economyof transformation that is sensitive to the historical, social, and cultural contexts of actuallyexisting socialisms and actually existing transitions.

Before we develop a more extended theoretical interrogation of the environmentquestion for the kind of analysis we carry out in the book (Chapter Two), we return firstto the origins of the environmental crisis itself.

Origins of the environmental crisis

In the final analysis the greatest obstacles to effective environmentalprotection in the USSR and GDR are almost certainly political-economic incharacter

(DeBardeleben 1985:151)

It is certainly the case that environmental problems in CEE existed before state socialism,and were a product of pre-war capitalist production. These problems were, however, oflimited impact and were concentrated in specific regions, such as Saxony in the formerEast Germany, Bohemia and northern Moravia in the Czech Republic, and Silesia inPoland. Industrial development outside these larger regions was limited to several smallerregions usually centered on large cities such as Budapest, the region around Bucharest,and small-scale industrialization in individual cities and towns (see Turnock 1989:69–71).The causes of environmental devastation were also similar to those in Western Europe:

10 INTRODUCTION

air pollution caused by the burning of coal as a principal energy source and landscapedevastation caused by coal mining in the coal mining regions.2 These problems wereaggravated by post-war socialist industrialization which concentrated on the extensivedevelopment of heavy industries fueled by coal. Environment was not taken into accountin this drive to socialist industrialization, in part because pollution levels were initially lowand environmental degradation was not considered to be a significant problem. Problemsof environmental degradation began to become visible and serious only in the late 1950sand early 1960s. In the Czech Republic at this time areas of forest defoliation appeared inthe Ore Mountains of the Black Triangle, and by the late 1950s, 50 percent of forests innorthern and northwestern Bohemia showed the signs of pollution damage (ZpravodajMŽP 1994:VII). Ivan Dejmal, the former Czech Minister of the Environment described thisperiod as follows:

I grew up in the city of Ústí nad Labem [in northern Bohemia] and I observed theenvironmental destruction from my early childhood. The Bílina River, whichserved as a sewer for the Stalin’s [chemical] Factory, flew behind our house. Anopen cast coal mine and a deep pit were located at the edge of the town and thesurrounding area was still devastated by the World War Two air raid. Every year,we choked in a dense toxic fog from the middle of September until April because itwas the time of construction [of socialism] and the chemical factory released allkinds of pollutants in the air. Our eyes stung. We could not open windows. Mostpeople constantly suffered from a dry cough. Everything around was terribly dustyand dirty. Forest damage became visible by the early 1960s.

(Plamínková 1993:4)

As in capitalist countries, the socialist state responded with the introduction of policiesthat were designed to limit environmental damage caused by industries and agriculture.As we argue in Chapter Seven, CEE countries had—in many respects—well developedenvironmental legislation, with pollution limits often set at more stringent levels than inthe West, as state officials sought to demonstrate the superiority of socialism overcapitalism in environmental management.3 In practice, environmental policies wereweakly enforced and unrealistic pollution limits could not be met by the state-ownedenterprises, which were allocated only small investment funds for environmentalremediation.Environmental investments were, in fact, considered non-productive.4

Instead, money that might have been spent on the environment was diverted intoproduction. Growth in output was the measure of success in comparing state socialisteconomies with Western industrialized countries. Not surprisingly, many environmentalgoals and tasks were postponed indefinitely. For example, when the 1974 Water Act wasenacted in Czechoslovakia the government approved about 2,400 exemptions from theAct for enterprises discharging untreated waste water in excess of established limits. Twothousands such exemptions were still in place by 1989 (Baltus 1993:13, Tickle andVavroušek 1998:120).

This does not mean that state socialist governments did not react to environmentalproblems or that they did nothing to control environmental degradation, as we will show.

INTRODUCTION 11

A number of anti-pollution measures and policies were introduced in all CEE countries.Some of these policies were effective, others were not. Each was devised andimplemented as a part of the particular political economic system, and we need tounderstand how these contingent circumstances influenced environmental practices andmanagement. That is, we need to be sensitive to the ways in which environmentalpractices were over-determined by knowledge of environmental problems and a widearray of socio-economic conditions (including financial and technological constraints,limited access to Western technology and knowhow, struggles among various ministriesand state agencies over the nature, exploitation and approaches toward the environmentalmanagement, Communist Party hegemony, and the strength or weakness of independentenvironmental movements that could challenge the governmental environmentalpolicies). For example, all CEE countries recognized the need for clean water and builtwater treatment plants. But construction was slow, demand for water treatment wasmuch higher than the capacity of the existing treatment plants, and many of the plantsbuilt provided only mechanical treatment.5 Governments were even willing to close themost polluting factories with poor environmental records.6 In 1989 during perestroika, 240factories were closed for environmental reasons in the former Soviet Union alone (French1990:36). Air pollution was a major concern in the 1960s and 1970s, and as a result ofgovernment action particulate matter emissions declined dramatically with the installationof scrubbers into power plants and industrial enterprises. In some cases, high smokestackswere constructed and pollution limits for individual companies were based on the heightof their smokestacks. Aimed at regional dispersal and relief for nearby communities, suchmeasures ultimately expanded the range of pollution over a larger territory. Measuressuch as these were relatively efficient and technologically simple. The GermanDemocratic Republic (GDR), for example, reduced solid emissions by 30 percentbetween 1975 and 1985 simply through the use of more effective filters (GDR Review1986:37).

The CEE countries were much less successful with gaseous emissions.7 For example,Czechoslovakia did not introduce any legislative measures to control gaseous emissions,and, as a result, no desulfurization equipment was put in operation during the statesocialist period. In some countries, such as the former Soviet Union (FSU) and EastGermany, limited access to Western technology andlack of financial resources resulted inattempts to produce desulfurization equipment locally. But this rarely worked well andwas not widely adopted.8 Typical is the case of the soviet-style desulfurization plant builtin the 1980s at the Tušimice II power plant in northern Bohemia (the Czech Republic),which upon completion was never activated.

Thus, despite difficulties, state planners were looking for ways to reduce pollution. Inthe 1970s and 1980s they began to turn to nuclear power plants to replace coal-basedpower stations. While the major reason for this policy was an effort to switch to newenergy sources in the face of the depletion of indigenous coal resources, the environmentalbenefits were also recognized to be substantial if safe nuclear power technology could beused. New nuclear power plants would allow the closure of coal-based power plants, andair pollution would be substantially reduced as a result.

12 INTRODUCTION

CEE countries also tried to cooperate on environmental protection within the Councilfor Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). The first attempts began in the early 1960swith the 1962 CMEA Council resolution that mandated the coordination of scientific andtechnical research in the areas of air and water pollution. Further efforts continued in the1970s with the creation of a Joint Council for the Protection and Improvement of theEnvironment in 1974, charged with the task of coordinating scientific and technicalcooperation in environmental protection among the CMEA members. In the same year, acomprehensive program on environmental protection was enacted by the CMEAexecutive committee. Cooperation was further expanded in the 1980s to include globalenvironmental monitoring and information problems. Despite these measures, progress incoordinating environmental efforts was very slow (Ziegler 1991:85–6).

The deepening of the environmental crisis was closely related to the economic crisis ofthe 1970s and 1980s. As the sources for a predominantly extensive regime ofaccumulation became exhausted, centrally planned economies failed to adjust adequatelyto the new circumstances. Overambitious investment decisions financed from domesticsavings and intra-bloc (CMEA) bilateral credits were made throughout the 1950s and the1960s, but these failed to account sufficiently for resource availability and conditions inthe world economy. Internal resources for extensive economic growth (labor, rawmaterials, and financial resources) were becoming exhausted by the 1960s and statesocialist countries could no longer rely on assistance from the Soviet Union, which itselfhad started to borrow in Western capital markets to underwrite necessary investment inits own huge energy and industrial sectors in the Volga basin and Siberia, and for theBaikal-Amur Railway (Hamilton 1990). CEE countries began to borrow money in theWest in the 1970s to finance industrial development and sustain high rates of economicgrowth. Capital equipment and technology imports were required to shift economicpolicy from extensive to intensive forms of development (Coffin 1987). But suchinvestment policies had adverse effects on national economies especially after the globalcrisis of 1973 when developed countries considerably slowed their own pace of investment.In fact, CEE countries did not substantially change their investment behavior at this timeand largely ignored or discountedthe negative impact the global economic crisis wouldhave on their own economies (Marer 1989, Zloch-Christy 1987). The 1973 oil shockcoincided with CEE investments in oil and energy intensive technologies and theconstruction of new petrochemical plants and refineries. Energy intensive industrialsectors were projected to grow faster than industry as a whole in the first half of the 1980s(Kramer 1991:60), and investments continued rapidly. In fact, growth was possible onlybecause of subsidized low prices for oil supplied from the FSU throughout the 1970s, asoil prices in the rest of the World increased rapidly.9 CEE countries thus continued tospecialize in energy-intensive heavy industries such as petrochemicals, refined oilproducts, and iron and steel products (Ziegler 1991:92), at the very time that Westerneconomies were restructuring towards alternative energy sources and new technologiesand industries (Altvater 1993:19–23).10

Western loans went into expensive, capital-intensive projects such as the HutaKatowice steelworks in Poland or the joint Romanian-Yugoslav Iron Gates hydroelectricpower station on the Danube. These investments were very slow to yield any returns.

INTRODUCTION 13

The loans were also used to expand existing factories or construct new plants tomanufacture tractors, cars, ships, tires, color televisions and chemicals, often for export.However, Western and Third World markets facing their own economic crises wereunable to absorb these products (Hamilton 1990). Terms of trade deteriorated, demandfor East European exports declined, international interest rates increased, and worldprices for CEE goods dropped (Zloch-Christy 1987). As a result, CEE countries ran largetrade deficits from 1971 to 1979.

Eastern Europe’s gross indebtedness in hard currency increased about twelvefold in the1970s, reaching US $70 billion in 1980 (including the Soviet Union), as annual trade deficitswith the West soared from about US $0.5 billion in 1970 to nearly US $5 billion in 1975and thereafter remained for the rest of the decade at an annual level of some US$ 3–4billion (Coffin 1987). Poland’s debt grew at the fastest rate, tripling between 1974 and1977. The debt of former East Germany and Hungary doubled in the same period.Romania’s debt tripled between 1974 and 1979. Poland, East Germany, Hungary, andRomania were the countries of CEE most indebted to the West. CEE countries respondedwith sharp cuts in their imports from the West, strict credit conditions, and efforts toexport whatever was possible. In all CEE countries except Romania, the largest cuts weremade in investment for domestic consumption, although in most countries significantreductions were also made in actual levels of consumption (Marer 1989).

Not surprisingly, the environment and environmental investments were not majorpriorities during this period of economic stagnation, mounting economic problems andscarce fiscal resources. In Poland, for example, the steadily worsening economic situationin the 1970s led to a 28.2 percent decrease in investments in water pollution control andto a 20.2 percent decline in investments for air pollution control between 1975 and 1979(Kramer 1987:158). Moreover, not all the funds designated for the environment werespent on the environment. Polish industrial planners frequently diverted the fundsallocated for environmental protection to production. Between 1976 and 1980, only40percent of the funds designated for waste treatment were actually spent on wastetreatment (Kramer 1987:157).11

During this same period the gap in environmental quality between the West and CEEwidened. Western European countries introduced new policies to decrease air pollution,such as the installation of desulfurization and denitrification equipment for majorpolluters, switching from solid fuels to natural gas, decreasing sulfur content in solid andliquid fuels, and in some cases increasing dependence on nuclear power (see Mounfield1991:96–128). At the same time, CEE countries continued to rely on low quality coal toproduce most of their electricity (see Chapter Three) and the role of coal actuallyincreased during the late 1970s and early 1980s as the price of Soviet oil increased anddeliveries from the FSU began to decline.12 In 1982, the former Soviet Union cut itsplanned oil deliveries to CEE by 10 per cent in order to increase its own exports of oil tothe developed capitalist countries to offset declining oil prices since 1981.13 CEEcountries were unable to replace this shortfall of subsidized cheap Soviet oil on world oilmarkets because prices were much higher and they lacked the necessary hard currencyreserves. As a result, overall coal production in CEE increased by almost 13 percentbetween 1980 and 1985, and the production of brown coal and lignite increased by

14 INTRODUCTION

almost 20 percent during the same period (Kramer 1991: 63–5). For example, faced withrising foreign debt and oil prices in the late 1970s, East Germany shifted to brown coal asits primary source of energy in the early 1980s, thereby reversing the previous shift toimported oil that had taken place in the early 1970s. By 1985, almost 83 percent ofelectricity was produced from brown coal, and production increased from 258 milliontonnes in 1980 to 312 million tonnes in 1985. While this strategy led to lower oil importsand thus lower foreign debt, it substantially increased air pollution (DeBardeleben 1991:176–7, Kramer 1991:63). Similarly, Romania planned to increase its share of coal inelectricity production from 27 percent in 1980 to 50 percent in 1985 by increasing its coalproduction by what turned out to be an unrealistic 143–8 percent between 1980–5, andby a further 150–65 percent between 1985–90. Poland and Bulgaria planned to increasetheir brown coal and lignite production by 40 percent between 1985 and 1990. Thelowest increase in coal production, by 2 percent between 1980 and 1985, took place inHungary. Only Hungary and Czechoslovakia did not increase their coal production plansfor the 1985–90 period (Kramer 1991:61–3).

Instead of focusing on ways to decrease energy use or increase efficiency, CEE countriesadopted “supply side” policies by building more and more power plants, with negativeeffects on the environment.14 Focus on the development of domestic energy resources,especially low quality brown coal and lignite, resulted in increased mining (often usingstrip mining methods), landscape devastation, and the destruction of villages (ChaptersFour and Five look more closely at these practices in a case study of the Most District ofnorthern Bohemia in the Czech Republic). East Germany pursued similarly devastatinglarge scale open cast coal mining. At least seventy East German villages or parts of villageswere demolished between 1960 and 1980 to obtain the low-grade coal beneaththem.Demolition continued in the 1980s, especially in the Cottbus region and south of Leipzig,as coal production increased from 260 million tonnes annually in 1980 to 335 milliontonnes in 1990 (DeBardeleben 1991:178–9). The low-grade coal was then burnt innearby coal-based power plants, with consequent impacts on regional air quality(Table 1.1).

Environmental effects of controversial nuclear power plants were not felt until the late1970s and 1980s.15 Despite the Chernobyl disaster, CEE countries have continued to useand extend Soviet technology for their nuclear power plants, so that today, for example,about 50 percent of Hungarian and Slovak electricity comes from their single nuclear powerplants. This percentage will increase for Slovakia when its new Mochovce power plant isfully operational. Poland has decided not to build nuclear power plants, and its reliance onbituminous coal has, as a result, remained extremely high. Romania and Albania have notbuilt any nuclear power plants either, but both countries have substantial oil and naturalgas deposits and consequently do not have to rely on coal or imports for their energyproduction (even though Romania attempted to increase its reliance on coal substantiallyduring the 1980s).16

Central planning’s highly bureaucratic mode of economic regulation contributed to theenormous levels of energy waste. Prices for both natural resources and electricity werecentrally mandated and subsidized, and were set at such low levels that they failed to takeinto account real costs of environmental degradation or improvement.17 Low prices for

INTRODUCTION 15

coal and other natural resources undermined any incentives for industries to becomemore energy efficient. Instead, cheap electricity and energy usually led to over-consumption and energy waste both by industries and individual consumers. As a result,centrally planned economies used much more energy for the production of each unit ofnational income than Western industrialized countries. According to some estimates, EastEuropean economies required five or more times as much energy per unit of GDP thancomparable countries of Western Europe in the early 1990s (Hughes 1992: 18).18

Consequently, energy inefficient production led to much higher levels of pollution perunit of income than was the case in Western countries (Table 1.2).

Low levels of energy efficiency resulted in part from the overwhelming reliance on lowquality brown coal and lignite as the major energy source in most CEE countries. Theheating value of brown coal and lignite is low and energy yields are only about half that ofhard coal. In addition, brown coal and lignite have a high ash and sulfur content, and theenergy efficiency of coal mining operations is low. For example, the energy efficiency ofopen cast coal mining in northern Bohemia was estimated at less than 30 percent in theearly 1990s.19 In Poland, thousands of industrial furnaces operated at energy efficiencybelow 40 percent in the 1980s (Kramer 1991:58–9).

Despite the obvious and increasing scope of environmental degradation, only Poland,Hungary and East Germany established environmental ministries under state socialism.But even in these countries environmental protection remained subordinated toproduction and the environmental ministries were generally weak compared to theproduction ministries. In countries that did not have any central environmental authority(Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Albania) many different ministries dealt withenvironmental protection and regulation, further weakening their effectiveness. In Poland,

Table 1.1 Commercial energy consumption in CEE (consumption by fuel type as % of total), 1989*

Notes:* Consumption is defined as domestic production plus net imports, minus net stock increases, minusaircraft and marine bunkers** Solid fuels include bituminous coal, lignite, peat, and oil shale burned directly*** Liquid fuels include crude petroleum and natural gas liquids# Gas includes natural gas and other petroleum gases## Other fuels include primary production from hydro, nuclear, and geothermal sourcesSource: Livernash (1992:61)

16 INTRODUCTION

the organization of environmental agencies was described as chaotic, lacking the necessaryinstruments to measure pollution levels and determine sources of pollution, and havinginsufficient trained personnel to carry out the work. The biggest deficiency, however, wasa lack of political support for their work. As a result, they were simply unable tochallenge polluters who had much more powerful political links (Kramer 1987:159).

Communist Party hegemony and its monopoly over information made it possible toconceal information about the quality of the environment. Environmental data weresecret, the public did not have access to even basic environmental information (seeChapter Eight), and even in places such as northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic andSilesia in Poland, where the extent of environmental devastation was obvious, people hadlittle detailed knowledge of environmental conditions in their local region.20 Individualswho openly expressed their dissatisfaction with environmental policies and attempted toincrease public environmental awareness were persecuted by the government.21 As aresult, the independent environmental movements that emerged in Hungary and theCzech Republic in the 1970s were weak and generally under the control of thegovernment (Livernash 1992).

By contrast, official environmental organizations claimed to have hundreds ofthousands of members, but these were firmly under the control of the Communist Party.For example, there were the Czech Union for Nature Protection and the BrontosaurusMovement in the Czech Republic, the Society for Nature and the Environment in theformer East Germany, the League for the Preservation of Nature in Poland, and theAssociation of Friends of Nature in Hungary. Their journals were strictly regulated by thegovernment and could not report and discuss freely air pollution or other environmentalproblems and their effects on human health (Jancar-Webster 1991:28, 35).

Deteriorating environmental quality and increasing popular discontent with the state ofthe environment prompted CEE governments to consider new approaches toward

Table 1.2 Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide (in grams per dollar GNP), 1989

Source: Livernash (1992:64–5)

INTRODUCTION 17

environmental protection in the 1980s. Environmental investment increased in most CEEcountries in the second half of the 1980s. In Czechoslovakia, for example, the share ofenvironmental investment of GDP increased from 0.3 percent between 1980–5 to 0.6percent in the period of 1986–90 (World Bank 1992a:18).22 Most CEE countries alsodoubled environmental investment in their 1986–90 plans (Jancar-Webster 1991:37).Environmental considerations became gradually integrated into the planning process. Atleast on paper, Hungary made environmental protection an integral part of nationaleconomic plans in 1980 and governmental priority in the 1980s (Szirmai 1993:150).Czechoslovakia adopted an ecological rehabilitation program in 1985 and newinvestments were to be reviewed for their potential environmental impacts. Other countriessuch as Poland, East Germany, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia began to stress the importance ofenvironmental protection (Jancar-Webster 1991:37–8, Boehmer-Christiansen 1998:71).State socialist governments were faced with rapidly deteriorating environmentalconditions in the most affected regions and popular pressure to deal with environmentalcrises was mounting.23

In Chapter Two we show how environmental change must be understood in terms ofthe broader processes of social, economic, and political transformation. We then turn inParts II and III to more detailed analysis of Nature and environment under state socialismand during the past decade of post-socialist transformations.

18 INTRODUCTION

2Theorizing social and environmental change

In an essay published at the time of the coup in the Soviet union in 1991, E.P. Thompsonsuggested that:

one of the great lessons of communism under challenge in the past 10 years —fromPolish Solidarity onwards, and above all the east European lesson of autumn 1989—has been that awe of the state has been falling away: think of Gdansk, WenceslavSquare, and Leningrad this week. Ideological doping no longer works, theinstruments of repression are less effective, the rulers have lost confidence inthemselves, the people have been re-learning their power when aroused in greatnumbers.

(Thompson 1991:3)

Thompson ends his essay with “A note of warning.” At the European Disarmamentconvention, which ended as the coup in the Soviet Union was proclaimed, Sovietparticipants were obsessed with national autonomy with human rights and minority rightspoor second and third concerns:

So rejection of the coup may not be an outright victory for “democracy”; it mayalso be a victory for populist Russian nationalism against bureaucrats andideologues. That is not altogether bad, but populist nationalism is by no means anunqualified good either. Look what it is doing to Yugoslavia.

(Ibid.)

With these words, Thompson evokes the dilemma of democratic movements in Centraland Eastern Europe in which issues of demonopolization, anti-bureaucratic actions, localpower, and individual and civic rights have arisen along with new and old forms ofnationalism, ethnic struggle, local competition, core-periphery dominance, consumerism,and the substitution of political for economic power.

This series of evolving tensions between democratic practices and the rise of newforces of social division is crucial to this book. Here questions of environmental pasts,ecological reconstruction, and environmental futures are located within analyses of theregional and local structure of power in the transition inCEE, and specifically within

analyses of the relationship between decentralization, demonopolization, privatization,and democratization.

First, it is important to recognize that in CEE there has been an extended period oftransition from the political dominance of the Communist Party to systems of politicalpluralism. Hungary and Poland serve as the best examples. In the emerging situations ofpolitical pluralism, the degree of political power and electoral support retained by thereformed Communist Parties across the region varies, but in some countries it remains quitestrong, such as Hungary and Poland (and Bulgaria until the 1997 elections). In thiscontext, perestroika, glasnost, democratization, and decentralization have become bothpolicy adjustments aimed at retaining power for an aging and increasingly delegitimizedparty bureaucracy, as well as the rallying demands of the democratic movements.

Second, environmental problems and local concerns about health provided the focusfor the mobilization of the mass democratic movement and have become universallyaccepted parts of political rhetoric in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Thus, the tools orpolicies of renewal and the problems of the environment constitute important aspects ofthe struggle for political power.

Third, the deepening economic crisis since 1989 in several CEE countries and therelative economic success of others such as Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary,exacerbated by the absence of clear national policy and the rapid adoption of market-oriented mechanisms, have created problems for the environmental and the democraticmovements. New forms of economic power have arisen in the interregnum, withimportant implications for both the democratic movement generally and environmentalissues in particular. Moreover, in all countries bread and butter economic issues havebecome so pressing that they have apparently reduced the support for environmentalissues, and now threaten the emerging civil structures which are so central to effectivedemocratic and environmental politics.

Fourth, the deepening economic crisis has had a weakening impact on the emergenceof an independent policy arena within CEE, and has favored a (re)assertion of a culture inwhich solutions are sought from the outside. In these circumstances, internationalagencies and foreign governmental bodies have been surprisingly influential in theformulation of public and environmental policy, and correspondingly Central and EasternEurope governments have been surprisingly eager to accept those policyrecommendations.

Fifth, the conjuncture of new challenges to old powers, the difficulty of putting newregulations in place, the emergence of counter-reactive forces, and the problems for theenvironmental movement arising out of economic crisis must also be situated in a broadertheoretical and geographical perspective. That is, the analysis of the environmental effectsof economic and political restructuring must be situated within an analysis of internationalrestructuring and the emergence of new forms of production, new regulatoryenvironments, and new challenges to environmental politics.

Sixth, the book makes clear the necessity of thinking about the current restructuringthrough multiple policy scenarios, rather than single trajectories. In thisway the book seeksto unpack popular analyses of East European events which crudely counterposedemocracy and communism, or market economies and command economies, which

20 INTRODUCTION

assume the inherent superior nature of the former and monolithic character of both (seeCreed 1990). The book focuses upon the economic and political landscapes in CEE as oneof emerging struggles over policy and resources. The model of development that willemerge from this period of transition is not a foregone conclusion, nor is it yet clearlyevident. The Yugoslavian model represents one extreme potential of the transitionprocess. The Soviet model of administrative and institutional collapse represents another.Another is seen in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic with their longer history oftransition, rapid opening to Western capital and influence, successful transitions tofunctioning democratic systems, and integration in Western European supranationalsecurity, economic, and political structures (NATO, OECD, EU).

In this sense, we should be wary of seeing restructuring and transition in terms of aunitary or single model, with a single logic. There is already clear evidence, if any werereally needed, of the regionally differentiated nature of national responses to transition.Certainly, few would now contest that the experience of transition has been quitedifferent for Central European countries on the one hand and those of SoutheasternEurope on the other. But even this geographical distinction elides the intensity ofcompetition over policy, and the geographically specific nature of these struggles at allscales. The development of economic and political policy in this context must also addressthe question of the environment. The book takes on the question of the environmentalimplications of particular models of development which have been prevalent or are nowemerging in CEE and concludes with a discussion of these emerging developmentscenarios, their corresponding understanding of environment and economy, and theirimplications for democratic practice.

Environmental Transitions addresses these issues through a series of case studies whereenvironmental politics and socio-political change intersect. In this chapter we elaboratefour arguments central to this work.

First, in CEE “the environment in the pre-revolution days also served as a rallying pointfrom which broader demands for political change emerged. Protests against pollutionquickly turned into protests against Communist rule. Initially perceived by governments asrelatively benign, environmental movements in the region soon acquired unstoppablemomentum.” (French 1991:93).

Second, while the popular democratic alliances forged across the region between 1988and 1990 remain strong, and while CEE societies have opened up in many ways, thesegains have quickly retreated in the face of a deep economic and political crisis and thedifficulties of dealing with it.

Third, these problems are not merely regional development problems consequent upona shift to Western markets and market principles, nor just a “necessary outcome” ofregional development in societies shifting to market-oriented economies. But they arisebecause modernization is taking place in a global context which has already seen (andcontinues to see) major changes ingeopolitical, industrial, and financial practices. Each ofthese ongoing and linked forms of restructuring has important implications for how CEEcountries can articulate with the broader international economy and what impacts thesearticulations will have for national, regional, ethnic, and social integration anddifferentiation.

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 21

Fourth, democratization, economic restructuring, and environmental reconstructionare thus occurring in a context that has important implications for the protection andrebuilding of healthy environments in Central and Eastern Europe, but which is (in onesense) outside the ability of policy makers to control.

Regulation theory and the environment

In contemporary social theory, social science, and East European studies two distinct andlargely separate critical traditions have emerged to speak out against what Derrida (1994)has called “the new hegemony” of neo-liberalism installing itself in post-communistsocieties. The first of these is linked to political economy and critical theory influenced byWestern Marxian and post-Marxian debates about economic and social transformation andrestructuring. The second is linked to discourse analysis, influenced by post-structuralistconcerns with a politics (often a geopolitics) that challenges the sedimented andnaturalized categories and practices that normalize and stabilize social life, particularlycategories of collective identity that undergird contemporary notions of the nation,citizen, economy, and polity. Each has its own clear ideas of its own contributions and thefailings of its “ally” in unraveling and critiquing the new hegemony. But each also shareswith the other one fundamental conception of societal change: that is, that the structuringand restructuring of everyday life occurs within complex articulations of local, regional,national, and globalizing contexts. Histories, political economies, discursive formations,and institutional assemblages and practices each comprise complex articulations ofuniversalizing and particularizing processes. Moreover, each of these complex articulationscan be thought of—as Lipietz and Aglietta have pointed out—as structuring momentswhich normalize and regulate social, economic, and political life and produce subjects andactors. These structurings, and their corresponding subjects and practices, regulate socialand institutional norms and practices, and foster distinct and (at times) coherent forms ofcapital accumulation and distribution. In this sense “transitology” (as Michael Burawoy(1992) has called it) is very much about introducing and legitimizing “technical”instruments of transition into reform societies, producing new “technologies of the socialbody” and regulating and normalizing social and economic conditions and lives withinpost-communist societies.

We hope in this chapter to contribute to thinking transition in terms of systems ofregulation and discourse, and second to showing how nature and environment can belocated within these systems—alongside the disseminated “social” “economic” and“political”—in ways that do not marginalize or treat as “additional” or “supplementary” theenvironmental question.

Nature, environment, and risk: towards a geopolitics of theenvironment

At the heart of this issue is the necessity of demonstrating the myth of industrial modernsociety. As Ulrich Beck has argued, this myth asserts that:

22 INTRODUCTION

the developed industrial society with its pattern of work and life, its productionsectors, its thinking in categories of economic growth, its understanding of scienceand technology and its forms of democracy, is a thoroughly modern society, apinnacle of modernity, which it scarcely makes sense even to consider surpassing….

In the general view, industrial society is a permanently revolutionary society.But after each industrial revolution what remains is an industrial society, perhaps abit more industrial.

(Beck 1992:11–12)

For our purposes, we want to add three other myths:

• the myth of the Western economy: a single signifier for what in practice are multiplesand hybrids transforming themselves along independent and interlinked pathways(Deleuze and Guattari 1987)

• the myth of the national economy: a thoroughly confused and confusing categoryconstructed as a form of hegemony which concretized particular social and genderedpowers (see Gibson-Graham 1996)

• the Cartesian myth of environment as a natural terrain existing over against society andon which social processes act.

As David Harvey (1996:26) reminds us, for Raymond Williams “‘Nature’…is the mostcomplex word in the language” (Williams 1983:219) because “it contains, though oftenunnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history… both complicated and changing,as other ideas and experiences change” (Williams 1980:67). Thus, for Harvey: “Aninquiry into environmental history as well as into changing conceptions of naturetherefore provided a privileged and powerful way to enquire into and understand socialand cultural change” (Harvey 1996:26).

Divergences in the ways in which environmental risk and health were constructed arewell illustrated by contrasting Western and Eastern European societies. For example,Hunnius and Kliemt have provided an interesting comparison of the social construction ofrisk in the Federal German Republic (FGR) and the GDR. The tendency to viewtechnological progress from the perspective of risk is, they argue, limited almostexclusively to Western democracies:

The theoretical discussion about the challenges posed by technological and scientificprogress in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and otherEastern Europeancountries largely ignored considerations of risk and was reduced to a process ofpassive reception. The reasons for this can be traced back to Marx’s equatingtechnological with social progress, which provided an ideological foundation and apolitically privileged status for “scientistic”, “technicalistic” and pseudo-optimisticpatterns of thinking. These narrow and rigid ideological terms of reference severelyrestricted the scope of objective discussion on the dangers and risks and on thegeneral ambivalence of technology.

(Hunnius and Kliemt 1993:222)

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 23

However the different ways in which environment and risk are situated within EasternEuropean societies and their mode of regulation are not restricted to their ideologicalembeddedness, but are products of all “short-supply economies… forced by financialexigencies to put up with enormous technological and environmental risks” (Hunnius andKliemt 1993:222). The transformation of “short-supply economies” in the West to highmass consumption societies along Fordist lines led in the post-Second World War periodto new forms of collective consumption and the generalizing of environmental concerns,but it also generated a new geopolitics of struggle over nature and resources. Germanreunification reflects particularly clearly these interactional dynamics, and specifically thedivergent and distinct regulatory and ideological traditions of late capitalist and statesocialist societies. And it also reflects equally clearly the hegemonic expansion of Westernmodels over state socialist ones after 1989.

A dialectics of nature: conceptualizing social and ecologicalchange

The difficulty in part derives from the tendency in discursive debates [sic] tohomogenize the category “nature” (and discuss its social meaning andconstitution as a unitary category) when it should be regarded as intenselyinternally variegated—an unparalleled field of difference…. The generaldebate over the society/nature relation loses sight of the incredible degreeof ecosystemic variation. As much attention should be paid to the productionof difference as to the relational meaning of nature in general. So where doesall this difference come from?

(Harvey 1996:183)

How are we to account for social and environmental change in ways that do not reduceone to actor and the other to acted upon? How are we to think transition as both a processof social and environmental transformation? And how are we to do this withoutuncritically accepting the “new technicism” of human dimensions of global environmentalchange literatures? In what follows we attempt to answer these questions by dealing withthem in terms of several notions at the heart of contemporary regulation theory andcritical economic geography: development model, dialectics, scale, structured coherenceand the production of space.

A development model consists of a particular economic and political organization adoptedby a society or imposed on it in a particular long-term period (Lipietz 1992a:1–3). Accordingto Lipietz, a development model is composed of four components:

1 a “regime of accumulation” which describes the long term development in conditionsof production and conditions of social use of its output

24 INTRODUCTION

2 a “mode of regulation” which characterizes institutional and other mechanisms usedto regulate the behavior of individual agents according to the general principles of theregime of accumulation

3 a “labor process model” which describes general principles of work organization andits development under a specific development model

4 a “hegemonic bloc” which involves a long term imposition of particular powerdominance and relations in the sphere of politics, ideology, culture and behavior thatsecure continuation and stability of a particular development model (Lipietz 1992a:2, 1992b:310–11, 1987:13–15; Leborgne and Lipietz 1991:28–9; Dunford 1990:303–8; Benko and Dunford 1991:7–10).

The acceptance of a particular development model by different social groups and classes isthe basis of a “grand compromise” which is associated with the relative stabilization of thismodel of development over a period of time during which the rationale of this modelitself is not challenged (Lipietz 1992a:x, 1992b:310).

The state socialist development model can be characterized by:

1 its predominantly extensive regime of accumulation1

2 its bureaucratic mode of regulation based on central planning2

3 its labor process model based on the “bureaucratic despotism” (Burawoy 1985:180) and“authoritarian paternalism” (Clarke et al. 1994:181)3

4 its hegemonic bloc that was based on the Communist Party hegemony over political,social and cultural life to stabilize and protect the state socialist development model.

In several ways state socialist societies followed the development pathway of thedeveloped capitalist societies. The mode of social regulation was changed under statesocialism to a one party system and economic planning, but the labor process model andthe regime of accumulation emulated those in the developed capitalist countries becausestate socialism could justify itself only through economic success compared with thecapitalist market economies. The result of this combination was that the same productivistrationality emerged under state socialism as in developed capitalism, involving thetransformation of people into passive agents (Altvater 1993:14, Lipietz 1992a:x, Deléage1989:25). An important difference between the developed capitalist societies and statesocialist CEE since the Second World War has been that, while the Western economiesconcentrated on the mass production of consumer goods after the Second WorldWar,CEE countries focused on extensive development of the means of production (DepartmentI) with rapid development of heavy industries (Altvater 1993:31).

As in capitalist countries, the rapid development of heavy industries at all costsgradually produced similar environmental problems in CEE to those experienced in theWest (O’Connor1989:95). However, in the West the existence of democracy, civilsociety and the flexibility in the mode of social regulation allowed the gradualintroduction of relatively efficient environmental management. Western economies alsounderwent important transitions from an extensive phase of development to an intensivephase that included industrial restructuring away from the traditional heavy industries to

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 25

lighter industries and a service oriented economy. By contrast, in CEE countriesCommunist Party hegemony destroyed pre-existing democratic structures (as inCzechoslovakia), replacing them with authoritarian dictatorships and driving independentcivil society underground. One consequence was that it became almost impossible todefend the environment by independent action. Environmental management was totallycontrolled by the state and was subordinated to the logic of plan fulfillment. The statecontrolled both the means of production and environmental management, leading to theparadoxical situation that environmental policies and pollution limits were set by the stateto control and discipline its own enterprises. If enforced and observed, pollution limitscould have endangered plan fulfillment.

Consequently, one reason environmental destruction was so associated with post-Second World War socialist industrialization, and continued more or less until the 1980s,was the failure to shift from an extensive to intensive regime of accumulation. But relatedto this was the inability of a bureaucratic mode of social regulation to provide forsufficient openness and flexibility to enable and facilitate change (Altvater 1993:23, 35).In this sense, democracy has been integral to the success of economic modernization andenvironmental regulation. While environmental degradation was not a major problem inthe 1950s, the cumulative effects of the post-war environmental devastation becameserious by the 1970s and 1980s, leading to economic losses and contributing to healthproblems in the region. The inability of state socialist governments to address effectivelythe environmental crises, or to provide for independent action in regard to it, contributedto a legitimation crisis of the socialist state and its collapse in 1989.4

Thus, the environmental crisis became one of the symptoms of a structural or “major”crisis of the state socialist development model (Dunford 1990:309; Brenner and Glick1991:48; Lipietz 1992a:xi, 1987:34).5 This was characterized not only by economicslowdown, but also by political and social disaffection and opposition. By the 1980s such acrisis led to a “crisis of hegemony” which in turn led directly to efforts by leading socialforces and social groups to adapt to the perestroika initiatives offered by Gorbachev tocreate a new vision and new development model acceptable to the rest of the society(Lipietz 1992a:xi). Communist Party elites were simply unable to sustain theexistingmodel of development; many had already accepted its eventual demise and had made theirown financial plans for surviving the “inevitable” transition, and few could offer analternative model acceptable to the society as a whole. The collapse of state socialismacross CEE in 1989 forced a transformation away from a centrally-planned model ofextensive development, but generated only minimal conditions for an effective and easytransition to a new development model, ostensibly based on the introduction of a marketeconomy and a democratic political system.

Dialectical geographies of transition

I see no reason why the future of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or Romaniashould be different from that of Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.

(Przeworski 1991:190)

26 INTRODUCTION

There are numerous reasons why Western Sovietologists are not wellequipped to comprehend post-Communist systems.

(Fleron and Hoffmann 1993a:371)

Perhaps surprisingly, not all studies of environment and transitions in CEE have beengeographically and environmentally sensitive. Many ignore the differences amongindividual countries and treat CEE as a unified area with the same history, geography andlevel of development (e.g. Blanchard et al. 1991), while many of those that are sensitive togeographical difference fixate on the category of the nation state and national statistics as ameans of articulating that difference, reflecting fundamentally space-less, time-less, andenvironment-less analyses of reform economics and politics (see also Altvater 1993) inwhich questions of geographic scale, geographic variability and uneven development of thetransition are largely ignored or externalized (such as Przeworski 1991).6 For example,the Czech economic literature dealing with transition focuses almost entirely on nationallevel strategies and governmental policies (macroeconomic policies, privatization and soon). Differences in the performance of individual regions are not even mentioned in theseassessments of the Czech economy (see Hájek et al. 1993, 1994 for instance).7 Indeed, forCzech liberal economists such patterns of regional uneven development are thought to bea “natural” outcome of capitalist transition and do not therefore need explanation. Thus,the Czech Economic Minister argued in May 1994: “The market economy leads also tonatural differentiation at the level of the individual regions—this reality cannot berestrained, because it is part of the overall development dynamics and one of theeconomic engines” (HN 1994b:3). Except for unemployment data, since 1989 the Czechgovernment does not even collect statistical data about uneven economic development(HN 1994c:15) (but see Smith 1995, 1996 on Slovakia).Western Sovietology has also frequently ignored variations over space and time in theregion. Its sweeping generalizations about the region based on thebelief of thehomogenizing effects of Marxism-Leninism and central planning overlooked the crucialvariation that is critical to understand the unfolding transitions in CEE (Burawoy 1992,Pavlínek, Pickles and Staddon 1994). “Post-communist studies” often continue thistradition of Sovietology (see Fleron and Hoffmann 1993b:5). When “post-communiststudies” do recognize variability and diversity in different countries (e.g. Remington1993, Bova 1993) it is perceived as an obstacle to generalizations instead of a crucial partof any explanation. For example, Bova (1993:241) argues that in order to overcome suchproblems of geographical variability we need to focus on common characteristics of thetransition processes in different countries and to apply general concepts such as post-authoritarian transition to all post state socialist countries.

Comparisons of CEE with other regions, such as, for example, Latin America, are onthe surface at least more sensitive to geographical difference. But such analyses are alsooften based on generalizations from national level statistics and ignore variability withinthese regions. For example, in one of the most influential texts on transition, Przeworski(1991:190) argues that there is no reason to believe that the countries of CEE will followa different development pathway from that of Latin America except their location inEurope. For Przeworski (ibid.: 191) “geography, with whatever it implies, is just not

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 27

enough to shape economic and political futures.” Lessons drawn from China, and LatinAmerican and African countries that have faced similar economic problems to those of thecentrally planned economies of CEE, are clearly important (e.g. macroeconomicimbalances due to the combination of a weak private sector, political monopoly, andextensive policy induced distortions) (Fischer and Gelb 1991). But these must bemediated by equivalent attention to the concrete lives of subjects of transformationswhose scales, speed, and its political and historical context each have their own historiesand geographies.

Przeworski (1991:191) concludes Democracy and the Market with the strong assertionthat “the East has become the South.” But he provides little evidence to support such atotalizing claim, and at a time when the reforms in CEE were just beginning. Lipietzcharacterizes such an approach as “pessimistic functionalist”, “presenting concrete history asthe inevitable unfolding of a concept such as imperialism” (Lipietz 1987:4). Instead, heargues, we must first carefully analyze the historical and national diversity of everycountry before generalizing its role in the world economy and international division oflabor. The destiny of any particular country and its place in the international division oflabor is not predetermined, but will depend predominantly on the concrete internalconditions, developments and their combination with external forces and pressures.While Przeworski argued that “the East has become the South” (op. cit.: 191) even beforethe transition began, Lipietz claims that “no immanent destiny condemns a particularnation to a particular place within the international division of labor” (op. cit.: 24). ForLipietz, the outcomes of national transitions are the product of uncertain processes,including internal class struggle, and are not predetermined. There are many differenttrajectories through which any country or region can go. Therefore, we may ratherexpect that the future of theindividual countries of CEE and their place in the internationaldivision of labor will differ from one country to another or at least from one group ofcountries (Central European for example) to another (Balkan countries, post-Sovietregion etc.). At the same time, transitions in the individual countries have some generalfeatures that are the same across CEE, such as the collapse of the one-party system andcentral planning, and the general processes of democratization, marketization, andeconomic decline associated with the “transitory recession.” But these concepts can neverbe anything more than an entry point for efforts to understand the very large differencesand processes of uneven development that accompany actually occurring transitions, thehistorical experiences of concrete individuals and regions with democracy and markets,and their chances of achieving a stabilized and functioning democratic system and market-based economy.

In this sense, the concept of path dependency developed by Stark (1992) is extremelyuseful for understanding these complex issues because of its sensitivity towards multipleoutcomes of actually occurring transitions both in different social realms and at differentgeographic scales (see also Chavance and Magnin 1997; Hausner, Jessop and Nielsen 1995;Stark and Bruszt 1998; Altvater 1998:593–5). In the words of David Stark:

East Central Europe must be regarded as undergoing a plurality of transitions. Acrossthe region, we are seeing a multiplicity of distinctive strategies; within any given

28 INTRODUCTION

country, we find not one transition but many occurring in different domains—political, economic, and social—and the temporality of these processes is oftenasynchronous and their articulation seldom harmonious.

(Stark 1992:18; emphasis in the original)

Moreover, the change taking place in CEE is not only path dependent, but also pathshaping (Smith and Swain 1998:27), different countries and regions can actively influencethe outcomes of the transformation in various social domains. The actual transitionpathway of a particular country or a region results from a combination of path dependentconstraints and path shaping transformation strategies.

There is ample empirical evidence suggesting that different countries follow differentialpathways from state socialism, and that the transition leads to regional fragmentation anddifferent regional pathways within the individual countries of CEE (Smith 1995, 1996,1998). Such detailed case studies identifying different national and regional pathways fromstate socialism not only point toward the importance of uneven development during thetransition, but they also challenge notions of smooth and linear transitions from statesocialism to capitalism. Instead, transition is seen here as an experience of spatial andtemporal unevenness, highly contested struggles over resources and policies, with uncertainand in principle open outcomes (e.g. Smith 1998, Pavlínek 1997). In this respect, weneed to appreciate fully the geographical and temporal variability of the transition.8 Anyconsideration of Nature and environment mustalso take into account geography; notmerely the distributional patterns of landforms, processes, and capacities, but also theways in which Nature, Space, and Society interact, and the ways in which environmental,regional, and social changes are related.

At one level, this is a question of geographic and temporal variability and unevenness,and of geographic scale. Without a clear understanding of uneven development,geographical variability and geographic scale, analyses of post-communist transitions fail toaddress the social and environmental complexities of state socialist and transitional modelsof development. Moreover, unless we go beyond the fetishizing of the nation-state andnational territory as the primary frame for understanding the processes of post-communisttransitions, and include the study of transition at the regional and local scales, and therelationship of these scales, there can be no clear analysis of how environmental futuresare actually being built in the actually occurring transition. But at another level,articulating environmental and social change as co-constitutive moments of transitionalsocieties is also about constructing a theory of environmental and social change. It is tothis twinned task that we now turn, and we begin it with a consideration of the role ofscale in transitional societies.

A political economy of geographic scale in CEE

The Group of 24 industrialized countries on 10 March [1995] warnedEastern Europe that if reforms do not continue, aid will cease.

(OMRI Daily Digest, 13 March 1995)

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 29

In the current world-economy the crucial events that structure our livesoccur at a global scale.

(Taylor 1989:38)

In the dominant view, localities are irrelevant in constructing transitionstrategies …Place, the problem of localities, is out of place in theseperspectives.

(Grabber and Stark 1997:16)

The main argument regarding geographic scale outlined in the previous section is thatmost studies of the transition in CEE focus on the region as a whole or on the nationallevel and ignore subnational levels: regions and localities. By doing that, these studiesoverlook not only variations at regional and local levels, but also the fact that thetransition operates unevenly in space and time. Changes at the national or internationallevel resonate differently and result in distinct effects in different parts of a country(Massey 1993). The impacts of processes that originate at the global and national scale areexperienced locally. For example, the changing strategies of capital accumulation andinvestment in industry associated with national transitions and attempts at reintegration intothe global economy are experienced at the local scale by localities in terms oflaborshedding, changing relations of plants with local communities, and plantrestructuring (for a more general argument see Massey 1994).This section extends the discussion of geographic scale in the transition. In it we arguethat the concrete processes of transition operate at the regional and local scale result fromthe combination of forces operating at different scales: international, national, regionaland local. The combination of these forces at the national, regional and local scales leadsto nationally, regionally and locally specific transitions and pathways from state socialism.

Peter Taylor (1981, 1982, 1989) has argued that the global scale is the scale at whichpeople’s lives and their environment are organized and exploited because the process ofcapitalist accumulation operates through the world market at the global scale. This globalcharacteristic of accumulation is the basic driving force behind capitalism. Therefore, forTaylor, this is the most important scale that incorporates other scales, defines theircharacteristics and ultimate explanations within the world system must be traced back tothis scale. In a similar way, Altvater (1998:594–5) stresses the importance of global scalefor understanding the processes driving the CEE transformation. However, he alsoemphasizes the importance of incorporation of other scales in analyses of the CEEtransformations. How can Taylor’s approach inform our analysis of the transition in CEE?

External political forces represented by the international financial organizations, suchas the World Bank, the IMF, the EU and foreign governments certainly have been crucialin the decisions of CEE governments to pursue liberal transition strategies. Externaleconomic forces have also had important impacts as multinational corporations, forexample, expand markets into the territories that have largely been previously excludedfrom the reach of their operations and reap the benefits of cheap labor.9 As aconsequence, CEE economies have been quickly integrated into the global economyfollowing the collapse of the CMEA and trade flows have been reorientated to Western

30 INTRODUCTION

industrial countries.10 As a result, CEE is increasingly influenced by changing strategies ofcapital accumulation that operate at the global scale, and export competitiveness in certaintypes of products, such as resource-based products and labor-intensive low-skillmanufactures, reinforces the position of CEE countries in the international division oflabor (Graziani 1993).11

Illner (1994) identifies five main international actors shaping transition in post-communist societies (specifically the case of the Czech Republic). These include:

1 the individual countries of the European Union (EU) with the strongest influencefrom the unified Germany

2 the Visegrad countries of Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia)3 Russia and Ukraine as the strongest successor states of the former Soviet Union12

4 Western supranational organization with the EU and NATO playing the mostinfluential role13

5 multinational companies.

For Illner (ibid.) these external forces interact and combine with national forces in theindividual countries to form country-specific paths from state socialism to capitalism.Thus, to this international reading of transition we need to add the study of transition atthe local and regional scale. Such arguments were precisely those made in debates inWestern industrial countries in the 1980s, in the wake of globalization effects, about thenature of restructuring and its impact on localities. Here geographers considered theimportance of locality, not only as a site on which global processes operated, but as acomplex nexus of relations operating at many scales in determining responses to globalrestructuring processes. Notable among these projects were the Changing Urban andRegional Systems (CURS) program, which employed a comparative historical perspectiveto study the impact of international and national economic restructuring on seven localitiesin England (Leitner 1989), and theories of the local state which became predominant inthe late 1970s and in 1980s (Cockburn 1977; Duncan and Goodwin 1982a, 1982b, 1987;Duncan, Goodwin and Halford 1988; Duncan 1989; Fincher 1987, 1989).

The reconstruction of local self-government is recognized as a very important elementof any successful transition to a democratic market-oriented society in CEE.Developments since 1989 have shown that this is not an easy task, however. Generally,changes at the local level have proceeded at a slower pace than those at the national level(Elander and Gustafsson 1993; Jensen and Plum 1993; Clark 1993). In the CzechRepublic, for example, the central state was unable to solve the political disputes aboutthe future form of territorial administration on the regional level until 1997. The issue ofregional self-government became the source of tension not only between the differentpolitical parties but also between the central and local state. While the central state wantsto keep as many powers as possible allegedly to regulate the transition effectively, thelocal state pushes for a wide reaching decentralization and self-government on local andregional levels. In the center of the dispute are the differences between the liberals and

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 31

their opponents over the role of civil society in modern democratic system (see Pavlínek1997:324–8).

Structured coherence and the study of regionaltransformations

So far we have identified three important theoretical and conceptual issues and concerns(complexity, uneven development, and geographic scale) that we need to include andaddress in the study of environmental transitions in CEE. But how are we to integratethese issues into a coherent conceptual and methodological approach applicable to thestudy of post-communist transitions and environment? In this section, we analyze DavidHarvey’s (1985) concept of “structured coherence” and propose to apply it for the analysis ofthe regional political economy at the sub-national scale in CEE. This use of structuredcoherence will also allow us to integrate two important theoretical moments into theanalysis of transition and the environment at the regional and local scale:regulationistresponses to productivist explanations, and dialectical explanations of theproduction of space and Nature.

The concept of structured coherence

The concept of structured coherence is based on Harvey’s analysis of urban-regional labormarkets. Urban-regional markets are defined as the geographic area in which “dailyexchanges and substitutions of labor power are possible” (Harvey 1985:128). Thegeographical extent of urban-regional markets depends upon the commuting range.Harvey (ibid.: 128) considers the urban-regional labor market to be “a unit of primaryimportance in the analysis of the accumulation of capital in space.” One of the importantcharacteristics of the urban-regional labor market is, according to Harvey, that each ofthem is unique. He (ibid.: 135) recognizes the spatial hierarchy of labor markets(international, national, regional and urban) but stresses the primary importance of theurban labor market as a fundamental unit of analysis within this spatial hierarchy and afundamental arena of class struggle and labor force evolution.

The urban-regional labor market is also characterized by a particular technological mixand spatial configuration of fixed capital. Although capitalist development is typified by itstechnological and geographical dynamism which results from capitalist competition, eachtechnological and locational change includes necessary costs that force capitalists to slowthese changes to secure amortization of fixed capital and reduce production costs. Thesetendencies result in periods of relative technological and locational stability that goesagainst the logic of capitalist accumulation and therefore leads necessarily to crises thatinvolve sudden breaks with past technological mixes and spatial configurations.

These processes tend to produce, according to Harvey, “structured coherence” of anurban region:

At the heart of that coherence lies a particular technological mix—understood notsimply as hardware but also as organization forms—and a dominant set of social

32 INTRODUCTION

relations. Together these define models of consumption as well as of the laborprocess. The coherence embraces the standard of living, the qualities and style oflife, work satisfactions (or lack thereof), social hierarchies (authority structures inthe workplace, status systems of consumption), and a whole set of sociological andpsychological attitudes toward working, living, entertaining, and the like.

(Harvey 1985:140)

Duncan, Goodwin and Halford (1988) further argue that the tendency to form structuredcoherence is reinforced by the development of regional and local cultures and by theformation of regional power blocks.

Harvey’s notion of structured coherence is related to his understanding of a “spatialfix,” which describes the social attempts to control social and economicprocessesassociated with the “creative destruction” of capitalist development and to achievetemporary geographical stability (Duncan, Goodwin and Halford 1988). These attemptsare typically associated with the various forms of state intervention and economic as wellas social regulation and the development of state institutions at different scales (Duncan,Goodwin and Halford 1988). This is also true for structured coherence because, asHarvey (1985:143) argues, there is only a tendency to produce structured coherence and itcould be achieved “only by accident” for a brief period as it is constantly undermined anddisrupted by the forces of capitalist uneven development.14 The efforts to stabilizestructured coherence using some combination of local, regional and national forms ofregulation result in the emergence of “local spaces of regulation” (Goodwin, Duncan, andHalford 1993).

Regulation theory and local/regional political economy

Several authors (see Peck and Tickell 1992, 1995; Goodwin, Duncan and Halford 1993)have attempted to establish connections between regulation theory and Harvey’s conceptof structured coherence as a way to address the failure of regulation theory to deal withdevelopment at the regional and local scale and with the issue of uneven development ingeneral. For example, Peck and Tickell have argued that:

If the form of accumulation system-mode of social regulation couplings is spatiallyvariegated, then it is conceivable that a distinctive set of regional couplings exist.Regional accumulation systems, embedded within a wider spatial division of labor,presumably interact with regional and national regulatory structures in differentways, producing yet further unique regional effects. There are resonances herewith Harvey’s notion of ‘structured coherence’ at the scale of the urban region.

(Peck and Tickell 1992:352, emphasis in the original)

By integrating structured coherence into the regulationist framework, Peck and Tickell(1992, 1995) attempt to develop a concept of uneven development at subnational scalesand regional political economy situated within a broader system of national andinternational structures of accumulation and regulation.

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 33

Along similar lines, Goodwin, Duncan and Halford argue that including Harvey’sconcept of structured coherence introduces spatiality into the regulationist framework:

Now, instead of regimes [of accumulation] and modes [of regulation] ratherabstractly floating around in some general sense we can picture them as anensemble of relations and institutions that are anchored in particular places atparticular times…. Harvey is claiming not only that social relations and processestake spatial forms, but that within these forms some sort of coherence emergeswhich enables the daily reproduction and substitution of labor power. We can readsuch a coherence as the local objectification of anabstract mode of regulation, basedon an ensemble of cultural, economic, social and political norms, as well asnetworks and institutions.

(Goodwin, Duncan and Halford 1993:74)

Goodwin, Duncan and Halford stress the central role of the local state in economic and socialstabilization of structured coherence at the local scale (what they call “local spaces ofregulation”).

We can therefore understand structured coherence as being closely related to a regionalregime of accumulation, regional mode of regulation and regional hegemonic structuresincluding regional and local power blocs and regional and local cultures. These regionalforms of accumulation, regulation and hegemonic structures are embedded within thenational regime of accumulation, mode of regulation and hegemonic bloc.

Structured coherence and the production of space

Production means production of space and production of nature.(Altvater 1989:61)

Following Lefebvre (1979, 1991) and Lipietz (1992c), we argue that social and economicprocesses associated with each development model produce a distinct spatial form and theenvironment (see also Harvey 1996:210–47). In geography, it is accepted that eachdevelopment model and its accumulation strategies produce its own regional organizationof economic activities (see, for example, Smith 1990; Smith and Dennis 1987; Scott andStorper 1992). Each transition between development models thus necessarily involvesregional transformations including the restructuring and production of the new scale atwhich regions are constituted as coherent and integrated economic units.We will argue that particular economic and social processes associated with a particularstructured coherence produce a distinct spatial organization of social and economicactivities at the regional level that reflects the nature of these processes. Furthermore, wewill contend that social and economic processes, operating at the level of the urban-regional labor market, also tend to produce their own social space, including theenvironment. According to Lefebvre (1991: 31, 46), every mode of production togetherwith its specific relations of production produces (“secretes”) its own space and the

34 INTRODUCTION

transition from one mode of production to another necessarily involves the production ofa new space. We might therefore argue that each restructuring and transition ofstructured coherence associated with changes in a regional regime of accumulation and itsregulation also entails the production of a new space.

Lefebvre (ibid.: 33) introduces three concepts (what he calls a “conceptual triad”) tocategorize the way each society produces its own space:

1 “Spatial practice” “embraces production and reproduction, and theparticular locationsand spatial sets characteristic of each social formation.” Spatial practice producesspace “slowly and surely as it masters and appropriates it” (ibid.: 38). Spatial practiceis crucial for the reproduction of social relations.

2 “Representations of space” reflect and are the result of relations of production and powerrelations in a society. For Lefebvre this is “conceptualized space, the space ofscientists, urbanists, technocratic subdividers and social engineers, as of a certaintype of artists with a scientific bent—all of whom identify what is lived and what isperceived with what is conceived” (Lefebvre 1991:38). Representations of spaceillustrate planned and purposeful spatial transformations by the state in order tomaintain existing social relations. In this way, space becomes a political instrumentfor the state and it is the dominant space in any society (Lefebvre 1979, 1991). Inthis view state intervention plays a very important role in the production of space bya particular mode of production (Lefebvre 1991:375).

3 “Representational space” is dominated space, a space experienced and lived byinhabitants and related to symbolic and historic meaning of particular places andobjects (ibid.: 39).

Spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces are dialecticallyrelated and they “contribute in different ways to the production of space according totheir qualities and attributes, according to the society or mode of production in questionand according to the historical period” (ibid.: 46). In what follows we illustrate how socialand economic processes of production and reproduction (spatial practices), and plannedconstructions and destructions of cities and villages allowed by existing social relations ofproduction and power relations in the Most region under state socialism (representationsof space), were two of the most important factors in the production of space and theenvironment in communist northern Bohemia. We argue that the development ofstructured coherence in the Most region resulted in the production of specific spacestypified by specific environmental practices and conditions, and that ongoing restructuringof a state socialist structured coherence in the Most region will in turn result in theproduction of new social spaces with their own distinctive concepts and uses of Nature.But before turning to this case study, we first turn our attention to the question ofenvironmental degradation under state socialism and the role of environment andenvironmental struggle during the transition in CEE.

THEORIZING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 35

36

Part II

Nature, risk and the legacies of statesocialism

38

3Environmental quality in Central and

Eastern Europe

Introduction

This chapter deals with the environmental legacy of more than forty years of statesocialism in CEE. We focus on the conditions that existed in the region in the late 1980sand early 1990s before the collapse of party states and before the beginning of capitalisttransitions. The effects of post-1989 transitions on the environment are discussed inChapter Ten. An exhaustive description of environmental conditions is beyond the scopeof the chapter and can be found elsewhere (e.g. Carter and Turnock 1993, Alcamo1992c, Stanners and Bourdeau 1995). Instead, the chapter seeks to show howenvironmental analysis must take into account, first, the general tendencies of centralplanning to externalize environmental and health costs; and second, the reasons for“reform” analyses to overlook the geography of the actual environmental impacts wroughtby central planning practices.

Thus, this chapter seeks to clarify the ways in which environmental degradationfunctioned as a part of the logic of state socialism and the way in which the geographicalvariability of impacts itself enabled a particular kind of environmental (and anti-state)politics. On the other hand, the chapter also seeks to show how the universal experienceof environmental degradation, versus actually existing state socialist geographies ofdifference, has functioned ideologically and politically as part of a “reform analytic.”Although in broad outline the nature of environmental degradation is similar in allcountries in the region, it is the spatial and temporal variability in the way theenvironmental problems manifest themselves across the region that is crucial to buildingenvironmental futures.

Regional environmental experts have estimated that in the early 1990s about 6–10percent of the total territory of CEE had very poor quality of air or water and nearly 25percent of the region had poor or very poor quality of air or water (Alcamo 1992a:30,Table 3.1). Some of the world’s most polluted urban-industrial areas were produced inCEE under state socialism, areas whose names have become synonymous withenvironmental violence: Katowice and Kraków provinces in Poland, the coal miningregion of northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic, Horná Nitra region in Slovakia,Borsod county in Hungary, Sofia-Pernik and Maritsa-Istok regions in Bulgaria, cities Baia

Mare and Cop a Mic in Romania, Obrenovac-Belgrade-Pančevo region in Serbia(Yugoslavia), and many others across the region. Following the collapse of state socialism,Western popular reports painted a gloomy picture of environmental disaster in CEE(e.g., Jensen and Wilson-Smith 1990, Borrell, Dorfman and Schoenthal 1990, Economist1990a). But such reports have often overlooked the spatial and temporal variability ofenvironmental conditions in CEE and have focused almost exclusively on the mostenvironmentally devastated areas (the so-called “hot spots”).

Cop a Mic , Romania, is a typical example of the “hot spot” (Map 3.1). Environmentaldevastation of the Cop a Mic industrial area has been caused by the chemical complexand the nonferrous metallurgical industry producing zinc, lead (two smelters), gold andsilver. Every year, these industries release 12,000– 67,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide(SO2), more than 500 tonnes of lead, 400 tonnes of zinc and 4 tonnes of cadmium, 3,000tonnes of carbon monoxide (CO), 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), and 3,000 tonnesof particulate matter. Air pollution by heavy metals exceeds 600 times the legalpermissible maximum levels. Acid rain is devastating local forests, crops and soils. Thetotal area affected by air pollution exceeds 180,000 hectares (ha), including 150,000 ha ofpolluted agricultural land, 31,000 ha of polluted forests, and 22,000 ha that are mostseverely damaged by air pollution.

Local industries discharge their waste waters into the Tîrnava Mare River including onaverage 37 tonnes of lead, 639 tonnes of zinc and 37 tonnes of iron annually. Waterpollution in the Tîrnava Mare River exceeds 500 times the permissible levels. As a result,its water is unsuitable for any consumption and the river cannot sustain life. Thewatertable in the large area surrounding Cop a Mic suffers from similar high levels ofwater pollution. Agricultural soils are polluted by heavy metals. The heavy metalconcentrations exceed the permissible levels by 3–12 times for lead, 9–15 times forcadmium, 2–5 times for copper, and 4–5 times for sulfur. Local agriculture has been hardhit by high levels of soil pollution resulting in decreased productivity and production offood with high content of pollutants. The normal growth capacity of forests around Cop aMic has diminished by 28–100 percent, resulting in tree dieback and annual losses of 70,000 cu. m of timber. The species most sensitive to air pollution, such as mosses andlichens, have disappeared from the area. High pollution levels also led to loss inbiodiversity as the number of animal species decreased by 50 percent.

High levels of air pollution are also negatively affecting the health of 200,000 people livingin the Cop a Mic region, 75,000 of them inhabiting the most environmentally devastatedarea. The region recorded the highest levels of infant morbidity in Romania. Otherproblems include lead poisoning, encephalopathy (disease of the brain), paralysis, andlung diseases. One health study investigated the impact of air pollution on the pulmonaryfunction in 371 children from Cop a Mic aged 7–11 and compared results with a controlgroup. The study found that 30.2 percent of exposed children had reduced lung functionmeasured as peak expiratory flow compared with 10 percent from the control group. Itfound 18.1 percent of studied children from Cop a Mic had reduced lung functionmeasured as forced expiratory capacity versus 10 percent in the control group. High leadexposure in Cop a Mic has also seriously affected neuro-behavioral responses and IQ inchildren in the region (based on Enache 1994:139–40, OECD 1994a:II–7).

40 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

“Hot” sites such as this have given rise to a widely held and publicized view ofenvironmental devastation across CEE. There are several reasons for this tendency togeneralize conditions from specific sites. First, conditions at these sites have beenparticularly and visibly bad. Second, data on environmental conditions have generallybeen available only in aggregate form or in ways that are unreliable, especially forcountries such as Romania and Bulgaria. For example, based on different data sources,1989 sulfur dioxide emissions in Romania ranged from 200 to 1,647 thousand tonnes andfrom 390 to 1,753 in the case of nitrogen oxide emissions (Livernash 1992:64–5, UN1995:4–6). It is also hard to believe that nitrogen oxide emissions increased by 693percent in 1989 compared with 1988 and then dropped by 50 percent in 1990 (UN 1995:6). In the case of Bulgaria, previously accepted total 1989 sulfur dioxide emissions of 1,030 thousand tonnes have been adjusted to double previous official estimates (to 2,180thousand tonnes), putting Bulgaria in the same class as the Czech Republic and EastGermany among the most polluted countries of CEE (compare Livernash 1992:64, Kabala1991a:385 and UN 1995:4). Similarly, 1989 nitrogen oxide emission figures have beenalmost tripled from 150 thousandtonnes to 411 thousand tonnes (compare Livernash1992:65 and UN 1995:6). Such wide data fluctuations make any reasonable comparisonsof Romanian and Bulgarian pollution levels with other countries difficult. The data for

Map 3.1 Environmental “hot spots” and areas with severe environmental degradation in Romania inthe early 1990s

Source: Adapted from World Bank (1992b:123) and Enache (1994:145)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 41

East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary have been fairly consistent,however. Overall, there is much more environmental information and data available forthe Visegrád countries of CEE (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) than forAlbania, Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia.

In general, most data have been collected in the most polluted areas and during periodswith the highest levels of pollution. These are the regions where the majority ofmonitoring stations have been installed and operated. In the Czech Republic, forexample, air quality was monitored by 195 active stations in northern Bohemia and ninety-six in northern Moravia, which are two of the most polluted regions. In less pollutedsouthern Bohemia there were only nine monitoring stations in 1992 (Beneš and Héniková1993:98). Slovakia had thirty-three automatic monitoring stations in the polluted regionsand seven regional stations (Klinda 1995:342). Most Polish environmental informationcomes from heavily polluted Silesia. In Bulgaria air quality was monitored unevenly acrossthe country, with most technical skill and apparatus being used near large populationcenters. In all countries, air quality is not often monitored in the areas that are believed tobe relatively clean (Bobak and Feachem 1995:83). The result is over-representation ofdata from the most polluted areas and under-representation of information from relativelyunpolluted regions.

Often ignored in these accounts are the protected natural areas that still cover anestimated 30 percent of the area of CEE (REC 1994a:11) and the strong environmentalethos built up among a citizenry subjected to devastating industrial and agriculturalpractices and nurtured back to “health” through state organized nature clubs, vacationhomes, and conservation areas. This environmental ethos sits uncomfortably alongsidemassive environmental degradation and suggests the need to address ambiguities inenvironmental outlooks and experiences, as well as the importance of geographicalvariability in environmental conditions throughout the region. In fact, we argue that, inorder to understand how the strict mechanisms of command and control in state socialistsocieties in CEE led to environmental devastation on the scale they did, it is necessary alsoto understand how a particular dislocated environmental ethos was at work and wassupported by the state through its own discourses, institutions, and practices ofenvironmental awareness. While state enterprises polluted surrounding regions almost atwill, hiking clubs, birding associations, fishing groups, sport associations, gardening clubs,and other state supported nature clubs formed complex networks and associations ofoutdoor recreational and environmental groups which in turn sustained a deep ethos ofNature among large parts of the population. In making this argument we do not seek to beapologists trying to explain away the environmental degradations of state socialism andcentral planning. But we do need to be able to explain what environmental discourses,institutions, and practices were present, and how Nature was located within the broaderpolitical economy of central planning.

Even in the most polluted areas the worst conditions of dangerously high levels of airpollution did not occur on an everyday basis, but were usually limited to periods oftemperature inversion during the winter months, typically accounting for only about 5–10percent of the time within a normal year (Alcamo 1992b:10). In measures of sulfurdioxide (SO2) concentrations—notoriously bad in hot spots—there were important

42 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

seasonal, monthly and daily variations. Mean seasonal sulfur dioxide concentrationsusually vary three- to fivefold in East Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary andPoland. These numbers increased up to tenfold during individual months, mainly becauseof the burning of low quality coal during the heating season. The daily range of sulfur dioxideconcentrations also fluctuated up to tenfold (Rovinski 1992:74).

Finally, the rhetoric of environmental devastation must also be seen in the context of aninternational geopolitics of anti-communism and later of “normalization.” In this politics,claims about moral bankruptcy, environmental violence, and health risk have been bothpart of a politics of overcoming (of liberation and “post-colonialism”) and a partisanpolitics of party and personal ambition. As we have already seen, Bulgaria adjusted itspollution figures up precisely in order to be ranked in the upper echelon of CEE pollutingcountries at a time when there was strong competition for “environmental dollars” tosupport reform and remediation. World Bank and IMF negotiations with the Bulgariangovernment in the early 1990s were, in fact, carried out with the participation of teams ofexperts from the US Environmental Protection Agency; and in the wake of the RioConference and strong international criticism of the World Bank’s environmental record,Bulgarian environmental reform became a central element of structural adjustmentnegotiations and policies, and of the broader geopolitics of reform.

Environmental degradation in CEE and Western industrialcountries

How did environmental degradation in CEE in the late 1980s and early 1990s comparewith the situation in Western Europe and other industrialized regions? Various reportssuggest that the environmental situation in CEE was comparable with conditions in partsof Western Europe or the United States before environmental clean-up began there in the1960s and 1970s (Hughes 1991:121; Dominick 1998:316–7).1 Even in the 1980s, themajor cities of CEE recorded concentrations of particulate matter comparable withWestern European cities, and Athens recorded higher average annual concentrations thanany city in the region including Prague, Zagreb and Bucharest, the most polluted CEEcapitals. With the exception of Prague and Zagreb, all major CEE cities recorded averagesulfur dioxide concentrations below EC standards and comparable with WesternEuropean cities in the 1980s (Hughes 1991:111–15; Juhasz and Ragno 1993:34; Stannersand Bourdeau 1995:30–2, 266). The environmental situation in the city of Ostrava, thecenter of heavy industry in the Czech Republic, has been compared to that of Pittsburghin the 1940s (Wheelwright 1996:57). The city of Katowice was one of the most pollutedcities of Poland, with maximum twenty-four-hourambient concentration of black smokein the winter exceeding EU standards by more than six times, placing Katowice on a parwith the famous London smogs of 1952 (OECD 1994a:II–7), and other major airpollution episodes in major cities such as New York and Osaka in the 1950s and 1960s(Elsom 1992:26). Even acid rain and tree die-back—perhaps among the most visibleimages of state socialist air pollution—have not been unique to the most polluted areas ofCEE; in Sudbury, Canada, for example, no trees grew within a ten-mile radius around theInco smelter until it was shut down in the late 1970s (Wallich 1990: 16), and in the late

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 43

1970s and mid 1980s acid rain was higher in West Germany and Sweden than inCzechoslovakia and Poland, two of the most polluted countries of CEE (Hughes 1991:117).

Severe water pollution of CEE rivers has also been comparable to pollution of WesternEuropean rivers such as the Rhine and the Thames twenty or thirty years ago (OECD1994a:II–12). Hughes (1991:120) even argues that pollution problems of CEE rivers areprobably less severe than for Western European rivers passing through major urban andindustrial areas ten to twenty years ago. The Danube and Tisza rivers in Hungary are lesspolluted by fecal bacteria than other rivers in Europe, such as the Rhine in theNetherlands or the Tejo in Portugal (Hughes 1991:119), and the Danube has significantlylower annual mean nitrate concentrations compared with the Rhine (Hock and Somlyódy1990:83).

Western popular reports have also tended to exaggerate the environmental situation inCEE. For example, Light (1991:51) argued that air pollution in the city of Most in theCzech Republic was so bad that elderly people and babies were advised not leave theirhomes on about 120 days each year, that local brown coal had up to 20 percent sulfurcontent, and that coal with up to 7 percent sulfur content was officially mined. There isno doubt that the city of Most and its vicinity is one of the most environmentallydevastated areas not only in the Czech Republic but in Europe as a whole. But data fromthe Most District indicates that the total number of days during which the twenty-four-hour sulfur dioxide concentrations exceeded the maximum of 150 µg/m3 set by theCzechoslovak government was only eighty-five between 1980 and 1989, that there werethree years during which the maximum twenty-four-hour sulfur dioxide concentrationswere exceeded (fifteen days in 1980, fifty-five in 1982 and fifteen in 1989) (Švec andKučerová 1993a:31) (see Table 5.4), and that the average sulfur content of brown coal indry substance of coal mined by the Most Coal Company oscillated between 1.1 percentand 2.0 percent in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, at least one deep mineproducing high sulfur coal (about 3 percent) was closed in 1993 explicitly for this reason(Privatization Project 1992:7).2

Environmental quality in CEE

Comparison of environmental quality among the different countries of CEE in the late1980s is difficult because environmental data is often of questionable quality, if it isavailable at all. But this is also an important opportunity for a critical analysis ofenvironmental politics. In Chapter Nine we deal with thistheme in more detail, when weconsider how data and information were part of a political economy of totalitarian power,and how they are currently an important part of the political economy of transformationand reform. Rankings of the severity of environmental problems in individual countrieshave often been carried out without revealing the criteria used (e.g. Russell 1990:2–3). Inone case, experts from CEE were asked to grade the quality of the environment in regionsin their respective countries based on the Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) and European Monitoring and Evaluation Program (EMEP) gridscale. The percentage of territory assigned the worst two grades in the individual

44 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

countries is summarized in Table 3.1. Based on these experts’ judgements,Czechoslovakia had the largest territory relative to its size suffering with severe air andwater pollution, while Hungary had the smallest proportion of its territory with badlypolluted air, and Yugoslavia had the smallest territory with worst water pollution relativeto its size.

Air pollution

The northern part of CEE, including Poland and the Czech Republic (and also EastGermany) suffers from more severe environmental problems across larger areas than therest of the region. This area was traditionally more industrialized (especially the northernhalf of the Czech Republic and the southern parts of Poland and the East Germany) and itrelied on coal for much of its energy needs. East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Polandderived 69 percent of their energy from coal in 1989 while Hungary, Bulgaria andRomania derived only 24 percent (Russell 1990:8). Air pollution problems wereparticularly bad in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, where low quality brown coal, orlignite, with high ash and sulfur content and low heating value was used to produce mostof their electricity and heat. In Czechoslovakia, coal provided 55 percent of energy needsin 1989 and 78 percent of electricity (Russell 1990:8, Statistická ročenka Československésocialistické republiky 1989:394), while polluting brown coal accounted for 70–8 percentof coal used in the thermal production of electricity between 1970 and 1985 (WorldBank 1992a:18). East Germany depended almost totally on lignite for energy production,lacking significant hard coal deposits and with a nuclear power industry inadequate to thesupply of electricity needs. Despite the fact that the nuclear power plant at Lubmin (Nord1–4) came online between 1974 and 1979 (Mounfield 1991:132), approximately 85percent of East German electricity was derived from lignite in 1989 (Elsom 1992:303).

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that power plants were not equipped toremove sulfur dioxide and other gases from their emissions. Scrubbers, which removed upto 98 percent of ashes and particulate matter were installed in most coal-fired power

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 45

Table 3.1 Percent of area in the two worst categories of environmental quality

Source: Alcamo (1992b:30)

plants, but other emissions were dealt with by dispersal from high stacks (Plate 3.1). Highstack emissions mitigated extreme air pollution problems in the vicinity of power plantsbut caused environmental degradation in more distant regions and countries.

In addition to power plants, industrial enterprises burned coal for heating. Largefactories often had scrubbers to control the emissions of particulate matter but fewinstalled desulfurization equipment.3 Small and medium-sized industrial enterprises hadno control over their solid and gaseous emissions. Unlike power plants, however,industrial enterprises had low stacks and thus their polluting effects were concentratedmore directly on the towns in their immediate vicinity. In areas such as Silesia in Poland,northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic, and Saxony in former East Germany, highconcentrations of such enterprises resulted in high levels of air pollution in heavilyindustrialized regions. For example, 46 percent of soot and dust emissions in Katowice,Poland came from industrial enterprises (OECD 1994a:II–6). These problems weregreatly aggravated in winter months by local household and utility heating, which alsoused low-grade coal without emission controls.

In Poland in 1989, 76 percent of energy requirements was derived from coal (Russell1990:8), most of which was hard coal. However, higher quality coal was usually exportedto the West while lower quality coal with higher sulfur and ash content was consumedlocally.4 Although hard coal produces considerably less sulfur dioxide and particulatematter than lignite, almost total dependence on this energy source for electricitygeneration, centralized residential heating, heavy industry and local heating resulted in

Plate 3.1 Pollution dispersal efforts in the 1980s resulted in the building of high smokestacksthroughout CEE. Tušimice power plant in the region of northern Bohemia, Czech Republic

46 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

dangerous air pollution levels in the more industrialized and urbanized regions of Upperand Lower Silesia in the south. Overall, by 1991 it was estimated that about half of Polandwas seriously affected by air pollution (Marshall 1991:856).

Compared with Poland and Czechoslovakia, Hungary was able to restructure its energyproduction away from coal and thus avoid the high levels of air pollution experienced informer East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The dominant role of coal wasgradually reduced by oil, natural gas and nuclear power. By 1987, electricity produced inthe Paks nuclear power plant accounted for 38 percent, coal for 31 percent, and oil andnatural gas for about 30 percent of Hungary’s electricity production. Less than 1 percentof electricity was produced in hydroelectric power stations (Várkonyi and Kiss 1990:62).A comparatively successful diversification of energy production resulted in a 33 percentdecline in average annual sulfur dioxide emissions between 1980 and 1989 (UN 1995:4).As in the case of East Germany and Czechoslovakia, coal based power plants traditionallyrelied on brown coal and lignite (90 percent of coal mined) (Vukovich 1990:31), but suchcoal-fired power plants were concentrated in the coal mining regions of theTransdanubian basin and in the northern Mátra mountains. These areas consequentlybecame the major industrial areas suffering from high sulfur dioxide pollution and forestdieback. Compared to its northern neighbors, the total area of Hungary suffering with airpollution was much smaller, with 11 percent of Hungarian territory affected by airpollution in the late 1980s. However, these were densely populated areas, containingmore than 44 percent of the population of the country (Várkonyi and Kiss 1990:51)

Overall, East Germany, Czechoslovakia (especially the Czech Republic), Poland,Hungary, and also Bulgaria (based on recently updated data) recorded the highest averagesulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides (NOX) atmospheric concentrations on their territoriesin CEE (Maps 3.2, 3.3, Table 3.2). The spatial pattern of atmospheric sulfur dioxideconcentrations resulted from the geographical distribution of emission sources andpredominantly eastward drift of long range transport (Rovinski 1992:74). Peak sulfurdioxide air pollution levels were consistently recorded in areas close to the Czech-German-Polish border, which consequently was known locally as the “black triangle” (alsocalled the “sulfur triangle” or “Bermuda triangle of pollution”) (see Maps 3.2–3.4). This“triangle” probably had the highest concentration of brown coalpower plants in the world(Marquardt, Brüggemann and Heintzenberg 1996: 215). In the late 1980s, the “blacktriangle” emitted about 3 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide annually, accounting for 20percent of the total European sulfur dioxide emissions (Nowicki 1993:22, 106), withconcentrations declining south and southeast from the “black triangle.”5

Environmental devastation associated with opencast mining and the burning of lowquality brown coal was not limited to East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia experienced similar problems, albeit on much smallerscales because of their lower reliance on brown coal forenergy production: lowerconcentrations of heavy industries and less reliance on coal for electricity and heatproduction resulted in lower levels of air pollution across smaller areas. More common incountries such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and now the independent republics ofYugoslavia, is air pollution from point sources in the cities and around local power plantsand industrial enterprises. Examples include large chemical factories in the Burgas and

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 47

Varna-Devnya regions (Bulgaria), nonferrous metallurgical plants in Baia Mare and Cop aMic (Romania), steelworks in Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina), a lead and zinc refineryin T.Mitrovica (Serbia), a large smelting facility in Titov Veles (Macedonia), and thecopper smelter in Lac (Albania) (Plates 3.2 and 3.3).

Map 3.2 Air pollution by sulfur dioxide in 1988

Source: Adapted from Institute of Geography (1991)

48 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Automobiles

Motor vehicles were also important sources of air pollution under state socialism,especially in large urban areas. In the early 1980s, transport’s share of total emissions inCzechoslovakia contributed 40 percent of carbon monoxide, 33 percent of hydrocarbons,22 percent of nitrogen oxides, 11 percent of solid emissions, 6 percent of sulfur dioxideand 25 percent of other gases (Straškraba et al. 1992:87). Although total vehicleownership per capita was significantly lower than in Western Europe, it grew rapidlyduring the 1980s. For example, the total number of vehicles in use almost doubled in

Map 3.3 Air pollution by nitrogen dioxide and acidity of precipitation in Europe in 1988

Source: Adapted from Institute of Geography (1991)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 49

Poland between 1980 and 1989 (plus 93 percent) and it grew by 75 percent in Hungary,55 percent in Romania, 46 percent in Bulgaria, and 37 percent in Czechoslovakia (OECD1993:27, 1994a:II–18). This rapid growth in the number of vehicles contributed togrowing air pollution in urban areas in the 1980s. In fact, in general, cars in CEE wereresponsible for more pollution than cars in the West despite the fact that they were fewerin number and were driven fewer miles (in 1990 there were between 207 cars per 1,000people in Czechoslovakia on top and 61 in Romania at the bottom compared with 330 inOECD European countries (OECD 1994a: II–17)). Before the 1990s, virtually allvehicles used leaded gasoline. They were also much older than cars in the West, theywere poorly maintained, and many had two-stroke engines which emitted about onehundred times more exhaust fumes than an average car in the West equipped with acatalytic converter (Byrne 1993:55). In the early 1990s, East Germany alone had about 3.5 million two-stroke engine cars (Plate 3.4). Two-stroke engine cars accounted for 9percent of vehicles driven in Poland, 30 percent in Hungary and 15 percent in Bulgaria. Overall, motor vehicles contributed less than 5 percent of total sulfur dioxide emissionsand less than 10 percent of particulates, but they contributed 30–60 percent of nitrogenoxides, between 40 percent and 90 percent of carbon monoxide emissions, and between35–95 percent of lead emissions in CEE countries (OECD 1994a:II–19). In Poland, forexample, motor vehicles accounted for about 30–40 percent of the emissions of carbon

Map 3.4 The “black triangle”Source: Adapted from Nowicki (1993:106)

50 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

monoxide, hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen and lead in the early 1990s (Livernash 1992:65).

Transboundary pollution

Air pollution problems affecting large rural areas outside the urban-industrialconcentrations in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were furtheraggravated by the long-range transboundary pollution of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides,heavy metals and other pollutants. Although the estimates of transboundary pollution forCEE fluctuate wildly, it has been considered a serious environmental problem for almostthirty years (compare Alcamo 1992d: 94–5; Nowicki 1993:106, 110; Moldan 1990:60;FCE 1992:62; Klinda 1995: 171–2). Bulgaria, former Czechoslovakia, and Hungarysigned the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution which called fora 30 percent drop in sulfur dioxide emissions by 1993 from a 1980 base; East Germanyand the FSU signed the treaty in 1984 but Poland and Romania did not (Lang 1991:127,Schreiber 1991:140).

Under normal weather conditions and without rainfall only about 8–21 percent ofsulfur dioxide emissions are deposited within a 70-kilometer radius from their source.The rest is transported longer distances that can reach up to 2,000 kilometers in the caseof pollutants emitted by high-level sources such as power plants and smelters. Thedistance from source at which other pollutants settle depends on their relative weight.Relatively heavy pollutants such as soot particles settle more quickly compared with lightones, differentially affecting the areas and population close to the emission sources. The maindirection of transboundary pollution in Europe is from the west to the east because of theprevalence of western winds. However, because of the higher emission levels in CEE,

Table 3.2 Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions, 1989

Notes:* Estimated emissions** 1987–91 averageSources: United Nations (1995:4–6), Livernash (1992:64–5)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 51

Western Europe received almost twice as much sulfur from CEE in 1985 (870,000tonnes) than the other way round (463,000 tonnes) (Alcamo 1992d:93), and even greaterlevels of pollution went east. For example, in 1989 Poland sent 637,000 tonnes of sulfurdioxide across its eastern border to the FSU while it received only 21,000 tonnes from theopposite direction. At the same time, it received 662,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide acrossits western border from the East Germany but sent there only 59,000 tonnes (Nowicki1993:106). As a result, a high proportion of specific deposition (t/km2) of sulfur and otherpollutants originated abroad even though each of the CEE countries was a significantsource of transboundary pollution (Map 3.5). In the case of Romania it was estimated that91 percent of its sulfur and 84 percent of its nitrogen oxide depositions per squarekilometer originated abroad in 1985 (Table 3.3).

The effects of long-range and transboundary pollution can be devastating inareaslocated outside major urban-industrial concentrations. For example, the forests of theSudeten Mountains located on the Czech-Polish border east of the “black triangle” andoutside the coal mining and industrial regions experienced massive tree deaths in the1980s. More than 50 percent of sulfur deposited in the Giant Mountains (Krkonoše inCzech, Karkonosze in Polish) on the Czech side of the border originated outside theCzech Republic, mostly from East German and Polish power plants in the “black triangle”and about 25 percent came from north Bohemian power plants (Figure 3.1). Similar casescould be observed across the region. For example, Poland reported a 50 percent increasein damaged forests between 1971 and 1989, 37,000 ha of severely damaged forests, and13,000 hectares of dead forests on its side of the Sudeten mountains (Wierzbicka andMichalak 1993:248, Nowicki 1993:22). Eighty-three percent of East Germany’s forests

Plate 3.2 Neftochim petrochemical combinat (Burgas, Bulgaria)

52 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

were damaged by air pollution by 1988 (37 percent dying), up from only 12 percent in1980 (Russell 1990:12).

Case study: air pollution in the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is one of the most polluted countries in Europe. In the 1980s itranked second after East Germany in sulfur dioxide emissions and first in nitrogen oxideemissions per capita and per square unit of its territory (Table 3.2). As in other Europeancountries, air pollution has been a long term problem, related to the crucial role of coalduring the Industrial Revolution (which occurred in the Czech Republic roughly between1800 and the late 1860s). The first instances of local tree damage from air pollution wererecorded in northern Bohemia before the communist takeover in 1948, but forest diebackdid not start to spread on massive scale in the Krušné hory (Ore Mountains) until the late1950s (Moldan 1990:159). Post-1948 socialist industrialization of Slovakia and the lessdeveloped regions of the Czech Republic was based on rapidly increased production ofcoal for electricity generation and the construction of coal-fired power plants in the coalmining regions. As a result, sulfur dioxide emissions doubled in Czechoslovakia in the1950s and more than tripled between 1950 and 1975 (FCE 1992:17). Since then sulfurdioxide emissions have declined steadily (Figure 3.2). The total volume of all gaseousemissions doubled from 1960 to 1980, then stabilized and began to decline during the1980s (World Bank 1992a: 11). In the Czech Republic, sulfur dioxide emissions peaked in1982 at 2,387 thousand tonnes (UN 1995:4). Emissions of other pollutants such as

Plate 3.3 The plume of smoke from the Neftochim petrochemical refinery drifts over the entireregion across a thirty-mile or more radius, with day-night reversals of wind at the coast (Burgas,Bulgaria)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 53

nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and solid emissions also began to decline in the 1980s(Figure 3.3).

There are several reasons for these declines. Contrary to popular beliefs in the West,state socialist governments were well aware of the rapidly deteriorating quality of theenvironment and sought solutions to arrest degradation. As we have already seen, in the

Plate 3.4 East German Trabant in Budapest, Hungary

Map 3.5 Transboundary pollution in Central Europe, 1985Source: Data from Alcamo (1992d:95)

54 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

1960s a policy of “high smokestacks” was adopted to decrease solid and gaseous depositionsnear power plants and large industrial enterprises. These policies were partiallysuccessful, but the dispersion of pollution from high smokestacks affected distant areaspreviously unaffected by air pollution and contributed to increased transboundarypollution. In the 1960s scrubbers removing the majority of particulate matter from theemissions were installed in power plants, leading to dramatic declines in solid emissionsand deposition in the heavily industrialized regions such as the Ostrava region in northernMoravia and the coal mining region of northern Bohemia. Attempts to installdesulfurization equipment based on the Soviet and East German technology failed in the1980s.

Another policy sought to reduce air pollution from power plants by diversifying energyproduction and shifting from coal to different fuels. All CEE countries launchedcontroversial programs for building nuclear power plants based on Soviet technology, butthese programs were launched too late to prevent the worst air pollution. The first

Table 3.3 Sulfur and nitrogen oxides deposition in CEE from foreign sources, 1985

Source: Moldan (1990:58)

Figure 3.1 Sources of sulfur deposited on the Czech side of the Krkonoše Mountains in the 1980sSource: Data, Kurfürst et al. (189:11)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 55

nuclear power plant in Czechoslovakia was built in Jaslovské Bohunice, Slovakia, in the1970s and launched between 1979 and 1986. The second one was built in Dukovany,Czech Republic, in the 1980s and launched between 1985 and 1987. By 1988, 18 percentof the Czech Republic’s electricity was produced in the Dukovany nuclear power plant,while 78 percent was produced in coal-based power plants and 3 percent in water powerstations (Statistická ročenka Československé socialistické republiky 1989:394). Eventhen, about 60 percent of electricity was still produced from brown coal. Before its collapse,the Czechoslovak communist government initiated construction of two additional nuclearpower plants, one located in the Czech Republic (Temelín, Southern Bohemia) and thesecond one in Western Slovakia (Mochovce). Construction on both has continued since1989, despite continuous opposition from neighboring Austria.

Finally, a series of relatively mild winters, demanding less heating and consequentlylower emissions, contributed to the decline in emissions in the second half of the 1980s. Asa result of all these factors, sulfur dioxide emissions declined by 16 percent between 1982and 1989. Solid emissions declined by 34 percent between 1985 and 1989. At the sametime, emissions of nitrogen oxides actually increased by 12 percent as car traffic and carownership increased (World Bank 1992a:16–17, MoE 1993:57) (Figure 3.3).

Power plants and heating plants burning low-quality brown coal were the largestsource of sulfur dioxide emissions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In Czechoslovakia asa whole they accounted for about 80 percent of all sulfur dioxide emissions. Householdheating contributed by about 7 percent. In the Czech Republic large sources of pollution(defined as fuel combustion that is equal to or greater than five megawatts) accounted for87 percent of the total sulfur dioxide emissions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The tenlargestsources produced 35 percent and fifty largest sources 58 percent of theseemissions. Combustion processes accounted for 93 percent of the total sulfur dioxideemissions, followed by metallurgy (4 percent) and chemical production (2.5 percent).

Figure 3.2 Development of sulfur dioxide emissions in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic and Slovakiaafter 1992), 1950–98

Source: Data, FCE (1992:17), MOE (1998:119), ČHMÚ (1999), SHMÚ (1999)

56 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Eighty percent of sulfur dioxide emissions were released from smokestacks higher than100 meters (World Bank 1992a:14).

The bulk of brown coal mined in northwestern Bohemia is burnt in local power plants.These are located relatively close to one another, and this density of sources has resultedin extremely high levels of air pollution in the region. For example, there are four largepower plants located within a 13-kilometer radius of one another (Prunéřov I, PrunéřovII, Tušimice I, Tušimice II) (Plate 3.5). This is the second largest source of sulfur dioxideemissions in Europe and it releases 500,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide annually (WorldBank 1992a:14). Not surprisingly, this region of northern Bohemia has continuouslyrecorded the highest levels of sulfur dioxide pollution in the Czech Republic (Table 3.4).There is significant geographical variability within the Czech Republic in levels of sulfurdioxide emissions per square kilometer (Map 3.6). For example, emissions of northernBohemia were more than twenty times higher than in southern Bohemia and more than

Figure 3.3 Air pollution trends in the Czech Republic in the 1980s

Source: Data from UN (1995:4, 6, 14); World Bank (1992a:15); MoE (1993:57, 1994:23)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 57

ten times higher than in southern Moravia. Similar geographical variability exists withregard to NOx pollution: emissions per square kilometer were more than twenty timeshigher in Prague than in southern Bohemia and almost fifteen times higher than insouthern Moravia in 1989 (Maps 3.7 and 3.8).

Besides regional pollution problems such as those in northern Bohemia, there are alsoimportant point source air pollution problems in urban centers and around differentindustries and power plants. Prague, for example, recorded the largest pollution persquare kilometer in all observed pollutants except sulfur dioxide (nitrogen oxides, carbonmonoxide, hydrocarbons and solid emissions) (MoE 1993:58).

Plate 3.5 High smokestacks of four large power plants (Prunéřov 1, Prunéřov 2, Tušimice 1,Tušimice 2) located in close proximity in northern Bohemia, Czech Republic

Table 3.4 Sulfur dioxide emissions in the Czech Republic by region, 1985–9 (in tonnes/ sq. kmannually)

Source: MoE (1993:58)

58 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

High levels of sulfur dioxide pollution and acid rain have severely damaged large areasof forest, particularly in the mountains of the “black triangle” and increasingly throughoutthe entire northern half of the Czech Republic. The 1970s and 1980s saw a dramaticexpansion of forest areas affected by pollution emissions from domestic as well as foreignsources (from East Germany and Poland in particular) (Figure 3.4, Table 3.5). Forestdamage in some mountainous regions such as Krušné hory (Ore Mountains) innorthwestern Bohemia and Jizerské hory in northern Bohemia reached catastrophicproportions. Large areas of these mountains located above the elevation of approximately800 meters have been completely deforested by air pollution. Other forested regions suchas Krkonoše in northeastern Bohemia have also been severely damaged. The pace of forestdestruction has accelerated. While it took fifteen to twenty years for the climaticallyexposed forests of the Krušné hory to die from its beginning in the late 1950s, the sameprocess lasted ten to fifteen years in the Jizerské hory and Krkonoše mountains, and onlyseven to ten years in the Orlické hory of north-eastern Bohemia. After a blast of arctic airin the winter of 1978–9, forests in parts of the Beskydy mountains in northern Moraviasuddenly began to die off, unable to sustain extreme weather conditions after having beenweakened by long-term air pollution (Moldan 1990:159). By the 1990s, more than 60percent of all forests had been damaged by pollution. To date more than 50,000 ha ofdead forest have been cleared, and about 1,000 ha is currently being deforested each year(MoE 1993:30) (Plate 3.6).

Water pollution

Water quality also deteriorated rapidly under state socialism. By the 1980s serious waterpollution was a major environmental problem in all CEE countries, negatively affectingthe economic performance and daily lives of millions of people. Water quality wasparticularly bad in Poland where, along with countries such as Hungary, Bulgaria,Romania and FYR Macedonia, water pollution was considered to be a more pressingenvironmental issue than air pollution (REC 1994b:16, 39, 45, 61). Heavy industryreleasing heavy metals and toxic chemicals, high biochemical oxygen demand levels thatcause low dissolved oxygen concentrations, bacterial contamination, high nitrogen andphosphorus levels caused by agricultural practices, and high salinity all pose problems forwater quality (Novotny and Somlyódy 1995:2). Heavily polluted rivers have alsocontributed significantly to increased pollution in the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas, andheavy metal pollution of the Polish Baltic Sea coast by zinc, cadmium, lead, silver andphosphorus has been well documented (Szefer et al. 1996:2723–54). Bacteriologicalcontamination of the Baltic coast in Poland was so bad that the authorities were compelledto close the beaches in the Gda sk region and other Polish beach resorts in the late 1980sand early 1990s (Kramer 1987:156; Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:29).

As with air pollution, large scale pollution of primary rivers began to occur during theindustrialization drives of the 1950s and 1960s when newly built factories began todischarge their wastewater directly into rivers with insufficient, if any, treatment.Increased contamination of surface and underground water resources also contributed to

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 59

serious water shortages as many rivers became so polluted that their water was unsuitableeven for industrial use. By the late 1980s, however, despite this evidence of neglect only afew rivers were believed to be biologically “dead” and general levels of river pollutionwere considered to be less severe than those of the most polluted rivers in industrialregions of Western Europe up to twenty to thirty years ago (OECD 1994a:II–12).

Groundwater resources experienced a similar fate. Untreated sewage, overuse offertilizers and pesticides in rural areas, and petroleum leaks led to large scalecontamination of underground water resources throughout CEE (Plates 3.7 and 3.8). InPoland, for example, 66 percent of rural and 54 percent of urban residential wells hadundrinkable water in 1989 (Nowicki 1993:24). It is believed that about 35 percent of thepopulation of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania is exposed tonitrate pollution which can have potentially detrimental health effects. In Romania onlytwo out of forty-one districts did not record elevated nitrate levels in local water suppliesand in Hungary more than 1,000 out of 3,200 communities had their drinking watersupplies contaminated by nitrates. However, nitrate contamination of agricultural soils isstill considered to be lower in CEE than in many regions of Western Europe (OECD1994a: II–13–14; Salay 1990:23). Into the 1980s it was common for even large citieswithmore than 100,000 residents not to have any wastewater treatment facilities and insteadto discharge their raw sewage directly into rivers. In 1985 in the Czech Republic alone

Map 3.6 Sulfur dioxide emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992:8–2)

60 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

there were almost 5,000 registered water pollution sources (Vitha et al. 1989:38). Anumber of treatment plants were built in the region in the 1970s and 1980s reducing theflow of untreated industrial and municipal effluents discharged into surface waters. Statesocialist governments were even willing to shut down some polluters if it was cheaperthan building wastewater treatment facilities, as the closure of the pulp mills at Hostinnéand Vratimov in the Czech Republic in the 1980s illustrates (Vitha et al. 1989:37).6

In the 1980s, the largest areas (relative to country size) with very poor and poor waterquality were in Czechoslovakia, Poland and then Romania, and the smallest areas ofpolluted waters (relative to country size) were in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary(Table 3.1). Based on the information compiled using strict country norms, 75 percent ofmonitored length of Bulgarian rivers exceeded pollution norms in the late 1980s(Sadovski 1992:108), 61 percent of the length of Romanian rivers was polluted, including5 percent (3,700 km) that was completely polluted (Ognean and V dineanu 1992:246),99 percent of the total length of Polish rivers was polluted (Land 1993:12), 70 percent ofthe length of Czechoslovak rivers was heavily polluted and 27 percent of total river lengthwas assigned the worst category incapable of sustaining fish (World Bank 1992a:II–42).Using the ratio of polluted river length to total river length, Novotny and Somlyódy(1995:1) have suggested a different ranking, with the worst situations being in Poland,Slovakia and Bulgaria, with these three countries each having more than half of their total

Map 3.7 Nitrogen oxides emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989

Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992:8–1)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 61

monitored river lengths in the worst water quality class. The situation in Bulgaria iscompounded by a climate with generally low water regimes and recent periodic andsevere droughts (Knight and Staneva 1996).

The impact of water pollution was also exacerbated by the inefficient use of existingwater resources. Compared with parts of Western Europe water consumption and waterwastage were high under state socialism, about three to five times higher than comparablelevels of consumption of water per unit of national output in Western Europe (Makinia,Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:27). For instance, fresh water consumption per capita was 56percent higher in the Czech Republic than in the neighboring Bavaria, and it was twice asmuch in Prague compared to Vienna in 1985 (Vitha et al. 1989:32, 34). A largepercentage of water continues to be lost during distribution to municipal users because ofold and inefficient water supply systems. Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia haveincreased their water withdrawal by more than 20 percent in the 1970s and 1980s,although overall withdrawal per capita in 1990 was still significantly lower than that ofWestern Europe (51 percent of the Western European level in the Czech Republic, 54percent in Poland, 59 percent in Slovakia, and 80 percent in Hungary) (OECD 1993:28).7

Case study: water pollution in Poland and Hungary

Water pollution in Poland has been described as catastrophic (Russell 1991:2). By 1967class I water (drinkable after disinfection) was present in only 33 percent of the totallength of monitored rivers. By 1986 the total length of rivers in this class had declined toonly 4 percent (Livernash 1992:64, Land 1993:12) and by 1987 water classified in class Iaccounted for only 0.9 percent of the total river course length in the country. (SeeTable 3.6.) The situation was even worse with regard to lakes, where water of qualityclass I was completely absent in the late 1980s (Ekono 1990:5), but improved to 8

Figure 3.4 Forest damage in the Czech Republic

Source: HN (1995a:9)

62 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

percent among 104 lakes monitored (out of more than 9,000) by 1989–90 (Makinia,Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:28). In 1987, 42 percent of the surface water was virtuallyunusable even for industrial purposes, which represented a substantial increase from 23percent in 1967 (Livernash 1992:64, Marshall 1991:856).

As in other countries in the region, the most important contaminants of surface waterare industrial wastes and sewage. In the late 1980s about 40 percent of industrialwastewater was released directly into rivers without any treatment and at least one-third

Map 3.8 Solid emissions by district, Czech Republic, 1989

Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992:8–2)

Table 3.5 Forest damage in the Czech Republic by region, 1970–2000 (% of forested areas)

Source: Vavroušek et al. (1989:73)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 63

of municipal sewage was discharged without any treatment (Marshall 1991:856, Nowicki1993:22, OECD 1994a). In 1987, only 34 percent of municipal and industrial wastewaterrequiring treatment was treated mechanically, 6 percent chemically and 22 percentbiologically (Ekono 1990:5). The country had insufficient wastewater treatment plantsand most of the existing ones were inefficient. Only 56 percent of towns and cities (459)had sewage treatment facilities in 1988, including 35 percent (292) with only mechanical-biological plants. The remaining 44 percent of towns and cities (366) discharged their

Plate 3.6 Dead forest in the Ore Mountains of northern Bohemia, Czech Republic

Source: Štýs and Helešicová (1992:21). Reprinted with permission

64 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

sewage into rivers without any treatment, including large cities such as Łód with more than1,000,000 inhabitants, and Białistok and Radom with more than 200,000 inhabitantseach. Over two-thirds of Warsaw’s municipal wastewater was discharged directly into theVistula River (Roman 1992:176; Nowicki 1993: 22; Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik1996:29). The situation was even worse in rural areas, where only 2 percent of villageshad wastewater treatment facilities (Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:30).

The discharge of highly saline wastewater from Upper Silesian coal mines is a waterquality problem specific to Poland. Excess salinity not only reduces self-purificationprocesses in rivers, but such water is also highly corrosive if used for industrial or municipalpurposes. During the 1980s the amount of salt discharged to surface waters doubled,reaching 9,000 tonnes a day or 720,000 cu.m. of saline wastewater per day from eighty-three discharge points (Makinia, Dunnette and Kowalik 1996:30, Rybicka 1996:4).8 Theproductivity costs of these discharges account for 0.5–0.8 percent of GDP losses inPoland (OECD 1994a:II–14).

The Vistula and Odra rivers, two largest Polish rivers, became badly polluted in the1970s and 1980s. Contamination of the Vistula’s waters peaked in the late 1970s and early1980s, when all of its monitored waters were classified in the worst category or were sobad as to be out of the range of the contamination measures (Makinia, Dunnette andKowalik 1996:28). In the early 1980s, the Vistula’s water was even found to have been

Plate 3.7 Waste products (including phenols) from Neftochim petrochemical refinery (Bulgaria) are“filtered” through a system of seven open lakes next to Burgas Bay and Burgas harbor. From the firstlake (bottom right) pontoon boats skim off thick oils into barrels and the “clean” water flows undergravity into the second settling pond. Asbestos lined oil containers lie around on the banks of thesettling ponds

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 65

unsuitable for industrial use along more than 80 percent of its total length (Kramer 1987:155, Rosenbladt 1993:58).

In Hungary, water pollution is also serious and here is considered to be the mostserious environmental problem facing the country. A regular water quality monitoringsystem of surface waters composed of 323 sampling sites was established in 1968 (Vigh1994:19). The Hungarian system of grading water quality is based on five classes:excellent, good, acceptable, polluted and highly polluted water. As in other countries of

Plate 3.8 Groundwater contamination has been a major problem throughout CEE. Here workmenreplace a broken pipeline whose break had lain undiscovered for nearly three weeks (Bourgas,Bulgaria)

Table 3.6 River pollution in Poland, 1964–89 (%)

Source: Carter (1993a:113)

66 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

CEE, inadequate sewage treatment, the extensive use of fertilizers, the improper storageof cattle and pig manure, industry and transboundary water flow resulted in considerablewater pollution (Salay 1990: 23). In the late 1980s, industry accounted for 73 percent ofwater use, followed by agriculture with about 13 percent and municipalities with 8percent. Industry was also the largest source of water pollution and about 84 million cu. mof untreated industrial waste was released in the rivers and lakes annually in the 1980s(Hock and Somlyódy 1990:68–70). Although Hungary invested heavily in thedevelopment of sewage treatment facilities in the 1970s and 1980s, 27 percent of allindustrial sewage and 11 percent of communal sewage was released into surface watersuntreated in 1985 (Salay 1990:23). Insufficient sewage treatment capacity resulted in thedischarge of some 1.3 billion cu. m of untreated sewage into Hungary’s surface watersannually. Furthermore, over 44 percent of the existing sewage treatment plants wereequipped only for mechanical treatment of effluents. As a result two-thirds of Hungary’swastewater are discharged directly into rivers and streams after only mechanicaltreatment (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:71, Marshall 1991:856).

Despite the fact that Hungary built a number of treatment plants to reduce the flow ofuntreated industrial effluents discharged into surface waters in the 1970s and 1980s, thequality of water is still a serious problem. For example, nitrate pollution worsened in 87percent of the tests carried out on Hungarian rivers between 1976 and 1985. Overallwater quality in the five most important rivers (the Danube, Tisza, Kapos, Zala andZagyva) deteriorated continuously from 1975 to 1990, with the Tisza river showing one ofthe highest rates of deterioration in the country (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:75).

The quality of groundwater was also adversely affected by sewage, agricultural chemicals,animal wastes and industrial discharges. As a result, an estimated 60 to 75 percent of thegroundwater is believed to have been polluted (Marshall 1991:856, Salay 1990:23). In thelate 1980s, around 700 towns and cities with about 300,000 residents relied on bottledwater or water piped in from neighboring communities because of high levels of nitratepollution in the drinking water (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:81, Markus 1994:143). InBorsod County, for example, nitrate levels are twenty times higher than Westernpermissible standards (OECD 1994a:II–13).

In the past several decades, Hungary’s two most important rivers—the Danube andTisza—received increasing levels of pollution upstream from Austria, Slovakia, Ukraineand Romania. Water quality in the Danube deteriorates consistently as it enters thecountry from Slovakia, especially with respect to nitrates and dissolved solids. TheDanube is further polluted by communal and industrial wastewater and agricultural runoffas it flows through Hungary. Budapest is the largest source of pollution on the Danube inHungary and the water quality is worst in the section downstream from the city,particularly with respect to heavy metals and bacteriological pollution: all other sources ofDanube pollution combined amount to only two-thirds of the communal and industrialload from Budapest. Records for the Tisza river indicate an even faster rate of waterquality deterioration than for the Danube (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:75, Vigh 1994:29–30).

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 67

Land degradation

Since 1945 moderate to extreme soil degradation has affected about 1.2 billion haworldwide, representing almost 11 percent of the Earth’s vegetated surface (an areaequivalent to the size of China and India combined) (Paden 1992:111–12). It should not betherefore surprising that state socialist countries have also had problems of landdegradation. In general, agricultural activities, deforestation and overgrazing have beenthe most important causes of soil degradation (Paden 1992:111), with poor agriculturaltechniques being by far the most important. Other causes of land degradation have beenair pollution and logging practices, the use of dry, infertile sandy soils, soil acidification,salinization, alkalization and other alterations of the chemical properties of soils, landdegradation due to open cast mining, deforestation and overgrazing, and chemical orbiological contamination of soils (Nowicki 1993:89; Fesus and Lanszki 1994:123; see alsoVárallyay 1990:102–6).

With the exception of Poland and Yugoslavia, all state socialist countries underwentforced collectivization after the communists came to power following the Second WorldWar. Collectivization not only completely reorganized agriculture, but it also introducednew large scale farming methods that were often detrimental to the environment. Heavyfarming equipment extensively used by collectivized agriculture contributed to soildegradation by worsening soil compaction, and wind erosion increased as a result of poorseed-bed preparation. The overall neglect of and inadequate levels of investment inagriculturecompared with industry compounded the problems of collective farms, whichrarely elected to invest in soil-conservation machinery and practices.

As a result, soil degradation was a serious problem in all CEE countries. It affectedabout 40 percent of the total land used for agricultural production in Hungary in the early1990s (Birkás et al. 1995:289). In Poland, 28 percent of the country was threatened withwind erosion, 28 percent with water and surface erosion, and 18 percent with gullyerosion in 1990 (Nowicki 1993:89). Hadač, Kaštánek and Martiš (1989:48) haveestimated, for example, that 54 percent of agricultural soil in Czechoslovakia was affectedby soil erosion in the mid-1980s. In the Czech Republic alone 32 percent of agriculturalsoil was subject to water erosion and 11 percent to wind erosion in 1985 (Moldan 1990:84). In Slovakia about 60 percent of agricultural soil was subject to erosion in the early1990s and 27 percent of agriculture soil required “urgent protection.” The Slovak MoEestimated that 2.8 million tonnes of agricultural soil was lost annually because of soilerosion (Klinda 1995:264, Tončík 1996:49). In Romania, soil erosion also acceleratedunder state socialism, affecting more than 5 million ha of agricultural land by the late1980s. About 150 million tonnes of topsoil was lost through soil erosion annually, 32 to41 tonnes per hectare (Ognean and V dineanu 1992:254). Bulgaria also recorded heavylosses of agricultural soil due to erosion. About 54 percent of all agricultural land and 65percent of crop land in Bulgaria was affected by erosion in the early 1990s, with estimatedannual losses of about 136 million tonnes of agricultural soil, or 23 tonnes per hectare.For comparison, about 19 tonnes of topsoil is estimated to be lost per hectare in theUnited States annually because of wind and soil erosion (Meurs, Morrissey, and Begg1998:30). Albania has also traditionally suffered from severe soil erosion, originally

68 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

caused by massive deforestation long before the communists came to power andaccelerated by overgrazing, unsuitable tillage and farming practices such as terracebuilding under state socialism. However, between 1951 and 1988 almost 200,000 ha hadbeen reforested (Zeman 1996:35–6; Hall 1993:28).

Soil contamination from air pollution, over-fertilization, and irrigation have also becomeserious problems, especially in industrial areas. Land degradation has been severe in themining areas and in the open cast mining areas in particular (Plates 3.9–3.11).

Areas of soil contamination by heavy metals correspond with the distribution of ferrousand nonferrous metallurgy, chemical industries and other sectors. In Romania, forexample, soils in Cop a Mic , Baia Mare, Zlatna, Bucharest, and Slatina, the sites of largenonferrous metallurgy plants, have been polluted by heavy metals such as lead, cadmium,and copper; heavy metal concentrations in soil greatly exceed the maximum permissiblelevels (sometimes by hundreds of times); high fluorine concentrations have been foundaround chemical plants, cement plants and power stations; the oil industry polluted about50,000 ha of soil, and 3,000 ha of agricultural land are polluted to such an extent that itcannot be used for agricultural purposes; 300 million tonnes of solid, non-biodegradablewastes cover 22,000 ha of soil; and over 80 percent of the agricultural land inRomania (7.5 million ha) is affected by processes that damage the normal functioning of soils (Ogneanand V dineanu 1992:254–7, Enache 1994:135–6). Similar problems were recordedthroughout CEE.9

Plate 3.9 Stripping the overburden for brown coal production (Leipzig, former East Germany)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 69

Case study: soil contamination in Poland

The lead content of Poland’s soils is generally low. Piotrowska et al. (1994: 150–4)analyzed 1,060 soil samples collected across Poland in 1988 and 1989 and found thatapproximately 80 percent of soils sampled had natural lead concentrations (not exceeding30 mg/kg), but 97 percent did not exceed the maximum permissible lead concentrationset by the Polish government (100 mg/kg). The highest concentrations of lead in soil (inthe range of 152–929 mg/kg, dry weight) were found in the industrial region of UpperSilesia in the vicinity of point sources of pollution (the range of lead concentrations for therest of Poland was 0.8–53.0 mg/kg)(ibid.: 150) (Map 3.9). It appears, then, that leadcontamination of soil is spatially concentrated in Poland and is not as widespread as someprevious studies had indicated (e.g. Pawlowski 1990; Spuznar et al. 1990:176).

In addition to the spatially concentrated nature of lead contamination in Upper Silesia,soil contamination within the region is highly variable.10 Dudka et al. (1994:237) foundwide ranges of levels of primary metal contaminants in the arable soils of the region:cadmium 0.1–143.0, lead 4–8,200, zinc 5–13,250 (mg/kg in dry weight), with only 10percent of the arable land within the region containing natural concentrations of the tracemetals. About 60 percent of thesoils had higher than critical concentrations of zinc andcadmium and about 45 percent of the soils exceeded maximum permissible leadconcentrations. The most contaminated area of Upper Silesia is the area of TarnowskieGóry (Table 3.7), particularly around the lead-zinc smelter in the southeastern part of theregion. Here soil contamination has affected crops and poses a potential health hazard forpeople and animals. For example, about 95 percent of the cereal and all potato samplesfrom the Tarnowskie Góry region contained cadmium levels above the highest permissibleconcentrations (0.1 mg/kg) (Dudka et al. 1994: 243–8). However, Dudka et al. (ibid.:

Plate 3.10 Stripping the overburden for brown coal production (Leipzig, former East Germany)

70 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

238, 248) stress that these high levels of soil contamination in parts of Upper Silesia arenot unique either to Poland or to CEE, and that even higher levels of contamination werefound in Western Europe, such as the high levels of cadmium, lead and zinccontamination found in the agricultural and horticultural soils in the former mining andsmelting area of Shipham in South West England.

Coal, zinc, lead, and sand mining, and the smelting and processing of ores, alsocontribute to land degradation in the region of Upper Silesia. In the late 1980s, miningwas responsible for the physical degradation of 20,000 ha of land (Kabala 1991c:20), butit is in terms of soil contamination that their most serious effects have been felt. Researchon lead, copper and iron concentrations in soil and plant samples from selected localitiesin the Katowice province of Upper Silesia has indicated that the contamination of theagricultural environment with lead and cadmium was widespread. Contamination of soiland plants by other chemical elements was only local in character, being associated withlocal emission sources of particular pollutants. Research conducted between 1983 and1991 determined that only 49 percent of the arable land in Katowice province (mostlylocated in the peripheral parts of the province) was suitable for production of foodstuffsand animal fodders, while 43 percent of soils located in areas immediately adjacent to theUpper Silesia industrial region had been seriously affected by air pollution where plantsfor human or animal consumption cannot be grown. Extremely contaminated soilsaccounted for 8 percent of arable land area of the province and these were located close tomines, smelters, non-ferrous ore processing plants, power plants and other industries(Kucharski et al. 1992:23) (Table 3.8).

Plate 3.11 Waste piles from the strip mining of brown coal in the Tagebau south of Leipzig, EastGermany

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 71

Garden allotments are widely used in the Katowice province to grow vegetables andfruits, but one 1992 study of soil conditions in these allotments has shown that only 36percent complied with contamination limits and could be used for cultivation of anyvegetables (Kucharski et al. 1992:23). Half of the area of garden allotments in Katowiceprovince, especially those around the Upper Silesian industrial region, had soil socontaminated that the production of vegetables for leaves or roots ought to be avoided,and about 6 percent of the garden allotments were so heavily contaminated that novegetables at all should be grown there. These heavily contaminated single gardens werelocated in the cities of Bytom, Chorzów, Katowice, Bukowno, Olkusz, Piekary l skie andSosnowiec (see Table 3.9).

Map 3.9 Heavy metals pollution in Poland, 1996

Source: Adapted from GUS (1997:278)

Table 3.7 Soil contamination in selected localities of Upper Silesia (in mg/kg)

Source: Rybicka (1996:5)

72 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

The political ecology of Bulgarian agriculture

The thematic treatment of environmental conditions presented above details the ways inwhich state socialist environments were incorporated and used in the drive to“modernize” the new party states of CEE quickly after the Second World War. But, aswith all thematic analyses, the rich interplay of social forces at work in the production of aparticular kind of Nature remains only thinly developed. In this section, we shift gearsfrom a thematic treatment and instead attempt to sharpen our focus on the socialconditions of environmental change through a regional political economic analysis of theeffects on the environment of Bulgarian state socialist agriculture.

Agricultural ecology prior to 1944

Prior to 1944 Bulgarian agriculture consisted mainly of small, owner-operated farmsengaged in near-subsistence farming of livestock and crops. Substantial amounts of pastureland were held collectively by villages and managed through a system of collective, village-level decision making. This common land accounted for 9 percent of agricultural land in

Table 3.8 Heavy metals content in arable soils of selected local government areas of the Katowiceprovince, 1983–91 (concentration ranges in mg/kg of soil)

Notes: Permissible standards (mg/kg of soil): lead 50, cadmium 3, zinc 200.Source: Kucharski et al. (1992:24). Data from the Regional Center for Environmental Research andMonitoring in Katowice

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 73

1932 (Stoyanova 1993, SGTB 1939:181). With few non-agricultural employmentopportunities, villagers tended to remain in the village of their birth (or of their husband’sbirth in the case of women) and land served as the main form of capitalizing the nextgeneration. The long-term dependence of families on local resources for survival, and thecollective oversight exercised by village governance, meant that management goals of bothindividual households and village assemblies were largely those of sustainability. Still, thissystem had already come under substantial pressure prior to the coming of the socialistgovernment in 1944.

In the villages, strong organs of civil society oversaw the practices of everyday life, andsophisticated local mechanisms existed for regulating the use of resources. Social normsserved to regulate some behaviors. Local lore and collective norms were widely expressedin common phrases such as “it is a sin to pollute the water,” “the bucket with which wateris taken from the well should not be put on the ground,” and “trees must be planted alongthe rivers and the water springs, and these must not be cut” (Kouzhouharova and Dobreva1992). These norms were transferred from generation to generation and enforced bysocial and religious sanctions, maintaining a culture of respect for the environment(Sanders 1949).

More formal restrictions also regulated individual use of collectively held resources.National laws regulated the use of resources such as forests. Within the limitations set by

Table 3.9 Lead and cadmium contents in the soils of garden allotments in the Katowice province(concentration ranges in mg/kg of soil)

Notes: Permissible standards: (mg/kg of soil) lead 50 and cadmium 3Source: Kucharski et al. (1992:24). Data from the Institute of Environmental Protection in Katowice

74 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

the state, village assemblies determined both the timing and level of appropriation fromcollective resources. For example, in the village of Gaitanikovo in the mountainous GotseDelchev region a 1890 law prohibited, among other things, the cutting of wood alongeasily eroded river beds. This law was reviewed annually in a meeting of the entire villageand then signed by all attending. Offenders were punished by fines as well as socialostracism. On Sundays after the church sermon, offenders might be marched through thevillage, accompanied by a drummer. Illicitly collected items would be hung from theoffender for all to see. Despite minimal state regulation of resource use in this period,long-term dependence of villagers on the local resource base combined with social normsand family expectations to limit individual short-run profit seeking and promotesustainable farming practices (Stoyanova 1993).

Alongside the common lands, most Bulgarians worked small plots of private land. In1926, farms under 5 ha made up 56 percent of farms, but held only 16.7 percent ofagricultural land. Land held by households was not consolidated, but was scattered aroundthe village, with each family holding an average of 17 units (Stoyanova 1992). The smalland fragmented holdings greatly complicated the implementation of irrigation, machinecultivation, or even crop rotation, both because most smallholdings could not provide asurplus with which to finance inputs, and because mechanization and crop rotation weredifficult to use on the small, scattered plots. The severity of the problem varied by region,with the larger landholdings in the plains regions having more consolidated plots, whilethe smaller holdings in mountainous areas were even more fragmented.

Despite the low level of agricultural production, state extraction of surplus fromagriculture was significant. During the First World War, requisitions were common.Beginning in the 1930s, the state used agricultural marketing cooperatives to form apurchasing monopoly in grains, sugar beets, cotton, tobacco and other products. In 1932,delivery quotas were established at low, state-determined prices, and these requisitionswere continued by the German occupation (Lampe 1986:82). The combined pressures ofstate extraction and limited landholding began to undermine the sustainability ofagricultural practices in the early 1900s, and from 1908 to 1932 common property fell bya third, in part due to increasing pressure on village councils to meet the land needs ofindividual households (Stoyanova 1993). In an attempt to introduce new methods ofmaintaining agricultural productivity, the state founded the Bulgarian Agricultural Bank in1903, and later the Bulgarian Central Cooperative Bank in 1910. These banks in turnsupported village-level credit cooperatives to channel funds into agriculture. The state-run cooperatives were initially met with significant resistance from the peasantry.

A more peasant-based response to the squeeze on agriculture can be found in BANU(Bulgarian Agricultural National Union), formed in 1890 to fight high rates of taxes on thepeasantry. By the 1910s, party leader Alexander Stamboliiski was proposing a full-fledgedalternative model of peasant farming, based on a system of agricultural cooperatives.Under this system, locally organized credit and processing cooperatives would aidsmallholder members. In some cases, smallholders might also cooperate in certain aspectsof production, but on the basis of private property. The local cooperatives would joinnationwide cooperative unions in order to increase their power and to receive support

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 75

from the state. This system could build on credit cooperatives supported by the state, butwould be governed by peasants themselves.

The Stamboliiski model sought to raise the productivity of peasant farming in order toallow rural households to retain their long run relationship to the land. At the same time,it sought to limit the rights of the state to dictate production or financial practices tofarmers. Loans to agricultural cooperatives by the Bulgarian Agricultural Bank grew from102 million leva in 1921 to 1390 million leva in 1930 (Nachev 1937:1–5), providingcapital for modernization that could not be accumulated within the sector itself. As aresult, 1,500 tractor-plows and 4,000 motorized cultivators were introduced.

After Stamboliiski was murdered by political opponents in 1923, the new governmentcontinued to support credit cooperatives as a means of modernizing agriculture, but notas part of a vision of maintaining a self-sustaining viable peasant sector. By 1939, the state-run cooperative network consisted of 3,502 cooperatives with 955,805 members(Crampton 1987:138), and cooperative banks supported smallholders: 26 percent ofcooperative members had 2 ha or less of land and another 31 percent had 2–4 ha, 42percent held 4–10 ha, while only 1 percent had over 10 ha (TsDIA 165/1/82:20, TsDIA288/4/7580:36).

Nonetheless, the economic viability of peasant farming in Bulgaria continued to erode.Population growth, partible inheritance practices, and a lack of other employmentopportunities exacerbated fragmentation of private plots, and refugee populations afterthe Balkan wars further increased pressure on land. By 1946, 69 percent of land holdingswere under 5 ha. One estimate suggests that by 1949 only one private farm in three wascapable of producing enough for household subsistence (Lampe 1986:125). The pressureto maintain subsistence and increasing fragmentation of land further undermined attemptsto maintain soil quality through crop rotation and fertilizer use. At the same time,pressure on land contributed to the continued decline in common property holdings.From 1941, common property fell by another third over the 1932 level (Stoyanova1993).

Changes in agricultural ecology under central planning

Structures of central planning

Following the Second World War, the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) undertook aradical restructuring of agriculture, replacing the systems of smallholder agriculture andlocally controlled common property with a system of collective farms under centralmanagement. From 1945 to 1958, discriminatory taxes on private producers and coercivepractices were used to encourage the collectivization of private agriculture land intoagricultural production cooperatives. The assets in these cooperatives were graduallysocialized into collective property of the membership. By 1958, 93 percent of arable landwas collectivized (Trifanova 1975:289–93, 305–10).

In the earliest years of collectivization, farms were organized by village, building ontraditions of collective village labor and property. While collective farms were

76 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

increasingly expected to conform to party-approved forms of organization andremuneration, during the early years such conformity was difficult to enforce. Farmsduring this period averaged only about 560 ha (1949 data), production was guided by thesubsistence needs of the members as much as by state demands, and little capital wasavailable for improving production techniques. Thus, collectivization was said initially toproduce “hundreds of over-extended estates worked by slow-moving buffalo” (Stillman1958:85).

After 1950, however, more capital was made available for intensifying production onthe cooperatives. By 1954, fertilizer applications reached over ten times 1939 levels (intonnes), while pesticides reached 12.5 times the 1939 level(Lazarcik 1973:47). By 1958,fertilizer applications more than doubled from 1954 levels, while pesticide applicationsincreased 2.5 times (ibid.: 47). From 1958–67, the village-level farms were consolidatedinto a system of larger farms, incorporating three or more villages, and the farms werebrought under much greater central control. The patchwork of farms producing mainlydiversified products for household and local use was gradually transformed into a systemof very large-scale, specialized farms managed by state functionaries. A second round ofconsolidation of farms occurred in the 1970s, and by 1985 average farm size had reached18,000 ha. Production was much harder to centralize in mountainous areas, where thediscontinuity of arable land and steep slopes made the consolidation of fields moredifficult. In these areas, farm size remained somewhat smaller, more land was permittedto remain under private control, and in the Turkish and Pomak regions of the Rhodopiand Pirin cooperatives functioned as de facto marketing cooperatives for private producersrather than producer cooperatives.

Village priorities of long run sustainability of subsistence production were replaced bystate goals which prioritized rapid industrialization. For central planners, like stateofficials in the 1920s and 1930s, agricultural production was used as a means of financingindustrialization through cheap food policies and agricultural exports. To maximize thesurplus generated from agriculture, planners reorganized production: farms were orderedto specialize in a few “optimal” crops; to large-scale monocultural cropping practices wereadded capital- and chemical-intensive practices; and to promote both practices, plannerskept the prices of energy, fertilizer, and other inputs well below world market prices.Fertilizer prices, for example, have increased tenfold since 1989 and are still believed to beslightly below world prices. Agricultural intensification rapidly increased land and laborproductivity, freeing labor and generating export earnings needed for industrialization.

There are interesting parallels between this process and the intensification ofagriculture which supported capitalist industrialization. Rapid industrialization freed manypeasant households from indefinite dependence on the agricultural sector, as the numberof workers employed in agriculture dropped from 2.5 million in 1960 to 1.5 million by1970 (Lazarcik 1973:20). As a result, the chain of inter-generational dependence on localagricultural resources was broken, shortening producers’ time horizons. Increasedmobility also reduced the effectiveness of social pressure in controlling individualbehavior; ostracism could be fled from if the need arose. Agricultural productionpractices intensified in response to rising demand for food for urban industrial workers.

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 77

The system of state regulation through central planning did create a specific set ofconditions, however. Collectivization of agricultural land and the tenuous legal claims ofhouseholds on self-sufficiency plots shortened the time horizons of households andreduced the link between agricultural practices and producer welfare. At the same time,the shortage economy kept prices for other, “luxury” food items high, including those forlivestock products and fresh fruits and vegetables, providing strong incentives for theintensification of householdprivate production for sale. While these changes happenedmore rapidly and more completely in the peri-urban areas, by the 1980s their effect couldbe felt even in the more distant mountainous regions.

Farm managers, appointed by the party, tended to stay for only short periods on anyone farm. During that time, they were judged mainly on the short term outputperformance and their effectiveness in implementing production plans designed by distantplanners. Standardized production technologies were applied regardless of regionaldifferences, without consideration to local conditions and local knowledge, and as a resulteffectiveness of fertilizer and pesticide applications was reduced and soil erosion common.Centrally-set prices included heavy subsidies for chemical fertilizers, fuel and otherinputs, in order to facilitate intensification. Low fertilizer prices and the limited financialresponsibility of farm managers provided little local incentive for economizing onfertilizer use. Water prices for irrigation were also kept low: according to one estimate,even after some upward adjustments in the early 1990s, Bulgarian farmers were payingapproximately a hundredth of the true cost of irrigation water (Wolf nd: 2).

Finally, the one-party state exercised tight control over information on theenvironmental and health costs of state agricultural policy. Private organizations forenvironmental data collection and action were illegal, and citizens had few rights to reviewstate-collected environmental data. If access to data was permitted (on the basis of therequesting party’s state-authorized research), data had to be copied by hand from archivedmaterials (Mikhova and Pickles 1994a: 230–1). Even if environmental costs wereobvious, state organs were usually able to repress complaints by harmed parties.

State policies thus favored rapid economic growth over environmental sustainability,and did so in a context of highly centralized state control and a relatively uncontestedpolitical arena.11 At the same time, however, it created a local context in whichdeviations from state policy by local producers were more likely to reinforce the dominantstate goals of economic growth than to undermine them. Increasing geographic mobilityagain combined with price and information structures to encourage villagers also toprioritize short-run output over long-run sustainability.

The environmental impact in agriculture

The environmental impact of central planning includes soil and water contamination byfertilizers, pesticides, and livestock waste and significant soil erosion. As plannersswitched from crop rotation with nitrogen-fixing legumes and the use of natural fertilizerto the use of chemical fertilizers, nitrogen applications increased from 2,260 tonnes in1939 to 100,560 tonnes in 1960, while phosphorus applications rose from 650 tonnes to50,004 tonnes (Lazarcik 1973:47). Applications continued to increase in quantity in the

78 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

1980s. While the Bulgarian application of an average of 173 kg of total fertilizers perhectare in the period 1985–7 (CSO, various years) was well below the average of 425 inWest Germany or 431 in Japan, it was well above the average of 49 tonnes per hectareinCanada or 95 in the United States (Hammond 1992:274–5).12 In part, the increasedfertilizer applications served to restore soil which had been exhausted during the prewarperiod. The percentage of phosphorous-poor soil decreased from 70 percent in 1963 to40 percent in 1988.

Inappropriate and excessive use mandated by distant planners produced environmentalproblems, however. By the early 1990s it was estimated that 37 percent of nitrogenousfertilizer remained in the soil because of the inappropriate timing of applications (Wolf nd:6). Further, planners mandated the use of nitrogen in the form of ammonium nitrate,which, when applied over long periods of time, causes acidification and also contaminatesgroundwater. Approximately 40 percent of Bulgarian soils are naturally acidic, and inthese areas the use of nitrogen fertilizers high in ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfateand lacking sufficient base materials is particularly problematic. An estimated 1 million haof soils have reached levels of soil acidity toxic to plants over the past two decades (Ganev1992:8). Mountainous areas are particularly problematic.

Acid soils create a number of problems, including the hampering of potassium uptake(exacerbating potassium shortages) and increasing plant uptake of (toxic) heavy metalsexisting in soils or deposited there by local industry. In addition to contaminating foodsupplies, plant uptake of heavy metals reduces their ability to process nitrogen fertilizers,contributing to a cycle of rising applications. The nitrates also find their way intogroundwater supplies and into the Black Sea. One study found that:

In three regions of the country, an estimated 70–80 percent of the population isexposed to drinking water that contains too much nitrate. In eight other regions ofthe country, 35–45 percent of the population uses drinking water with above-standard concentrations of nitrates. In the remaining eight regions of the country, 2to 30 percent of the population is similarly exposed.

(Nikolova 1992:2)

In comparison, only 6 percent of wells sampled in the United States by the US GeologicSurvey had excessive nitrate concentrations (Wolf nd: 5). The excessive nitrates are alsotaken up by plants, resulting in concentrations in vegetables and fodder three to eighttimes the levels admissible under government standards (Nikolova 1992:2). Ingestion ofnitrates has serious health consequences, including methemoglobinemia, or “blue-babysyndrome,” which can be fatal for infants (Wolf nd: 6). More than 4,300 tonnes ofnitrogen waste are also estimated to flow into the Black Sea each year, contributing to therise of the anaerobic (“dead”) zone along the coastal shelf from 180 m in 1978 to 50 m in1988 (Begg 1994:12).

Potassium applications, on the other hand, have generally been inadequate. Potassiumfertilizers, which had to be imported and could not be substituted by organic matter,were in direct competition with industrial inputs for hard currency. As a result, plannersprovided only about half of recommended levels of phosphorous fertilizers over the last

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 79

half of the 1980s. An estimated 75 percentof potassium needs were met directly from thesoils, resulting in an increase in the area of potassium-poor soil from 6 percent of arableland in 1963 to 16 percent in 1988 (Nikolova 1992:4). As available potassium falls, thereturns on other fertilizers also fall, resulting in increased applications.

The mandated monoculture system also contributed to rising pest infestations, sincethe massive fields eliminated the natural habitat of birds and small mammals which hadtraditionally fought pests. Infestations of the gray worm, the grain runner, and theColorado beetle in the late 1940s and early 1950s began the cycle of rising pesticideapplications. Applications rose from a value of 1.3 million leva in 1951 to 7.3 million levain 1960 to 8.9 million in 1970 (in constant 1968 prices) (Lazarcik 1973:47). Runoffresulted in substantial pollution of a number of Bulgaria’s main rivers (Gergov 1991:166).

Spatial concentration of livestock waste also contaminated soil and water. The preferenceof planners for large-scale, specialized enterprises under central planning led to theconcentration of livestock in large breeding facilities, some with as many as 300,000 pigs.The resulting concentrations of animal waste resulted in substantial environmentaldegradation; however, while plans called for ever-increasing levels of meat production forboth domestic and export consumption, investment in waste management was never apriority.

Methods of disposing of these wastes varied, but included the spreading of aged drymanure on fields, deep injection of liquefied waste into soils, and the use of slurry ponds.Barns were frequently cleaned by flushing them with water because of the availability ofcheap water supplies, but the liquefied waste increased the dangers of surface andgroundwater pollution during storage. Since farms were forced by planners to buychemical fertilizers for crop production, local complementarities between livestock andcrop production could not be fully exploited as a means of waste recycling (Douglass1994:4).

In 1991, there were 5,400 feedlots in Bulgaria and these produced some 33 million cu.m of wastewater, accounting for approximately 10 percent of the water used by allindustries and municipal utilities for the entire country (Wolf nd, Deets 1993:2). Due topoor treatment, approximately two-thirds of all waste products entering Bulgaria’s riverscome from livestock effluent (Carter 1993c:47). The waste adds Biologic OxygenDemand (BOD5) discharge to the water in the form of suspended solids, nitrogen,phosphorus, potassium and pathogens, and contributes to the problem of nitrateconcentrations in drinking water (see above) (Wolf nd). Socialist legislation mandatedfines for improper disposal of animal wastes, but they were negligible and did not serve asdeterrents (Begg 1994:14).

During central planning, rural households also kept a significant amount of livestock inprivate yards for household consumption or sometimes for sale to the state. However, thestate permitted only a few animals—a few pigs or a couple of cattle—to be kept in thismanner. Since chemical fertilizer was legally available to households in only very limitedquantities, waste generated by these animals was carefully recycled for use on gardenplots.

A second type of environmental problem arising in centrally planned agriculture waserosion. The widespread elimination of bush and tree borders andplowing of large fields

80 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

into the slopes of mountainous and semi-mountainous regions contributed to erosion, as didpoor irrigation practices. For example, while approximately one-fourth of Bulgarianagricultural land was irrigated in the 1980s, and while costs of irrigation schemes wereunwritten by low prices for energy and water, most irrigation systems used unlinedfurrows that were highly susceptible to erosion (Wolf nd: 45, Begg 1994:10).

Water erosion was particularly problematic in the mountainous regions of Bulgaria,where slopes are between 3–12° (Rousseva and Lazarov 1992:1). Erosion resulted in anestimated loss of 136 million tonnes of soil per year, an average of 22.8 tonnes per hectareof agricultural land, compared with 19.3 in the United States. As with soil acidity, themountainous areas of eastern and north-eastern Bulgaria suffer particularly from erosion.In 1990, 79 percent of agricultural land was classified as eroded (Begg 1994:9B10;Rousseva and Lazarov 1992), mainly by water erosion, affecting 70–80 percent ofagricultural land (Begg 1994:9, Deets 1993:4).

Erosion significantly affects crop yields. Wheat yields, for example, fall from anestimated 3 tonnes per hectare on slightly eroded land to 1.8 tonnes per hectare onseverely eroded land (Rousseva and Lazarov 1992:9). Costs of water erosion also includedownstream crop damage, as well as costs of dredging silted irrigation canals, and fertilizerpollution (Smith 1993:34). Dam reservoirs are silting up five to six times faster thanprojected.

The BCP government did, in its ostensible role of protector of the social good, initiatesome policies to encourage farm managers or local producers to address emergingproblems. Especially after the effects of intensification began to be seen in agriculture inthe 1960s and 1970s, the BCP set environmental and health standards more or less in linewith those in western Europe or the United States. In 1975, for example, a UnifiedSystem for Monitoring and Information was established in Bulgaria which set up a systemfor monitoring surface water pollution, including nitrate and phosphate contents. Evenearlier legislation included the 1963 Law on the Protection of Air, Water, and Soil, aswell as the Law on Water of 1969, the Law on Protection of Arable and Pasture Land of1973, and the Law on the Protection of Farm Property of 1974 (Friedberg and Zaimov1994:241–2).

Falling yields in the late 1970s also led to a slight shift in planning goals away fromimmediate performance and toward medium-run sustainability. New plans included theplanting of tree belts and perennials to reduce erosion, the implementation of soil-protecting crop rotation, the use of moisture-retaining vegetation in dry areas, and thecreation of terraces. Investment plans for 1986 also included increasing water purificationcapacity and chemical treatment of salinated and acidified soils (Gergov 1991:167).

As in other CEE countries, environmental legislation was poorly enforced, however. Inpart, this was due to a lack of supporting regulations, which would have set clearguidelines for enforcement (Friedberg and Zaimov 1994:245). In addition, legal guidelineswere often directly contradicted by plans issued to firms. Where plans and legislationwere incompatible, plan fulfillment had thegreatest impact on a manager’s chances forrecognition and promotion. In any case, state environmental inspectors might beencouraged to look the other way. Even if they acted, the fines were set so low as to offer

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN CEE 81

few problems for the polluting firm (which was, in any case, faced with a soft budgetconstraint).

The majority of new planning targets was also not met. While environmental planscalled for adjustments in farming practices, the plans were not accompanied by changes inthe incentives for local actors. Output plans remained the most important measure ofmanagement performance, and these often did not take into consideration the changingcrop mix or the losses in crop land which would have been required to implementplanned wind breaks. As a result, MoE publications from 1987 estimated that only 20percent of eroded land had been improved through these plans (Ganev 1992:7). Further,the maintenance of erosion protection structures became the responsibility of the farmsthemselves, drawing resources away from other maintenance tasks more directly relatedto short-run performance, like the maintenance of calving sheds or tractors. Notsurprisingly, structures mandated for environmental reasons were often quicklyabandoned.

A similar example is the use of state funding to develop systems of Integrated PestManagement (IPM) using insect predators and inter-cropping (Begg 1994: 16). Farmmanagers faced with tight production schedules were reluctant to experiment with whatthey saw as risky new production technologies, however, and the use of IPM technologiesremained largely limited to experimental farms. At least two natural insect predators havebeen successfully introduced, but other IPM methods have not been widely adopted(Videnova 1993:42–3).

Conclusion

Environmental quality deteriorated rapidly under state socialism as the fast drive toindustrialization by the sanction of the party state over-rode most obstacles in its path. Butthis account of bureaucratic authoritarian power and its construction of a particular kind ofenvironmental ethos must be situated alongside a richer cultural analysis of how individual“socialist citizens” negotiated the intricate webs of hegemonic powers in order to effectsome liveable outcomes. The case of Bulgarian agricultural ecology illustrates someimportant aspects of how capitalist agriculture before the Second World War andcollective farming after 1948 severely weakened the organs of civil society and traditionalvillage-based regulatory systems by which longer-term planning horizons and protection ofcollective resources had previously been maintained. Central planning generally replacedlocal systems of social regulation with a system in which distant decision-makers plannedproduction and rewarded short term growth over environmental sustainability. Theresulting industrial and agricultural practices yielded very specific social andenvironmental outcomes and distinctive new geographies. It is to the geographies ofenvironmental change that we now turn.

82 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

4Nature, society and extensive

industrialization

This chapter analyzes the political economy of environmental change in the Most regionof the Czech Republic with a primary focus on the state socialist period after the SecondWorld War.1 The chapter seeks to deepen our understanding of the relationships betweensocial and environmental change by working through three conceptual frameworks incontemporary critical political economy.

First, we seek to understand how the political ecology of state socialist and post-communist societies is part of a broader structuring of political economic life in each. Inthis chapter we read this linked political ecology and political economy through theFrench regulation school and its concept of “model of development” composed of aregime of accumulation, mode of regulation, labor process model and a hegemonic bloc(see Chapter Two). However, regulationist approaches (notably in the works of Lipietz1984, 1987, 1992a, and 1992b), have focused primarily on systems of economic andsocial regulation at the national and international level. Using the example of the MostDistrict, we focus on the ways in which integration of environmental concerns into thepolitical economy of social change enables a richer reading of regional models ofdevelopment and political ecologies of environmental transitions.

Second, in order better to understand environmental change as a complex process ofspatial and temporal relations, and to locate this process within the state socialist and post-communist development models, we turn to David Harvey’s (1985:140) concept of“structured coherence,” showing how a specific structured coherence developed in theMost region before the Second World War based on coal mining and a particularconception of Nature, and how this was restructured during state socialism andafterwards.

Third, we show how the pre-Second World War and state socialist models ofdevelopment produced their own space and environment in the Most region. In thissense, we seek to show how Henri Lefebvre’s (1991:31, 46, 1979) concept of the“production of space” (which sees every mode of production or every society as producingits own space) can help us to understand the production of Nature. However, we differwith Lefebvre when he argues (1991:55) that the former state socialist countries failed toproduce any specific space because they fundamentally “failed” in their transition fromcapitalism to socialism. While Lefebvre is correct in arguing that state socialism failed tobreak away from themethods of a capitalist regime of accumulation, it does not follow

that state socialism created no specific “space” of its own or that state socialism was eithera thoroughly incoherent model of development, never “stabilizing” as Lipietz puts it, or thatit was thoroughly derivative (a form of capitalism in other terms). We seek to show thatneither claim is tenable, although each holds important elements that are true. Moreover,Lefebvre’s reduction of state socialism to a “failed transition” from capitalism—whileunderstandable in the context of political struggles in post-War France—is untenable inthe face of the real transformations in social, production, and environmental relationswrought under state socialism. And it is these “real transformations” that concern us inthis book.

The district of Most

The District of Most is located in the region of northern Bohemia on the Czech-Germanborder in the Czech Republic (Maps 4.1–4.2). We have chosen this region for our casestudy for several reasons. Its industrial structure, typical for the state socialist developmentmodel, is based on large enterprises in chemicals and coal mining. The natural resourcesand the environment of the district were ruthlessly exploited under central planning,resulting in extreme environmental degradation. In this sense, the Most District typifiesthe old state socialist regime and provides a good opportunity to study the unfoldingtransformation and the impact of this political, economic and social change on theenvironment.

The central part of the district is occupied by the Most basin, and is endowed withlarge deposits of lignite and low grade brown coal. These are part of the northernBohemian brown coal basin that covers about 850 sq. km and is located on the territory of

84 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

Map 4.1 Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic

five northern Bohemian districts. And it is on and around this coal basin that an extremelyhigh concentration of industrial activities has developed, resulting in a high degree ofenvironmental degradation (Plate 4.1).

Map 4.2 The district of Most

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 85

Here we focus specifically on the Most basin. The mountainous northern part andsouthern agricultural areas of the district face their own problems, such as thedepopulation of the mountains and the deconcentration and privatization of agriculture inthe southern agricultural area.2 Democratization has opened the possibilities for differentregions to seek remedies for their long-term problems and even in small areas, such as theMost District (467 sq. km.), the local political scene has become fragmented as differentlocal interest groups and localities try to solve problems of specific concern to them.

The industrial structure of the district is dominated by two sectors: chemicals (59.9percent of the total industrial production in terms of the volume of production) and coal(31.6 percent). Power plants (3 percent), machinery (2.5 percent) and others (3 percent)account for the remaining 8.5 percent (Sociálně ekonomický ústav ČSAV 1992) (see alsoFigure 4.2). In 1991, 50 percent of all economically active inhabitants of the districtworked in the industrial sector, a 4.4 percent decline since 1980 (OSS 1992) (Table 4.1).Coal mining activities employed nearly 8,700 people in 1999, a decrease from the peak of18,988 achieved in 1984, and the chemical complex Chemopetrol at Záluží (the secondlargest employer in the District) employed 3,800 workers (down from 11,584 in 1985)(MF Dnes 1998f:16, ČTK 1999).3 In the early 1990s, industrial production wasconcentrated in eleven large enterprises on the district’s territory. Production in theseenterprises was by far the highest in the entire Czech Republic, with output in 1992valued at 3.38 billion Czech crowns (ČSÚ 1993b).

The impacts of these coal mining, chemicals and electricity producers were mostheavily concentrated in the Most basin. Unrestored strip mines cover 25 percent of thearea of the district and 35 percent of the formerly available arable land, and all of this damage

Plate 4.1 Most-Kopisty Mine in the Most basin in the foreground (the old city of Most was locatedon this site). Chemopetrol is located in the background and the Ore Mountains on the horizon

86 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

is concentrated in the basin itself. Here 72.9 percent of all the land is occupied by humanactivities such as coal mining, urban uses and industrial land use (Švec and Kučerová1993a, Häufler 1984, Janeček 1993) (Plate 4.1). All but one of the villages torn down inthe Most District were located in the Most basin.

Air pollution and opencast coal mining are considered by the citizens and localgovernment officials of the district to be their most serious environmental problems (1992and 1993 Social Surveys, see Pavlínek 1997:334–6), particularly the burning of locallymined low grade coal in steam power plants. These produce sulfur oxides, carbon oxides,particulate matter and organic and inorganic pollutants. The chemical plant Chemopetrolintensifies air pollution and health problems across the Most basin.

Figure 4.1 Production of coal in the northern Bohemian coal basin, 1860–1996

Source: Data from Jindřichovská (1991:3), Línek (1997:110)

Figure 4.2 Proportion of major industrial sectors on total industrial production in the Most District,1961–85

Source: Data from OOSSÚ (1968:21) and OOČSÚ (1986:111)

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 87

The physiography of the district contributes to these environmental problems. Duringwinter months, thermal inversions are frequent resulting in increased concentrations ofsulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX) and related particulate matter (seeTable 5.4). But the frequency of their occurrence has been exacerbated by humanactivities: natural vegetation cover has been removed over large areas, contributing tofaster cooling and more and deeper temperature inversions during winter months.Compounding this situation are the unrestored coal dumps which rise 60 m and moreabove the original terrain, blocking horizontal air flow, changing its direction and speed,and leading to poor air circulation and higher pollution concentrations (Janeček 1993,Švec and Kučerová 1993a).

Air pollution has declined since 1989 as production of electricity has diminished anddesulfurization equipment has been installed in existing power plants. However, thermalinversions with extremely high concentrations of pollutants continue in the district. Forexample, during one such thermal inversion in March 1991, the twenty-four-hour averageconcentrations of sulfur dioxide reached 560µg/m3 (the maximum limit set by the Czechgovernment is 150µg/m3) and the momentary concentrations (a half hour maximum)reached 1,470µg/m3 (the maximum limit set by the Czech government is 500µg/m3)(Švec and Kučerová 1993a). During the January 1997 inversion the twenty-four-houraverage sulfur dioxide concentrations reached 621µg/m3 in the neighboring TepliceDistrict and 532µg/m3 in the neighboring Chomutov District (MF Dnes 1997d:3).4

One consequence of this concentration of heavy industry is that population distributionand density in the Most District are unusual. The district has more than 120,000 inhabitants(120,136 in 1995) with a population density reaching its highest level in 1993 (257 peopleper sq. km). Fifty nine percent of its population is concentrated in the city of Most alone.This degree of urbanization is high, with 90 percent of the district’s population living in

Table 4.1 Sectoral structure of economically active population in the Most District, 1991

Notes: Social services include education, culture, health care and social care. Data is based on the1991 census.Source: OSS (1992:34)

88 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

four cities and towns (Most, Litvínov, Lom, Meziboří). The first three are in the Mostbasin, and Meziboří is located on the slopes of the Ore Mountains just above the Mostbasin. Between 1956 and the present thirty-three out of a total of fifty-nine villages in thebasin were destroyed because of coal mining (OSS 1992, 1994, ČSÚ 1993a), and at least30,000 inhabitants from these villages and a majority of 35,000 inhabitants of the old cityof Most have been forced to leave their homes (Švec and Kučerová 1993b, OSS 1992)(see Table 5.2). The strength of the coal-chemical complex nationally meant that thedestruction of villages did not end with the collapse of state socialism, and in 1990 thevillage of Libkovice, which had celebrated the 800th year of its first written mention, wasdemolished.

Partly because of the vast physical and social upheavals in communities disturbed bycoal mining, and partly because of the labor pool used by the mining and chemicalindustries, the population of the Most District today exhibits a high degree of what arelocally referred to as “social pathologies.” In 1991, the district recorded the secondhighest number of crimes (53.9 per 1,000 inhabitants) in the Czech Republic (ČSÚ1994a). The Most District has a higher than average suicide rate (twenty-five suicides per100,000 inhabitants in 1992 and twenty-three in 1993) (ČSÚ 1993a, 1994a), and isamong the districts with the highest divorce rate in the Republic (64.9 divorces per 1,000marriages in 1993 compared with 52.3 for northern Bohemia as a whole) (OSS 1994).Švec and Kučerová (1993b) also stress growing levels of drug abuse, alcoholism and sexuallytransmitted diseases and argue that the social pathology of the Most District resultsdirectly (at least in part) from the environmental and social devastation of the regioncaused by the excessive industrial concentration in the Most basin during the state socialistperiod. Some characteristics of this social pathology, such as high divorce and suiciderates, may also be associated with the fact that the Most District has the least religiouspopulation in the Czech Republic. Only 20 percent of the citizens recorded any religiousaffiliation in the 1991 census, compared with 44 percent for the Czech Republic as awhole. Social behavior and attitudes toward the environment are probably also influencedby the structure of education. A majority of inhabitants have only elementary schooling(38.1 percent in 1991, 51.1 percent in 1980) or vocational training (32.1 percent in 1991,25.9 percent in 1980), and few have a university degree (4.4 percent in 1991, 2.9percent in 1980) (OSS 1992).

In 1980, the District recorded the lowest life expectancy rates in the Czech Republic;64.18 years for men and 72.45 for women compared with 67.13 years for men and 74.13years for women for the Republic as a whole. By 1990, life expectancy increased slightlyto 65.39 years for men (Czech Republic 68.1 in 1989) and 73.09 for women (CzechRepublic 75.4 in 1989), but remained the second lowest for men and third lowest forwomen out of seventy-five districts(OSS 1992). Cancer-related mortalities in the districtincreased by 51.3 percent between 1970 and 1990, compared with “only” a 13.3 percentincrease for the Republic as a whole, surpassing national levels by 1990 (Švec 1992).5 TheMost District also recorded a statistically significant higher number of miscarriages andbirth defects than in the Republic as a whole (Švec and Kučerová 1992).

The health of the population in neighboring districts of the northern Bohemian coalbasin has been similarly affected. The incidence of diseases such as respiratory infection,

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 89

skin disease, muscle and bone disorders and others is significantly higher in this regionthan in the Czech Republic as a whole (World Bank 1992a). Furthermore, it is possiblethat the full-scale health effects of environmental devastation will become evident only inthe future, as the generation of young people born during the period of worst pollution in1970s and 1980s enter middle age.

The Most District is, therefore, a classic example of state socialist industrialization,replete with examples of callous planning, environmental degradation, and negative healthand social impacts. But how far can we understand this process of environmentaldegradation in terms of the actually existing transformations on the ground with which webegan this chapter?

Coal mining, structured coherence and the production ofspace

The modern history of the Most region is very closely related to coal and coal mining. Thetown of Most acquired its city status before the year 1247. It was an agricultural,handicraft and merchant center that prospered, especially in the sixteenth century, bysupplying food to fast growing ore mining communities in the nearby Ore Mountains.The first written record of coal in the Most region comes from the Duchcov town book inthe year 1403. In 1613 a Most burgher, Jan Weidlich, acquired a license from the emperorfor coal mining around the city of Most.

The first period in the systematic development of coal mining took place only after1740 when coal was used in local breweries, distilleries, brickyards and lime works. Coalwas mined in shallow pits on a small scale. After 1800, the arrival of the IndustrialRevolution resulted in the accelerating development of coal mining in the region andrelated changes in the local economy. After 1830, the increased use of steam power led agrowing number of industrial enterprises to locate in and near coal producing districts.Together these produced a series of new industrial regions underwritten by continuedextensive development of shallow pits and underground mines in the coal industry(Stáhlík 1994), with the number of mines operating in the northern Bohemian coal basinincreasing from 150 in 1847 to 1,000 in 1855 (Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).6

The second half of the nineteenth century was typified by the mechanization of mining,increased production, and the concentration of ownership. The main railway track fromthe city of Ústí nad Labem to the city of Chomutov through the city of Most wascompleted in 1870. This removed two major obstacles to anyfurther expansion of coalmining—limited markets and transportation difficulties —and allowed for the cheaptransport of coal out of the region to supply markets in the Czech Lands and abroad, suchas in German Saxony (Pokorná 1991, SHD 1991, Štýs and Helešicová 1992) (Figure 4.1)7

By the end of the nineteenth century new transportation, wider markets and bettermining technology resulted in deeper pits and larger opencast mines, with attendantimpacts on the local economy and society. In areas of concentrated coal mining such as thetown of Most and the Most basin, agricultural communities were transformed into miningcommunities. Small and ineffective pits went bankrupt and large highly capitalized miningcompanies took over. The resulting concentration of ownership led to the further

90 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

development of large-scale coal mining. Coal mining companies replaced individualmineowners, and foreign finance capital (especially Austrian) began to underwrite thefurther development and technological modernization of coal mining in the area.

The development of a distinctive regional regime of accumulation centered on coalmining was also the production of a specific form of structured coherence. This wascharacterized first by restructuring and internationalization of organization and ownershipin coal mining. The first coal mining companies were founded in the 1870s and 1880s: theBritish company Britannia in 1866; the Most Company for Coal Mining in 1871(predominantly financed by Austrian capital); the North Bohemian Coal Company in 1871(backed by Anglo-Austrian capital and transformed into a joint stock company in 1890);the Most-Duchcov-Chomutov Coal Company in 1874 (which soon went bankrupt andwas then taken over by the Austrian state, becoming one of the four largest coal miningcompanies in the northern Bohemian mining district); and the Lom Coal Companyfounded in 1888. All coal mining companies established their headquarters in the city ofMost (Pokorná 1991, Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).

The second feature of the region’s structured coherence was the development of ageographically defined labor market based on coal mining. The end of the nineteenthcentury witnessed, first, the reorientation of local labor markets from agriculturalactivities to coal mining, and its subsequent exhaustion by coal mining. The number ofminers working in the mines of northern Bohemia increased rapidly from 4,136 in 1868to 10,072 in 1874 to almost 30,000 by the end of the century (Novotná, Fröhlich andMusil 1985). Second, the rapid development of coal mining and related industrial activitiesattracted labor from all over the Czech lands, and soon the town of Most had the fastestgrowing population in the District. The town grew from 4,000 inhabitants in 1848 to 21,500 in 1890 and more than 26,000 before World War I and became the most importantcenter of coal mining in the northern Bohemian mining district (Pokorná 1991, ONVMost n.d.) (see also Table 4.2).

Third, the emerging structured coherence was characterized by a high degree ofurbanization and concentration of the working class in many town and village coal miningand industrial communities in a relatively limited geographical area of the Most region.The social relations of the Most region were based on polarization between the miners andthe mine owners. Miners became the most radicaland progressive branch of the workingclass in the Czech lands. Their concentration in the Most region generated specificconditions for class struggle and allowed radical enforcement of social and political goals.As a result, the city of Most has remained the center of workers’ movements and classstruggle in the entire region of northern Bohemia since the 1890s.8 The first massive coalmining strikes began in the 1870s and, as in the following decades, they were harshlyopposed by the authorities.9

Fourth, the structured coherence of the Most region in the late nineteenth century wascharacterized by the nationalist struggle between the growing Czech minority andGerman majority. The conflict escalated as more Czech workers moved to the region towork in coal mining. The proportion of Czech population increased from 18 percent to morethan 40 percent in only thirty-one years between 1890 and 1921 (see Table 4.2).Nationalism divided the Czech and German working class and was used by Czech

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 91

capitalists to strengthen their positions vis-à-vis stronger and established German capitalthat in turn used German workers to defend its superior position in coal mining.10 Thisnationalist struggle culminated in 1918 when the Most region became part ofDeutschböhmen (German border regions as a part of Austria) and newly establishedCzechoslovakia at the same time. The conflict was resolved by the military intervention ofthe Czechoslovak state in favor of Czechoslovakia.11

Class struggle in the Most region intensified in independent Czechoslovakia after thenational problems were temporarily settled. The general strike on 14 December 1920 lefteight people dead and twenty-two seriously injured after they were shot by the policeduring the demonstration in the city of Most. The 1920s and 1930s were a period of intenseclass struggle in the region, with the city of Most functioning as the headquarters of allimportant workers’ activities. In 1931, the police shot at a demonstration of unemployedworkers in the town of Duchcov, in today’s Teplice District, and killed four workers.Overt class conflicts in this period culminated with the so-called “Most Strike” in Marchand April 1932, which was prompted by the plans of mine owners to close unprofitablemines and rationalize coal mining, including reductions in the workforce and wages. TheMost Strike became the largest labor-capital conflict in the northern Bohemian coalmining district between the World Wars, during which two miners were killed andseveral seriously injured (six in the city of Most) by the police (Novotná, Fröhlich andMusil 1985).12

In the middle of the 1930s, overt class conflict was again subsumed to Czech-Germannational conflict, resulting in the German occupation of the Most region by Nazi Germanyfollowing the Munich Agreement of 1938. The occupation ended the region’s capitalistperiod of economic development under peaceful conditions. Following the occupation

Table 4.2 Population growth and national composition in the Most District (current boundaries),1861–1991

Source: Švec and Kučerová (1993b: 18), OSS (1992:26)

92 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

and incorporation into the German Third Reich, the Most region quickly became animportant center of production for the German war economy. In a short time, Germansbuilt a new chemical complex based on coal, opened new large-scale opencast mines, andbuilt coal processing enterprises and power plants using forced labor from sixty laborcamps located in the Most region (Pokorná 1991).

The pre-Second World War structured coherence of the Most region thus developedaround a regional regime of accumulation based on coal mining that was deeply articulatedwith national labor markets, emerging national politics, and international capital. Itinvolved distinct patterns of organization and ownership in coal mining, a specificcharacter of the local labor market with unusually high concentration of the working classin the Most region and social relations distinguished by the polarization between minersand mineowners. The intense class conflict was frequently paralyzed by national divisions.The formation of this structured coherence in the Most region was strongly influenced bywider economic and political processes operating at national and supernational scales. Thetransition from small to large-scale coal mining was underwritten by foreign financecapital. The First World War, the international economic crisis of the 1920s and theglobal depression in the early 1930s substantially slowed the rapid growth andmodernization of coal mining in the district.13 Regional conflict between Czechs andGermans reflected wider frictions between the two nations, as regional and local classconflicts were intertwined with nationalist class struggles in pre-Second World WarCzechoslovakia and the international labor movement.

The model of development pursued on the territory of the Czech Lands before theSecond World War was typified by a predominantly extensive regime of accumulation,liberal economic policies, intense class struggle and liberal democracy. The developmentpath pursued in the Most region gradually produced its own space and environment calledthe “industrial landscape” (průmyslová krajina in Czech). Its basic features included rapidexpansion of urban space based on coal capital, transition of peasant communities intocoal mining communities, rapid changes in ethnic and social composition of population,and increasing alterationof the natural environment by coal mining. And, as Pokorná(1991:91) has suggested, “coal changed the face of the whole environment.”

In the city of Most, the city center was completely rebuilt to reflect its new function asthe administrative and production capital of coal mining in northern Bohemia. Newmagnificent buildings were constructed as headquarters for coal mining companies and forall other important mining offices. “Coal barons” built large villas for themselves and theirfamilies while new working class districts were built quickly to accommodate the growingnumbers of miners and their families. The result was a segregated urban landscape: on theone side great administrative palaces and villas of mineowners, on the other sideovercrowded residential districts for working class families.

Coal mining and its increasing scale generated growing environmental difficulties. Thefirst complaints about environmental problems caused by coal mining, such as thedevastation of agricultural land and cave-ins, were recorded in the 1820s. Between 1895and 1896, several large coal mining related disasters occurred in the city of Most whenground in city neighborhoods sank by up to 19m.14 The movement of very fineunderground tertiary sands (“quicksand”) across large distances to fill extracted coal seams

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 93

caused surface collapse throughout the city. For example, on 19 July 1895 one entiredistrict of forty houses, close to the former main railway station, was destroyed and 2,500people lost their homes after 96,000 cu. m of quicksand, clay and water broke throughinto a mine outside the city. In a similar accident in the 1890s, dozens of people died inthe town of Duchcov (Pokorná 1991, Štýs and Helešicová 1992). Landscape devastationincreased as the percentage of coal mined using open cast mining expanded from 25percent in 1910 to 51.5 percent in 1945 (Stáhlík 1994, SHD 1991) (Figures 5.1 and 5.2).

State socialism and coal mining in the Most region

Following the Second World War, the Most region underwent importanttransformations. Its structured coherence, formed in the decades before the war,disintegrated. Czech-German national conflicts, which we have identified as one of theelements of the pre-Second World War structured coherence of the Most region, werelargely resolved by force. The contemporary national and social structure of the district isthe legacy of the German expulsion after the Second World War and the in-migration ofthousands of people from different parts of former Czechoslovakia in the following period.After the German occupation, 20,000 Czechs left the region. Following the war, most ofthe Germans were expelled or left, the number of Germans living in the currentadministrative area of Most District dropping by almost 50,000 between 1945 and 1961.Due to this forced expulsion, the total population on the territory of today’s Most Districtdeclined from almost 110,000 in 1945 to 64,000 between 1945 and 1947 (Švec andKučerová 1993b). Gradually, the Germans were replaced by Czech immigrants, but thewar and its aftermath destroyed the pre-Second World War social structure of the Mostregion.

Open class conflict, the second important element of the pre-Second WorldWarstructured coherence of the Most region, also changed in form. Miners sought minenationalization at the conference of coal mining worker councils held in the city of Moston 7 July 1945, and the Czechoslovak government nationalized the coal mines on 25October 1945. The Communist Party enjoyed strong support among the working class ofthe Most region and received 57.8 percent of the vote during the 1946 parliamentaryelections. After the communist coup in February 1948, however, the labor unionsgradually became completely subordinated to the Communist Party and degraded to its“transmission belt” at the workplace, and democratic structures, such as works councilsand elected directors, disappeared from the workplace (Myant 1989).

Socialist competition and workers’ exploitation in coal mining

According to the Communist Party, “the working class takeover in 1948 was the definiteend of the long and dramatic history of class struggle and represented the final andvictorious milestone on the revolutionary path of the northern Bohemian proletariat”(ONV Most n.d.: 141). However, class struggle continued. Workers had to be coerced toproduce and give up surplus product, and to achieve this a variety of techniques weredeployed. “Socialist competition” became one such coercive mechanism in coal mining, as

94 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

well as in other sectors of the state socialist economy (including the chemical industry),forcing workers to increase productivity.15 The trade unions, now under the control ofthe Communist Party, played an important role in the organization of socialistcompetition as a new form of workers’ exploitation. As Clarke and Fairbrother havesuggested for the Soviet Union:

The unions were not enjoined to express the interests of the working class for thesake of the workers, but as the means of increasing productivity by raising workers’morale, stimulating their initiative, encouraging socialist competition, and goadinga lethargic management.

(Clarke and Fairbrother 1993:98)

Initially, socialist competition was organized in individual coal mining districts. In theNorth Bohemian Brown Coal Mines, the first round of socialist competition improvedworker morale, increased the coal production per worker and per shift, made better useof existing machinery, and decreased the usage of explosives. The Most region minersinitiated socialist competition between different coal mining districts in Czechoslovakiawith the Most-Kladno competition in 1948. The competition with the Sokolov coalmining district began in 1949, and with the Ostrava district in 1953. At the same time,the individual mines from the different coal mining districts also competed (Pokorná 1991,Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).

Socialist competition began to change in 1949 as the government tried to extend itsscope and “encourage” participation to further increase production. In January 1949, theshock-worker movement campaign was launched in the coalmines of northern Bohemiaand Czechoslovakia as a whole. The movement was organized by the Communist Partyand trade unions and the title “shock-worker” was defined and approved at the trade unioncongress in December 1948. Shock-workers (Stakhanovites) committed themselves tosurpassing monthly norms and developing better methods of work organization (Myant1989).16 By the middle of 1949, 3,000 Stakhanovites competed with each other at forty-seven different mines in northern Bohemia. As a result of socialist competition, the coalmining industry fulfilled the first year of its first five year-plan at 106 percent byNovember instead of December 1949 (Pokorná 1991; Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil1985).

Opposition to the shock-worker movement (Myant 1989) reflected the character ofclass struggle under state socialism. Workers feared that norm cutting by a few celebratedworkers was intended to intensify the labor process or to cut the wages of workers whodid not follow the examples of Stakhanovites. These new forms of worker exploitationwere particularly resisted by the traditional core of the working class in sectors such as theglass industry (only 17 percent involvement of shock-workers), engineering (32 percent),mining (about 50 percent), iron and steel, ceramics, construction and socialist agriculture(Myant 1989).17 In northern Bohemia there was significant resistance to socialistcompetition among the miners. The greater exploitation of workers was also madepossible by the general transition from the hourly wage to the piece rate system inCzechoslovakia after the Second World War.18 The result was a state socialism that

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 95

provided job security with wage insecurity as opposed to a capitalism which had providedrelative wage security with employment insecurity (see Burawoy 1985:168–71).

The command economy was constantly looking for new ways to coerce labor toincrease efficiency and produce more. Socialist competition was organized by theCommunist Party and trade unions, and together these directly regulated production.After the eleventh Communist Party Congress in 1958 “socialist work-teams” wereintroduced as a new form of socialist competition. By the end of 1958, twenty-one work-teams competed for the title “the socialist work-team” in the northern Bohemian browncoal district. By 1983, 320 work-teams with 6,497 miners competed for the title and 799work-teams with 18,385 workers had received the title at one time or another.19 Newforms of socialist competition and work organization were introduced from the SovietUnion in the 1980s, such as the Saratov movement and the Basov method. The bestindividuals were awarded the title “pioneer of socialist work” and “hero of socialist work”and received various high governmental honors, such as the Order of Klement Gottwald,Order of Republic, Order of Victorious February, Order of Work and others (Pokorná1991; Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985). These governmental orders and distinctionswere given to workers for their excellent work performance in the regulation ofproduction (see Burawoy 1985:156–208). All these different ways of socialist competitionwere designed to coerce workers to exceed their own output, performance and norms.

Coal mining and restructuring under state socialism

State socialism resulted in profound restructuring of the structured coherence in the Mostregion, though its most important element remained unchanged: it was still centered oncoal and coal mining. The most important change in the regional regime of accumulationwas the growth in the role of the chemical industry, itself originally based on coal. Forexample, in 1961 coal mining, electricity production from coal, and the chemical industrytogether accounted for 92.6 percent of the gross industrial production of the MostDistrict. Heavy investment in the chemical industry gradually lowered the proportion oftotal industrial production in the Most District coming from coal mining from 51.9percent in 1961 (OOSSÚ 1968) to about 27 percent by the 1980s (Figure 4.2), even as theproduction of coal increased from 31.9 million tonnes in 1961 to 38.6 million tonnes in1984 (OOSSÚ 1968, OOČSÚ 1986). In 1985, coal mining and the chemical industrycombined accounted for 91.3 percent of industrial production in the Most District.

Coal played a crucial role in the postwar economic revitalization of Czechoslovakia,but especially in the industrialization drive after the February 1948 coup, when theeconomy was taken over by the Communist Party and Soviet bureaucratic methods ofcentralized command planning were adopted. The first five-year plan shifted prioritiesfrom consumer to investment goods, stressing rapid development of heavy industryrequiring increased demand for coal. The pace of growth again increased in 1951 whenthe Soviet Union forced Czechoslovakia to further increase the growth of heavy industryin line with CMEA planning. Exports to the industrially developed capitalist countrieswere reduced and redirected to the underdeveloped countries of Eastern Europe and the

96 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

Soviet Union. Hard currency earnings needed to buy raw materials for manufacturingdeclined rapidly. Exports to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were on a credit or anexchange basis. Soviet planners advised Czechoslovakia to exploit its natural resources totheir maximum extent, including coal (Myant 1989, Selucký 1991).

The northern Bohemian coal basin in particular was expected to satisfy this growingenergy demand (Stáhlík 1994). Traditional underground methods of coal mining couldnot keep up with this demand and so large, open cast mining was used instead. As aresult, coal mining had to be fundamentally restructured, and was concentrated into evenlarger units, reliance on open cast mining increased, and new technology was deployed inunderground and open cast coal mining.20 Private mines were nationalized and newmethods of bureaucratic management and planning were implemented.

Since 1950, coal mining has relied increasingly on open cast mining and production hasbeen concentrated in several huge mining combinats. The number of deep pits haddeclined to 20 by 1965 (22.2 percent of coal production) and to five by 1990 (4.8 percentof coal production). By 1990, coal mining in the northern Bohemian coal basin had beenconcentrated into eight huge open cast mines. Four of them were in the Most District(Čs. armády, Jan Šverma, Vršany and Most-Kopisty) (see Map 4.3, Plate 4.1). As aresult, the annual production ofcoal increased rapidly in northern Bohemia from 20million tonnes in 1950 to 40 million in 1960, 54.5 million in 1970, 60 million in 1975 toits peak of 72.8 million tonnes in 1984 (Stáhlík 1994, SHD 1991) (Figure 4.3). Browncoal was by far the cheapest source of available energy, and in 1990 the northernBohemian coal district accounted for 74.1 percent of brown coal mined in the entirecountry and 57.2 percent of all solid fuels extracted (see Table 4.3). Together with theSokolov district, it was the source of more than 90 percent of brown coal and more than70 percent of solid fuel production in Czechoslovakia.

New technologies on a new giant scale had to be used to achieve such high levels ofcoal production, especially to strip increasing amounts of over-burden from the surface toreach the coal beneath (Plates 4.2 and 4.3).21 In northern Bohemia, strip mined coal is upto 200 m under the ground, and thus in 1990, for example, it was necessary to clear awayon the average 3.7 cu. m of the overburden to mine one tonne of coal in an open castmine. The total annual amount of overburden cleared in the northern Bohemian miningdistrict reached 217 million cu. m in 1990, and since the 1960s and 1970s conveyer belts(327 km in 1990) have had to be used to enable this level of transport of coal andoverburden (SHD 1991).

The Most region remained the center of coal mining after the war. In 1967, the MostDistrict produced 31.8 million tonnes of brown coal, representing 68 percent of thenorthern Bohemian coal output and 47 percent of the entire Czechoslovak brown coalproduction. At the same time, 37 percent of electricity produced in northern Bohemiaand 6 percent of Czechoslovak electricity was produced in the Most District (OOSSÚ1968, OOČSÚ 1970). By 1985, the Most District produced 37.4 million tonnes of coal(38.6 in 1984) representing 56 percent of northern Bohemian coal production (OOČSÚ1986) (Figure 4.3). In 1993, it supplied 26.5 million tonnes of coal accounting for 50.3percent of the northern Bohemian coal production and 38.9 percent the brown coalproduction in the Czech Republic (Schreiber and Št’áva 1994). The effects of the

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 97

post-1989 transformation and coal mining restructuring were dramatic. Coal productionin the Most District declined to 18.7 million tonnes in 1998 and 14.5 million tonnes in1999, a 62.4 percent decline from its peak in 1984 (HN 1998:13, ČTK 1999).

The coal mining industry thus remained at the heart of Czechoslovakia’ssocialist modelof development, and this was transformed with the rapid development of the chemicalindustry, to which we now turn.

The chemical industry in the Most basin

Compared with coal mining, the development of the chemical industry in the Most basinis a relatively recent phenomenon. Germans began preparation for the construction of achemical plant at Záluží, located between the towns of Most and Litvínov in the Mostbasin, in October 1938, only a few days after the occupation of the Most region by NaziGermany. In March 1939, the German construction company Mineralöl-Baugesellschaftwas asked to prepare technical documentation and start construction of the hydrogenationplant at Záluží. The construction work began on 5 May 1939 and a new joint stockcompany called Sudetenlädische Treibstoffwerke, moved to the city of Most, was foundedin Berlin in October 1939. The number of construction workers building the newchemical plant grew rapidly. One month after construction began it employed 1,800people. The first prisoners of war arrived at the construction site in June 1940.Construction employed 14,000 people by the middle of 1941 and 32,600 by June 1942.The first turbine in the power plant was launched in June 1942 and the hydrogenationplant was completed in November 1942 when it began to produce motor fuels from thelocal brown coal. In 1944, the plant produced 40–50,000 tonnes of motor fuels a month.The first bombing air raid conducted by 200 allied war planes targeted the plant on 12

Figure 4.3 Production of coal in the Most basin, 1913–99

Source: Data from Štýs and Helešicová (1992), OOČSÚ (1986:115), Schreiber and Št’áva (1994:220), HN (1996b:6, 1998:13)

98 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

May 1944. Fifteen hundred bombs killed 557 workers and damaged the plantconsiderably. The following twenty air raids conducted during 1944 and 1945 droppedmore than 6,600 bombs directly on the plant (almost another 12,000 bombs hit thevicinity of the plant) and destroyed 70 percent of the chemical complex before the warended (Chemopetrol 1993, 1994; Pokorná 1991; Šilhavý and Ort 1990). Following the war,the original chemical plant was first reconstructed and later gradually rebuilt andconsiderably expanded in three phases.

Map 4.3 The Most basin

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 99

Between 1945 and 1953, brown coal was the only raw material used in production.The postwar reconstruction of the plant broadened its production mix by adding theproduction of coke, coal gas, phenol and electricity. The production of methanol wasintroduced in 1950 and of ammonia in 1953.

Between 1954 and 1972 the chemical plant was gradually rebuilt from the use of coalto crude oil as its basic raw material for production. Processing of crude oilbegan in 1956.

Plates 4.2 and 4.3 Giant excavators used in open cast coal mining in the Most basin

Source: Štýs and Helešicová (1992:37). Reprinted with permission

100 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

In 1964, synthetic ethanol was produced and later the production of ethylbenzene began.The Friendship pipeline delivering the Soviet crude oil was extended to the plant in 1965.The second power plant T 700 inside the chemical complex was finished in 1966.Oxosynthesis began to operate in 1969. The hydrogen plant based on heavy oil gasificationwas launched in 1971 and the urea plant in 1972. In February 1972, the construction of NewPetrochemical Plants Litvínov began and chemical coal processing was shut down inSeptember 1972.

Between 1973 and 1989 further expansion of the chemical complex occurred with thebuilding of new petrochemical plants. Polypropylene was produced in 1975, polyethylenein 1976, ethylene production started in 1980, the new refinery complex began productionin 1981, and finally in 1988 the hydrocracker (feed-stock preparation for pyrolysis) cameonline (Chemopetrol 1993).

As a result, the chemical industry was the fastest growing sector of the regionaleconomy (Figure 4.4) and it became the second largest employer in the Most District,providing about 30 percent of industrial employment in the 1980s (Table 4.4). It iscurrently the largest producer in terms of gross industrial production in the District(Figure 4.2).22

The chemical industry in the Most District is, like coal, an example of an exploitivetype of extensive industrialization typical for the state socialist countries throughout CEE.Initially, driven by the war interests of Nazi Germany, state socialism followed a similarruthless productivism of extensive accumulation, and vastly expanded both the chemicalindustry and coal mining in the Most basin. This was possible only through extremeexploitation of natural resources, with resultant environmental devastation across theregion. But this level of natural resource extraction and industrial production waspossible only because of the careful regulation of labor markets and patterns ofconsumption. It is to these twinned systems of social and environmental regulation thatwe now turn.

Table 4.3 Czechoslovak coal production by district 1990

Notes:Ostrava-Karviná and Kladno districts refer to hard coalKčs=Czechoslovak crownsSource: SHD (1991:3)

NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 101

Figure 4.4 Index of industrial production in the Most District, 1961–85

Source: Data from OOČSÚ (1986:21)

Table 4.4 Industrial employment structure by sector in the Most District, 1961–85

Notes:* Construction in 1961 and 1966** Agriculture and nutrition in 1961 and 1966.Source: OOSSÚ (1968:22) and OOČSÚ (1986:112)

102 NATURE, SOCIETY AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

5Social and environmental regulation under

state socialism

The post-Second World War restructuring of coal mining in the Most District involved,among other elements, its nationalization and changes in its organization andmanagement. Between 9 May 1945 and 1 March 1991, northern Bohemian coal miningwas institutionally reorganized thirty-three times (seven reorganizations in the 1940s,nine in the 1950s, ten in the 1960s, three in the 1970s, two in the 1980s and two in theearly 1990s) (Jindřichovská 1991:12–20). This high number of institutional andadministrative reorganizations, especially in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, suggests notonly that northern Bohemian coal mining was constantly looking for ways to increase itsefficiency through improved organization, but also that these efforts failed. It also suggeststhat there were continual struggles at the national, regional and local levels over theorganizational structure of coal mining and the direction of its development. Forexample, both management and labor unions of the northern Bohemian coal minesstrongly objected to the 1967 government proposals for structural reforms which mightlead to the closure of unprofitable mines and an increase in the use of Soviet oil and gasfor electricity production. Labor unions organized several short protest strikes, whilemanagement attempted to convince the government that open cast brown coal miningwas the best alternative for the future of electricity production in Czechoslovakia (Myant1989).

Constant reorganization of the labor process was a typical feature of the state socialisteconomy, and was usually designed to cope with existing shortages of basic supplies, suchas materials, equipment, services and labor, as well as with changing productionrequirements from central ministries (Burawoy 1985: 162–3). Coal mining and thechemical industry in the Most region constantly suffered from labor shortages. After theWar, thousands of prisoners of war left the region and about 50,000 Germans wereexpelled (see Table 4.2), leaving only several dozen workers in the chemical plant(Pokorná 1991). Both coal mining and the chemical industry had to rely on part-timeworkers who were hired from all over Czechoslovakia, usually on four-month contracts(Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985). But, despite all efforts of state socialist planners,labor shortages in the Most region persisted during the entire state socialist period. Evenby the late 1980s there were 10,000–13,000 temporary workers employed in coal miningand the chemical industry in the region.1

The government used several ways to attract labor to the region: state apartments wereeasier to get for young couples in the Most District and other coal basin districts ofnorthern Bohemia than in the rest of the Czech lands; miners and workers in the chemicalindustry enjoyed the highest salaries in Czechoslovakia; and the government providedother financial incentives, such as “burial money” and constancy bonuses in coal mining. Infact, wages in coal mining and the chemical industry in the Most District were the highestin the entire country.2 Shortages of consumer goods were generally less severe and thesupply of southern fruits, for example, was much better in the Most District and othercoal mining districts of northern Bohemia than in the rest of the country.3 Higher levels ofinvestment by the government were also made in the provision of collective consumptiongoods in the Most District and northern Bohemia than in the rest of Czechoslovakia.4

Planning became the basic principle for regulating coal mining after 1948.5 Five-yearproduction plans and production quotas were set by the State Planning Commission, theMinistry for Fuels and Energy and general headquarters, and plans were based on theprevious levels of production and bargaining between individual mines and theirsupervising bodies. According to the managers of the Most Coal Company who worked inthe coal mining management under state socialism, when the plan was approved it becamea “law.” Officially, the plan was “impossible to change” at the level of individual mines bytheir directors or management:

Before [1989] we had a plan broken down to individual mines. For example, wehad to mine ten million tonnes [of coal] regardless of whether anyone needed it ornot. The center was not willing to reduce the plan by one tonne even if we wereforced to take a loan from a bank to mine it and put it into a heap and leave it todisintegrate… The director [of a coal mine] could not stand up against suchnonsense decisions. Changing a plan of how much we were supposed to mine wasimpossible, although we knew that no one needed that coal and no one wanted it.There was no defense.6

Mines were particularly weak vis-à-vis the Ministry. Brown coal was viewed as animportant strategic resource for the national economy, and the fulfillment of coalproduction plans was seen to be the necessary precondition for plan fulfillment in othersectors of the national economy. In the winter of 1979–80, for example, brown coalpower plants were unable to produce enough electricity because of the lack of coal,forcing the government to implement a set of costly restrictions limiting electricityconsumption by industry and population.7

Communist Party hegemony in the Most District understate socialism

Although there is a commonly held perception in northern Bohemia that the giant coalmines and other large enterprises somehow acted independently, in fact enterprises weretightly regulated and closely monitored by the Communist Partyand state apparatus, and

104 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

mine directors, although members of the Communist Party, were subordinated to thedistrict Party committees.

Today [1994] we are partners [with state apparatus, regional, district and localadministration], today no one can dictate to us. Before [1989] these authorities heldus accountable. It was very easy to do that through the district committees of theCommunist Party because as a rule the chairs of these authorities were [also]members of the board or at least of the assembly of the Communist Party districtauthority. And he [a chairman] called a director of a mine directly or the Partycalled him, made him toe the line and told him what they needed and he [a minedirector] had to fulfill that wish somehow or look for ways how to do it… TheCommunist Party authorities played a very important role. Their wishes [and]decisions made by the district board of the Communist Party were the same as alaw. It often contradicted the law but it was the same as a law. A mine director didnot have a way out.8

This system of state and Party control forced the mines to behave toward the public andthe environment according to certain rules. In this process, many villages were destroyedto make way for coal mining. Householders were obliged to sell their houses to the stateat the official low price. A mine could not offer more money to offset the differencebetween the official price and the price of a new house. This was regarded as stealingsocialist property and a mine director was held responsible if this happened.9

Local communities and government agencies were often similarly powerless in the faceof state mandates. The case of three power plants planned in the 1970s for the MostDistrict is particularly instructive. On the face of it, the example of these power plantssuggests that local authorities did have some discretionary power vis-a-vis the central state,and that they exercised it. The central economic ministries planned to build three largepower plants with 2,500 megawatts of total electricity output. One of them (Sedlec) wassupposed to be located about 5 km southwest of the city of Most and two (Všestudy I andII) were planned to be built on the border of the Most and Chomutov Districts, 12 kmsouthwest of the city of Most, and located in such a manner that prevailing winds wouldhave brought smoke and pollution directly to the city of Most. The Sedlec power plantand Všestudy power plants would each release 160,000 to 179,000 tonnes of sulfurdioxide into the air annually. The district hygienist requested that scrubbers anddesulfurization equipment be installed in these power plants, but his requests wereignored. As a result, he refused to approve the project and was supported by the regionalhygienist for northern Bohemia. When construction began without approval from thedistrict and regional hygienists in 1968, the regional hygienist asked the regionalprosecutor’s office to intervene and halt construction. The dispute was finally decided bythe general prosecution office at the national level in favor of the hygienists. Constructionof the power plants ceased and they have never been built. The deputy minister whoordered the construction to begin was dismissed.

But this is only part of the story, because instead of challenging or overturning theruling, the Party and state apparatus found an alternative solution. Two different power

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 105

plants were planned for the Most District (Počerady I and II). Again the district hygienistdenied approval for construction and for the same reasons: his requests for the installationof scrubbers and desulfurization equipment were ignored. But, in order to preventprosecution and to eliminate the powers of the Most District hygienist, the governmentfirst took away the decision-making power of district and regional hygienists andconcentrated it in the hands of the principal hygienist of the Czech Republic in Prague;and second, the Most District authority office made an agreement with the neighboringLouny District according to which the Most District transferred its territory on which thepower plants were supposed to be built to the Louny District. The Louny Districthygienist did not object to construction. The authority of the Most District hygienist waseliminated, the power plants were built in a planned location without scrubbers anddesulfurization equipment, and today they pollute the Most and Teplice Districts but notthe Louny District.10

Resistance toward increasing environmental degradation began to grow in the region inthe 1970s. The northern Bohemian regional and district Communist Party and the stateadministration leadership (also members of the Party) began to cast doubt on the centralstate policy of increasing exploitation of coal deposits at all costs and growing productionof electricity in the northern Bohemian coal mining region. For example, Antonín Job,the chair of the North Bohemian Regional Authority Office, argued in 1971:

The Ministry of Energy plans to build additional power plants in the region [ofNorthern Bohemia], but we disagree with this decision. There is no doubt that sucha policy would be economically profitable for the center but what would peoplewho are supposed to live here say? Fifty thousand people left the region in the lastdecade. I will present this opinion to the Czech government but I would not like toclash with the government over this issue.

(Vaněk 1996:48)

In April of the same year, Jaroslav Hajn, the first secretary (chair) of the north Bohemianbranch of the Communist Party said: “It is hard to believe that the health situation of thenorth Bohemian population is as bad as this working paper shows. The losses are enormous.”(Vaněk 1996:49). During a 1973 meeting of the Communist Party leadership of northernBohemia, Mr. Škornička, then secretary of the north Bohemian branch of the CommunistParty, complained bitterly that:

Our region [of northern Bohemia] has enormous environmental problems becauseof industry. Recently I have received a letter from Slovakia accusing us of not beingpatriots for our unwillingness to allow the construction of a coal crushing plant at[the town of] Dubí. The letter assures us that the noise and particulate matterpollution levels will be within the norm. However,what kind of norm is that if it isalready three times exceeded in this region today? We must not allow additionallocation of industries in our region.

(Vaněk 1996:49)

106 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

In 1975, north Bohemian Communist Party officials argued that “the region shouldestablish strict conditions for the construction of additional power plants and gasworks.”They complained about enterprises and power plants releasing excessive solid and gaseousemissions at night to lower their production costs. They further stressed the need tocontinuously inform the Czech and Czechoslovak governments and the CentralCommittee of the Communist Party about environmentally devastating economic policiespursued by various ministries in northern Bohemia (Vaněk 1996:49). However, in thisthey received little help from the central government and the central Party Committee.Gustav Husák, the General Party Secretary and president of Czechoslovakia, was notinterested in environmental problems at all and believed that the environmentalists shouldnot be allowed to influence any economic decisions. Instead of scaling down constructionof environmentally devastating enterprises in the Czech Republic, and northern Bohemiain particular, Husák supported the idea of moving environmentally harmful productionfrom the much cleaner Slovakia to the Czech Republic. This idea was supported by VasilBi ak, a member of the Central Party Committee and the top Communist Partyideologue, who repeatedly declared that environmentalists were “the enemies of socialism”(Vaněk 1996:52, 70).

Thus, while environmentally devastating national economic development policies werealready challenged from within regional Party organizations and the state administration innorthern Bohemia in the early 1970s, the central party apparatus remained unreceptive totheir arguments and to the implications of heightened environmental degradation. Whilethe regional Party and administrative structures opposed further environmentaldevastation of the region and voiced their concerns about future development, the centralstate largely ignored such complaints and pushed through plans for further developmentof coal mining and the energy sector in the region. Regional Party organizations andregional state bureaucrats were too weak to stop or reverse the central state policies.They were also generally unwilling to challenge openly the policies of the central state. Ingeneral terms at least, government and Party officials in Prague and in northern Bohemiawere well informed about the extent of environmental crisis in the region and its effectson health, and probably also about its likely future effects. But, despite this knowledge,plans for further construction of power plants and increased coal mining in the regionwere usually realized, over local opposition, throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Industrial paternalism in the Most District

Although mining enterprises had little power in the face of central state mandates,enterprises did have enormous powers vis-à-vis the communities inwhich they werelocated, and these resulted in strong industrial paternalism in the coal mining districts ofnorthern Bohemia. This type of domination over local social life and space by largeindustrial enterprises typified state socialism at the local level across CEE (Illner 1992a,Pickles 1995b, Doma ski 1992, Morawski 1993). The central state dominated enterprisesthrough the system of central planning and Communist Party hegemony and theenterprises dominated and controlled local communities (Pickles 1995a).

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 107

In the Most region, coal mining enterprises and Chemopetrol provided socialinfrastructure and many social services for their employees. These services included theprovision of free or subsidized food at the workplace, the building and provision ofapartment buildings for the workers, and the building and running of the “houses ofculture” and sport facilities outside the plants in nearby urban centers. The city of Mostwas actually dominated by coal mining and its general headquarters were located in thecity. After the demolition of the old city in the 1970s, a large portion of the socialinfrastructure built in the new city was financed by coal mining (Plates 5.1 and 5.2).

The mayor of the city of Litvínov characterized the pre-1989 relationship between thecity and Chemopetrol, located on its territory, as paternalism:

There was a clear paternalistic relationship between Chemopetrol and the city [ofLitvínov] before 1989. Chemopetrol essentially assigned what would be or wouldnot be done in the city. Chemopetrol built all kind of things here … Simply thecity silently obliged itself not to stick its nose into the area of environmentalproblems caused by Chemopetrol. It was not a relationship of two partners. Eventoday it is not entirely the case, but we [the city] are trying to push it to a normalstate.11

In many ways, coal mining functioned as the “landlord” to the city of Most, determiningland-use policy, disrupting and removing communities almost at will, and intervening inpublic policy, planning and expenditures through its own control over enterprise-community disbursements (Illner 1992). A similar “landlord” relationship developedbetween Chemopetrol and the city of Litvínov. In reality, coal mining and the chemicalindustry each developed this relationship with both Most and Litvínov, but the influence ofcoal mining was much stronger in the city of Most where the bulk of its activities and itsheadquarters were located, while the influence of Chemopetrol was much stronger in thecity of Litvínov in which its production facilities were located.

Enterprises developed these levels of community involvement and investment mainlybecause they wanted to attract and retain workers.12 Labor shortages were an endemicproblem for state socialist enterprises, particularly in regions of extensive economicdevelopment such as the Most District. In exchange for their services, enterprises such asChemopetrol expected that cities such as Litvínov would not meddle in their affairs,especially relating to environmental pollution.13 However, such paternalism was limitedto large cities, such as Most, Litvínov and to a lesser extent Meziboří. Smaller towns andvillages in similarsituations (supplying workers and affected by pollution) rarely receivedsubstantial money, services or other benefits from the large enterprises.14 Here coal andchemical enterprises functioned as “parasites” (Illner 1992) on small towns and villages inthe Most basin, using their resources but not contributing to their development. Themayor of Mariánské Radčice, a village in the Most basin negatively influenced by bothunderground coal mining and the activities of nearby Chemopetrol, summarized theircontribution to the development of the village during state socialism in these words: “Theonly contribution we received from the coal mining enterprises in the past was that they

108 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

sent two members of [people’s] militia and two wreaths for important [communist]anniversaries here. This was their entire contribution.”15

Often this type of parasitic, hegemonic relationship between coal mining and towns andvillages was also “antagonist” (Illner 1992). For thirty-three communities in the Mostbasin, such antagonist relationships with coal mining culminated in their liquidation(Table 5.2, Plate 5.3):

No one cared about our opinion [before 1989]. Coal mining enterprises simply said:“We will bury you, we will close it here and move you to the blocks of flats.” Thiswas how it worked here. Such was the routine practice with all liquidated villageshere.16

In such circumstances, not only did earlier democratic practices and structures of civilsociety (as “a genuinely pluralistic and actively self-organizing civil society which isindependent of state power and capable of questioning and—from time to time—resisting its expansionist claims” (Keane 1988:28)) wither away, but new forms ofdespotic social and environmental regulations emerged, each with its own distinctgeography.

The eradication of civil society

In a region formerly at the core of organized and spontaneous labor struggles inCzechoslovakia, Communist Party hegemony in economic, political and social life quicklyled to the virtual eradication of civil society at the local level, and partially explains why the

Plate 5.1 Demolition of the old city of Most

Source: Štýs and Helešicová (1992:62). Reprinted with permission

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 109

citizens of the Most District and the broader region of northern Bohemia allowed suchextreme environmental devastation to take place.17 Without a functioning civil society,coal mining was increasingly regulated only by the system of central planning andCommunist Party hegemony. It was driven by the need to supply coal and energy for thenational economy, and increasingly failed to take into consideration local interests voicedby decreasingly independent civic structures. Even local government became almosttotally subordinated to the party state and functioned as its transmission belt at the locallevel. As such, its ability to defend local interests gradually eroded and social regulation inthe Most District was seized by powers external to the district.

The hegemony of the Communist Party, the centralization of state power and theabsence of civil society on their own cannot, however, satisfactorily explain why localcitizens in the Most District did not resist the liquidation of their villages and towns and whythey seem to have acquiesced in the face of massive environmental degradation by coalmining and chemical enterprises. Several broader social forces were important.

First, the population of the Most region and its social ties were disrupted by Nazioccupation in 1938 and especially by the expulsion of Germans from the region in 1945.The newcomers were attracted by jobs, high wages and apartments and, as a result,tended to live and work in the region only for a limited time. There were also cleardifferences in background between the new immigrants and those who left: newcomerswere typically poorly educated young single men, while those who left the region in the1980s tended to be educated and married (Šilhavý and Ort 1990). Newcomers rarelyseem to have developed strong personal attachments to the land and countryside, while the

Plate 5.2 Demolition of the old city of Most

Source: ONV (n.d.: 71)

110 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

thousands of people who were moved out of their homes in rural communities as theirvillages were torn down experienced significant disruption in their own attachments tothe land.18 As a result, many people in the Most region developed what one resident ofthe region called a mechanistic mentality toward nature, allowing them to ignore thedevastation of the environment in which they lived.19 This direct involvement through theirjobs with the very activities that destroyed their environment and their health furthercontributed to deeply embedded variable and differentiated webs of repression that cameto mark, for many, the experience of state socialism.20

Although the central government was well informed about the extent of environmentalpollution and its impact on health, it took only limited steps to alleviate the worstconsequences of extreme environmental degradation in the region.21 For example, fromthe 1970s onwards free vitamin-enriched snacks and lunches were provided at schools,“prophylactic” foods (that is, foods such as yoghurt which were thought or claimed to“cleanse” the body of pollutants) wereprovided to workers, and children were sent to theso-called “schools in nature” for about three weeks every year to allow for the naturalpurging of pollutants.22 Monitoring activities were also improved: in northern Bohemiafifty-seven observation stations were established to monitor air pollution by sulfurdixoide, twenty-seven to measure air pollution by particulate matter, twenty-two bysulfur acid, and ten to measure toxic metals. Finally, new requirements were introducedfor enterprises: for example, during temperature inversions and high levels of airpollution power plants were supposed to burn coal with lower sulfur content and lowerthe production of electricity (Pohl 1988).

Plate 5.3 Demolition of the village of Komořany in the Most District

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 111

Although the social mode of regulation in the District was largely determined in theseways by the national hegemony of the central party state, it had very specific regional andlocal components. It especially included distinct labor politics, local forms of industrialpaternalism, the systematic undermining of civil society, what we have identified as themechanistic mentality of the local population, and repression of the boundaries betweenthe contradictory experiences of work in coal mining and the chemical industry and itseffects on individuals and the environment. This regional mode of social regulation was acrucial component of the structured coherence produced in the Most District under statesocialism.

Production of space and environment in the Most Districtunder state socialism

State socialism and its development model were characterized by an extensive regime ofaccumulation based on socialist industrialization, a bureaucratic mode of regulationtypified by central planning and the Communist Party hegemony, and a labor processmodel distinguished by anarchy of relations in production and worker control ofproduction. In the Most District, this development model was typified mainly by coal miningand chemical industries and their “gigantomania”: organization into huge enterprisesemploying thousands of workers, consuming enormous amounts of raw materials andenergy and producing tremendous amounts of pollution. While it is certainly the case thatthese enterprises operated with the same effects as similar highly polluting andexploitative capitalist enterprises in the West, it is simply unacceptable to us to suggest—as Lefebvre did—that state socialism did not produce its own, distinctive space. In thissection, we will consider further how, in the Most District, space functioned as a meansof production within the state socialist development model.23

Large scale landscape devastation

A simple comparison of present maps of the Most region with the situation before statesocialism reveals a staggering difference: not only has the human geography of the regionbeen changed in terms of industrial patterns and settlement systems, but the physicalgeography has also been changed due to landscape devastation and the production of newlandscapes that in turn have led to the alteration of microclimates. This sectioninvestigates these changes.

In 1991, 117 sq. km of the Most District were devastated by open cast coal mining,representing 25.1 percent of the area of the district (Švec and Kučerová 1993b). Between1952 and 1991, 21.4 sq. km of landscape devastated by coal mining had been recultivated(Štýs and Helešicová 1992; Švec and Kučerová 1993b).24 In total 138.4 sq. km of theMost basin in the district had been directly involved in coal mining between 1952 and1991 (29.7 percent of the district’s territory). Besides the landscape devastation caused bycoal mining, Chemopetrol also expanded its territorial reach under state socialism.Today, it occupies 7.9 sq. km and its chemical dumps take up an additional 4.1 sq. km(Chemopetrol 1994). Thus together coal mining and the chemical industry consumed

112 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

almost 150 sq. km of space in the Most District alone, although actually these uses wereheavily concentrated in one-third of the district and here so much territory was taken upby them that little was left over for other activities. The rest of the district, occupied bythe Ore mountains and the southern agricultural area outside the Most basin, was notdirectly affected by coal mining (Table 5.1, Maps 4.2 and 4.3, Plate 4.1, Figures 5.1 and5.2).

Because of this shaping of nature, the environment and landscape of the Most basinhave been completely changed. On the one hand, the surface has been stripped sometimes200 m deep in large areas of open cast coal mines. On the other hand, the dumps ofoverburden have built new hills up to 60 m above the original terrain in the Most District(Švec and Kučerová 1993a).25 We have already discussed how the open cast mines andunrestored dumps influence the local climate by changing the direction and speed of airflow and temperature regimes by stripping the natural vegetation cover from large areas.We have also shown how this contributes to air pollution problems.26 The hydrologicalsystem of the Most basin has also been devastated by coal mining and forest depletionhasoccurred throughout the Ore Mountains because of air pollution. The course of the BílinaRiver has been changed frequently and, in several areas of the district, the river has beenredirected into a pipeline. In the 1980s, the Dřínov water reservoir was discharged tomake a way for the open cast mine, Čs. armády. In this way an entirely new physicalgeography of the Most basin has been produced.

In the 1980s state socialist planners had actually planned to increase the levels ofsurface disruption and landscape change in their plans for the future of northern Bohemia.According to the so-called “large variant” for the future of coal mining, prepared by thecompany Mining Projects Teplice for the Federal Ministry of Fuel and Energy and oneother federal ministry, the entire northern Bohemian basin was to be liquidated and all

Figure 5.1 Area devastated by coal mining in the northern Bohemian coal basin, 1929–91

Source: Data from Štýs and Helešicová (1992:159), Stáhlík (1994:325)

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 113

coal exploited. Liquidation was to involve the entire settlement system of the area,including the cities of Chomutov (70,000 inhabitants), Litvínov (34,000), Dubí (9,000),and Krupka (9,000), and the large industrial enterprises, such as Chemopetrol, ChomutovIron Works and others. In the plan 6.2 billion tonnes of brown coal was to be excavatedin open cast mines up to 400 m deep, devastating 500 sq. km of the landscape over the next 100 years. Another 1,500 sq. km of mountains would have been degraded bypollution from the power plants and acid rain (Kubricht 1980). Writing in 1980, Štěpán(1980:6) argued that “research has shown that the area around the cities of Most andChomutov, including these cities, would become practically uninhabitable in a criticalperiod around the year 2000.”

Landscape degradation under the state socialist development model was also a fact oflife for people living in many villages and small towns in the region, as well as those wholived in the old city of Most. After 1955, thirty-two villages and the district capital weretorn down, resulting in the liquidation of more than 15,000 apartments and forcingthousands of people out of their homes (Table 5.2).

Figure 5.2 Coal production in open cast and underground mines in the north Bohemian coal basin,1960–89

Source: Jindřichovská (1993:36)

Table 5.1 Land use in the Most District and the Czech Republic in the early 1990s (in % of district’sterritory)

Source: Janeček (1993:3)

114 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

At the same time, state socialism produced its own new industrial and urban space.First, while coal mining and the chemical industry were important, other industrialactivities usually associated with the two were also developed, such as the construction ofpower plants, a transportation infrastructure (new railway tracks and roads), machineworks, mining equipment, a new drinking water dam at Fláje and an industrial water

Table 5.2 Villages and settlement units liquidated in the Most District, 1956–94

Source: Švec and Kučerová (1993b:17)

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 115

reservoir at Dřínov.27 Second, the production of new urban space is illustrated by the large-scale construction of new apartment buildings beginning after the Second World War. Aprogram of housing construction was designed to accommodate thousands of workersneeded in the new chemical factories and the expanding coal industry. Initially,construction focused on the completion of the housing complexes that Germans hadstarted to build during the war. Later, new city districts were built in Most using firstbricks and later (since 1958) concrete. A new plant producing concrete panels forapartment buildings was built in Most to satisfy the rapidly growing demand (Pokorná1991). The city of Litvínov was expanded in a similar way and in the 1950s a new town ofMeziboří (more than 5,000 inhabitants) was built on the slopes of the Ore Mountains.

The central government decided to sacrifice the city of Most in 1962 in order toexploit almost 100 million tonnes of high quality brown coal found in a rich seam some30–40 m under the city (see Plates 5.1 and 5.2). Governmental resolution no. 180/1964specified the ways in which the city of Most was to be demolished and a new city was tobe built at a different location. To our knowledge, this governmental decision was neverseriously challenged.28 On the contrary, the demolition of the old city of Most wascelebrated as a triumph of state socialism and modernity, and as a feat of skilledengineering, as the church museum at Most moved from the mining site to the edge of theopen cast mine illustrates.

The old historical face of the city of Most has disappeared, as well as renaissance,baroque, art nouveau and cubist features, ostentatious buildings of miningcompanies and poor houses of miners…. New Most has plenty of space for newand further construction, for roses and green areas, department stores and publicbuildings, it has modern and wide streets. New Most is a broad-mindedly designedcity with extensive housing projects built inmodern style, some public buildingsdisplay extraordinary architectonic creativity and merit, sport facilities showperfect architecture, functionality and are artistic dominants of the city. There areno renaissance or baroque buildings built on the remnants of Gothic or Romanfoundations in new Most. New Most represents one complex urban plan of thishistorical epoch, it is a socialist city from its foundations, it is a representation ofour present.

(ONV Most nd: 68)

Today, the demolition of the old city of Most is considered to have been a mistake and acultural and historical loss, certainly not worth the 100 million tonnes of brown coal ityielded. New construction focused on the building of hundreds of concrete apartmentbuildings (paneláky) (10,000 apartments between 1981 and 1990) in single functionhousing zones without any job opportunities for their inhabitants, while the domination ofthe city’s labor market by coal mining and Chemopetrol prevented the development ofother economic sectors in the city.

During the reconstruction of the city in the 1970s attempts were also made to settleand segregate the Roma population into a separate neighborhood (“Chánov”). In the1950s, thousands of Roma had been encouraged by state socialist authorities to move to

116 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

northern Bohemia from Slovak villages to alleviate severe labor shortages in the region(Carolina 1992). Serious social problems, such as crime and alcoholism, resulted. Butforced overcrowding of the Roma with their removal to the Chánov neighborhood onlyescalated the problems. In the 1980s, the neighborhood was demolished by its inhabitants(VÚVA 1991) (Plate 5.4). “If we are looking for an identity of the city of Most,” VÚVA(1991:26–7) commented, “it is found in its alienation to human standards … The city ofMost is a warning example of city degradation and degradation of the urban environment.The mayor of the city declared in October 1994: “The construction of a socialist city wasa big mistake. Today we do not know how to humanize it here” (LN 1994c:2).

Environmental degradation in the Most District under statesocialism

The nature of space produced by the state socialist development model is also illustratedby the continuous deterioration in the quality of the environment in the Most District inthe post-Second World War period.29 The levels of sulfur dioxide pollution peaked in thelate 1970s and early 1980s, while the deposition of particulate matter peaked in the early1960s and has declined since (Figures 5.3–5.5).30 Levels of flying ash deposition exceededthe highest average annual permissible level of 150 tonnes per sq. km (t/km2) many timesin many locations across the district. For example, in the village of Komořany polluted bythe Komořany power plant, the levels of flying ash deposition reached an incredible 5,644t/km2 annually (in front of the elementary school) and 4,811 t/km2 (at the bus stop) in1954. At Ervěnice, the levels of ash deposition oscillated around 2,000 t/km2 annually. In1957, it reached 1,026 t/km2 annually at Záluží, 1,385 t/km2 at Litvínov, and so on. In

Plate 5.4 The Chánov neighborhood built for the Most’s Roma under state socialism

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 117

the city of Most in February 1965, the hygienic station measured 11,450 t/km2 of soliddeposition around the local furnace (Švec and Kučerová 1993a:14).

As we have seen earlier, the common strategy of state socialist societies to improvepollution problems such as these was to build higher smokestacks to better dispersepollution over a larger area. For example, the 40 m high smokestacks of the Komořanypower plant were replaced by a 180 m smokestack in 1966, and this substantially reducedash deposition in the area (Table 5.3). The old Ervěnice power plants with smokestackslower than 100 m had been liquidated by 1980. Similarly, local furnaces were shut downin Most and Litvínov after these cities began to receive their heat from the Komořanyheating plant in 1965. All these measures reduced the ash deposition (Švec and Kučerová1993a:14).

Figure 5.4 shows that the annual maximum limit of average sulfur dioxideconcentration (40 micrograms per cu. m (µg/m3)) was usually exceeded several timeseach year in the Most District during the 1970s and 1980s. The highest sulfur dioxideconcentrations were reached in winter months during temperature inversions(Table 5.4).31 As Table 5.4 indicates, in 1982 there were fifty-fivedays during which thehighest permissible twenty-four-hour sulfur dioxide concentrations (150 µg/m3) wereexceeded. The longest temperature inversion was recorded in January 1982. It lasted fornineteen days and average sulfur dioxide concentration surpassed 400 µg/m3 for ten daysin northern Bohemia (Moldan 1990:57). Table 5.5 provides a comparison of sulfurdioxide pollution in the Most District with the neighboring districts and illustrates asituation of worsening air pollution throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Air pollution by nitrogen oxides (NOX) is another environmental threat in the MostDistrict, as Figure 5.6 shows. According to the former district hygienist, hydrocarbonssuch as benzene, and other chemical substances released by the chemical industry butwhich are not measured, pose a greater health hazard than sulfur dioxide and nitrogenoxides in blood-related illnesses and in causing lung cancer. Poor environmental quality isestimated to contribute to up to one-third of the health problems and lower life

Figure 5.3 Particulate matter and sulfur dioxide emissions from the registered pollution sources inthe Most District, 1960–90

Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:28)

118 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

expectancy in the Most District. The other two-thirds result from social factors andunhealthy life practices.32

Today in northern Bohemia, environmental degradation is being blamed for lower lifeexpectancy and higher morbidity rates in the general population particularly in lowerage groups, such as infants, pre-school and school age children (World Bank 1992a,Wedmore 1994). Tables 6.6 to 6.11 in the next chapter show the health and mortalitystatistics for the Most District in comparison to other mining districts of northern

Figure 5.4 Sulfur dioxide pollution in the Most District

Top: Average annual levels of sulfur dioxide pollution measured by the “summary method” in the Mostbasin 1970–86

Bottom: Average annual levels of sulfur dioxide pollution measured by automatic equipment at theMost District hygienic station.

Note: The “summary method” was discontinued in 1987 and replaced by the “absorption method”and measurement by automatic equipment

Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:36, 30)

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 119

Bohemia and the Czech Republic as a whole. Other reported health problems in the1980s included a 2.2 times higher incidence of viral liver infections compared with theCzech Republic as a whole, 3.6 times higher incidence of parasitic diseases, and 1.2 timeshigher incidence of mental disorders (World Bank 1992a). Mining districts recordedreduced immunity and delayed bone maturation in children, and strong correlationsbetween air pollution, cancer and total mortality, but these correlations require furtherinvestigation (OECD 1994a).

The productivist rationality of state socialism was willing to sacrifice the coal miningregion of northern Bohemia and its population to the diktat of planned development.33 Inthe process in northern Bohemia, and especially in the Most District, state socialismreworked the spatial and environmental structure of the pre-War capitalist economy and

Figure 5.5 Average annual levels of flying ash deposition at Komořany (in the Most District), 1958–78, and in the Most basin and the Most District as a whole, 1962–91

Note: Komořany is the site of former power plant built in the early 1950s and rebuilt as a heatingplant in 1965 that lowered its output and coal burnt by one-third

Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:29–30, 35)

120 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

produced its own space and its own very much manufactured environment. But inmolding space and nature to its own ends, the party state was also producing the very spatialfix that first typified one regime of accumulation and its mode of social and environmentalregulation, and later gave rise to the very crises that forced the party from power.

Table 5.3 Large sources of air pollution (power plants) in the Most District and its vicinity in 1987and their rank in the Czech Republic (annual emissions in 1,000 tonnes)

Notes: * rank among the largest sources of pollution in the Czech Republic. In 1992, four largestsources of solid emissions in the Czech Republic were on the territory of the Most District(Chemopetrol Litvínov (ranked no. 1 in the Czech Republic) and Komořany (2)) or in its immediatevicinity (Ledvice (3) and Počerady (4)). Two largest sources of SO2 emissions (Prunéřov II (1) andPočerady (2)) plus four more in top eleven (Prunéřov I (6), Chemopetrol Litvínov (7), Ledvice (9),Komořany (11)) and two largest source of NOX emissions (Počerady (1) and Prunéřov II (2)) plusthree more in top eleven (Chemopetrol Litvínov (4), Ledvice (9) and Prunéřov (11))Source: Compiled from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:27) and Ministry of the Environment (1994:18)

Table 5.4 Number of foggy winter days in the Most District, 1980–91

Note: 150 µg/m3 is the maximum average 24-hour concentration of SO2Source: Compiled from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:31)

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 121

Structured coherence in the Most District under statesocialism

Thinking of state socialism in CEE as some kind of minor interruption in a “normal”process of capitalist development, or as a mere aberrant form of capitalist exploitation, isof little help in understanding the concrete experiences and practices of life under theparty state. It certainly does not allow us to understand the ways in which the Soviet stylemodel of development was “implanted” and adapted in the same and in different ways inparticular localities. More importantly, these forms of reduction deflect thought awayfrom the very real struggles of concrete individuals under difficult circumstances, and theyin part do this by denying to these people not only their own history (what Samuels(1962) called “people’s history”) but also the very geographies bequeathed to them andproduced anew by them. The importance of understanding the spatial fix of the party stateand the particular forms of structured coherence produced at the level of the regions isthus an analytical claim with important practical consequences.

First, the manufactured structured coherence of the Most District was centered on coalmining and chemical production, itself originally based on coal. We have shown that thesetwo economic sectors dominated the regional economy and labor market. Second, social

Table 5.5 Change in average annual sulfur dioxide concentrations in selected districts of northernBohemia, 1970–85 (in µg/m3)

Note: The annual standard is 40 µg/m3

Source: World Bank (1992a:29)

Figure 5.6 Air pollution by nitrogen oxides in the cities of Most and Litvínov, 1981–91 (in µg/m3)

Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993a:40)

122 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

relations in the district and the social mode of regulation were dominated by thehegemony of the Communist Party and central state orchestrated from outside the district.This hegemony changed the nature of class struggle, degraded labor unions into thetransmission belt of the Party, removed democracy from society, virtually eradicated civilsociety and dominated the regional regime of accumulation through the centrally plannedsystem. It was typified by a specific form of industrial paternalism, itself producingspecific geographies of relations between large coal mining and chemical enterprises andthe cities of Most and Litvínov on the one hand, and between the enterprises and otherlocal communities on the other.

Third, the structured coherence of the Most District was characterized by a mobilepopulation with a very high turnover, exhibiting high levels of social pathology and anapparently “mechanistic mentality” and repressed relationship towards the environment(Figure 5.7).34 It was typified by specific consumption patterns based on the highestaverage monthly salaries in Czechoslovakia at the time as well as other financial incentives(such as constancy bonuses in coal mining and stabilization allowances or “burial money”provided by the government).

Fourth, the structured coherence of the district was typified by the production of adistinct space and environment by the state socialist development model. The old spatialorder of the Most basin was destroyed by open cast coal mining, resulting in large scalelandscape devastation and the destruction of thirty-two villages as well as the old city ofMost. A new thoroughly “state socialist” space was produced, and this was typified on theone hand by the urban structure and form of the new city of Most and other cities in theregion, and on the other hand by the scale and form of the abandonment and re-cultivation of coal mines and mine dumps. This combination of coal mining, chemicalproduction, and electricity generation resulted in extreme levels and particular forms ofenvironmental degradation in the district.

Figure 5.7 Migration in the Most District (per thousand inhabitants)

Source: Data from Švec and Kučerová (1993b:19)

REGULATION UNDER STATE SOCIALISM 123

124

6Constructing riskEnvironment and health

Health care and health “risk”: regimes and economies

If the velvet revolutions that swept across CEE in 1989 were, in the first instance,struggles for democracy, they were also at root cries of desperation from people fearful forthe deterioration of the environment and their children’s and their own health. If, asElmar Altvater (1993) has suggested, the “catching up and overtaking project” set in placeunder state socialism to legitimize “fast growth” policies resulted in a popular demand for(and a corresponding inability to provide) higher quality consumer goods, it produced atthe same time a sense of entitlement to improved health and public health services, and asense of alarm as actual health conditions began to deteriorate. The effects of socialistgrowth policies in the post-war period, particularly in the more agrarian states ofsoutheast Europe, had been rapid improvements in the general condition of health andhealth service provision for the majority of people. These improvements were mostvisible to post-war parents and most taken for granted by children in the 1970s and1980s.

However, by the end of the 1980s pollution had reached crisis proportions in somecommunities, and throughout the region poor environmental conditions were becomingincreasingly a fact of everyday life. The fiscal crisis of the 1980s also brought tightercontrols on government spending for collective consumption goods, such as health care,recreational facilities, and public infrastructure. The debt crisis meant that the supply ofimported Western goods dried up. Bureaucratic inefficiencies and ever higher quotademands on enterprises led to a reduction in state enterprise support for communityinfrastructure and worker health. Production crises throughout CMEA resulted in unevensupplies of poor quality consumer goods, and in Romania, Poland and the USSR foodquality and supply also deteriorated. Threatened with shortages of poor quality goods,badly polluted waters, air, foodstuffs and workplaces, health across the regionsdeteriorated. But so also did the quality of health care, and for the same reasons. There is,therefore, a whole history of health struggles still to be written for this region at this time,and such a history would also be a history of popular discontent and political revolution.

In this chapter we focus on the consequences of state socialist environmentalpolicies forhealth in the region and on the ways in which environmental risk and its significance for

health have been constructed differently under state socialism and post-socialism. In factpoor environmental quality is only one of many factors that affects health. As a result, it isextremely difficult in practice to separate the specific health effects of environmentalpollution from other health risks (such as behavioral and lifestyle factors including diet,smoking and exercise habits, the quality of health care services, the overall quality ofsocial and economic environment in the region, and ambient conditions such as indoorand work-place pollution). Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík (1992:37) have even suggestedthat a single person can eliminate more than 75 percent of the health impacts frompollution by changes in life practices. Yet when we turn to issues of health under statesocialism, it is environmental hazards and risks that have attracted most attention. In thischapter we document the role of environmental hazards and risk, but also show how thisfocus on environmental data quality and coverage has been misleading. The second goal ofthe chapter, then, is to show how health and environmental risk have been constructedunder state socialism, and how have these constructions been changed by reform and thenew forms of modernization wrought by capitalism and democratization. That is, wefocus on the ways in which environmental health risks were defined under state socialismand are being redefined and reconstructed at the present time.

State socialist health care systems in CEE have to be understood first and foremosthistorically and geographically. Collectivization, militarization, and mass industrializationof manufacturing and agriculture were attained through strict controls over populationmovement, work, and residence. In the great push to industrialize the communist state,agrarian peoples were urbanized and agricultural workers were collectivized. In bothcases, although for different reasons, the growth phases of extensive industrializationresulted in rapid improvements in aggregate health care statistics for CEE countries.

Bulgaria is a particularly good example. After 1948 Bulgaria experienced one of thehighest rates of economic growth in Europe in the twentieth century. At the end of theSecond World War, 80 percent of Bulgaria’s workforce was employed in subsistenceagriculture. By the end of the 1950s the economy had been transformed into an“industrial-agricultural” economy tied to raw material and market supports from theUSSR.1 By the 1980s, national growth seems to have generated rapid income equalization(at least until the early 1980s), extended social service provision and universalimprovements in social well-being and health (see Tables 6.1 and 6.2.)

In contrast to these apparent improvements in the quality of life are the terribleconsequences of the mechanisms used to achieve them. Property was expropriated.Productive resources were collectivized in the hands of state managers and bureaucrats.Restrictions on movement were introduced and rigid influx controls into the city wereenforced. National economic development was achieved by subsuming all other concernsto a productivist ideology in the cities and the countryside. In what Eric Green (1989:1)refers to as the “hubris of giganticism,” Soviet-style central planning and norms wereimposed on every sector of production. The environmental consequences and resultinghealth problems were tremendous and a particular attitude towards the environmentemerged in which the entire economic structure and system of management operated toinduce people to pollute. Often such inducements were not only implicit but were madequite explicit, as in the slogan exhorting workers to work harder: “We cannot wait for

126 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

favors from nature; our task is to take them from her” (quoted in Green 1989:2). MichaelColby (1989) refers to this model of exploitation as frontier economics, in which thepromise of infinite growth is achieved by the application of high energy, low efficiencytechnologies and mechanized production without regard to or knowledge of theecological consequences of such action.

Field (1994:178) has referred to the Soviet system of centrally planned health care asthe “residual service”, financed last among all agencies and only then with residual funds ifand when available. Since health care was not an arena of state action that producedquantifiable output, claims that a viable public health service might contribute to thegreater social and economic well-being of the country were accepted only in principle. Ashealth care costs elsewhere in the world rose and as new technologies for dealing withdisease and injury came online, the proportion of Soviet gross national product (GNP)earmarked for health care fell. Even the former Soviet Health Minister E.I.Chazovacknowledged that Soviet health care ranked seventy-fifth out of 126 countries in the proportion of GNP allocated, and that it was “hopeless” to fight for a renewal of theSoviet health care system (quoted in Field 1994:179).

The scope and pace of gains in aggregate health of the population in the early years ofextensive industrialization in each country of CEE (underpinned by free health care,improving diet, and increasing household incomes), contrasted markedly with declining

Table 6.1 Quality of Life in Bulgaria, 1980–7

Source: Compiled from CSO (various years 1991–)

Table 6.2 Number of people per physician in Bulgaria, 1939–87

Source: Compiled from CSO (various years 1991–)

CONSTRUCTING RISK: ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH 127

health conditions as environmental and workplace pollution began to impact people of allages. Increasingly state officials and workplace managers attempted (in some casessuccessfully) to redefine health care in terms of prophylaxis, where individuals wereprovided with certain foods and recreational opportunities to moderate or alleviate the“necessary” and “normal” health effects of industrial and agricultural practices.

Prophylaxis involved a wide array of remediation practices: vacation homes for workersand their families in mountain resorts, spas and associated water and air treatments, andspecial foods (such as yoghurt) “known” for their curative and cleansing effects. Itsprimary purpose was, of course, to allow polluting enterprises to “pay” for pollutingworkers and commuters; to buy compliance. Certainly, workers in heavily polluting largestate enterprises throughout CEE were fully aware that wage premiums were paid forworking in unsafe environments, that workers were only allowed to work in certain partsof the production process for a limited number of years before early retirement toalleviate the inevitable health effects of exposure, and that factory canteens supplied adaily ration of yoghurt “to cleanse the system” of toxins. But prophylaxis also contributedto building a distinct environmental ethos.

Through state-sanctioned activities such as annual holidays for workers in pollutingenterprises to mountain and spa resorts, or special party organizations for exposingchildren to nature and outdoor pursuits, people formed attitudes towards nature thatcannot be reduced to the productivist logic of the state. The indirect consequences of stateaction were also important in creating a view of nature that was not consonant with eitherthe ideal of the state or the lumpen rendering given by much Western environmentalanalysis. Indeed, we would argue, a clear understanding of the compromised nature ofstate socialism’s rhetoric of protections for both citizen and nature was forged amongworkers at the workplace and in the factories, and among parents in the communities,precisely because of the transparently contradictory public health practices and effects ofstate socialism. It is to these that we now turn.

Life expectancy and infant mortality

The effect of these deteriorating environmental conditions, societal transformations, andchanges in lifestyle and forms of health care delivery has been a progressive deteriorationin the health of the people of CEE. But to what extent can this deterioration in health beattributed to environmental pollution and degradation? People in the CEE countries havethe shortest life expectancy at birth among thirty-three industrialized countries and infantmortality is high in comparison to industrialized countries (Levy 1992:62–3;Bobak andMarmot 1996:17–23; Zaniewski 1993; World Population Data Sheet 1998:8–9)(Table 6.3).

There are several possible explanations for this lag in life expectancy. First, CEEhistorically lags behind Western Europe with respect to life expectancy, and the currentlife expectancy gap between CEE and Western Europe is therefore not unusual. Second,there is the influence of the quality of the physical environment: while the environmenthas been improving in the West in the past several decades, its quality has significantlydeteriorated in CEE, and this combined with increases in mortality from chronic diseases

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since the 1960s (an increase which had occurred earlier in the West) has negativelyaffected health and contributed to increased levels of mortality (see Bobak and Feachem1995). Third, economic factors have impacted on the quality of health care: the economicdifficulties of the centrally planned economies and the growing technological gap betweenCEE and the Western industrialized countries have resulted in serious declines in thequality of health care services in the former. This has been particularly evident in thediagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases considered to be the principal causes ofmortality. Fourth, individual lifestyles and factors such as smoking habits, diet, obesity,alcohol consumption and blood pressure control contribute to substantially higherincidence of heart disease and stroke in CEE (Table 6.4, Plate 6.1). Fifth, the overallsocial, economic and political environment associated with state socialism has beenblamed for lower life expectancy in the region (Hertzman 1995:5–15; see also Hertzman,Kelly and Bobak 1996, Bobak and Marmot 1996:31–42). Each of these factors contributesto an East-West life expectancy gap (Hertzman, 1995:5–15). But environmental pollution

Table 6.3 Life expectancy at birth and infant mortality in selected CEE countries, 1998

Notes:* Average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live under current mortality levels* Annual number of deaths of infants under age one year per 1,000 live births*** Western Europe: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg,Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom# Northern Europe: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden## Southern Europe: Greece, Italy, Portugal, SpainIncluding the European countries of the former Soviet Union (Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia,Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova)† 1997Source: World Population Data Sheet (1998:8–9)

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and the quality of health care are each considered to be responsible for at most 5–10percent of the mortality gap between CEE and the industrialized countries (Bobak andMarmot 1996:41). The quality of the environment alone cannot, therefore, be considereda principal factor causing life expectancy gap between CEE and the West, but must besituated within a broader context of public health policy issues.

Nevertheless, in those etiologies related to environmental pollution people in CEE dosuffer higher incidences of respiratory diseases, childhood lead poisoning, occupationalinjuries and other health problems (Levy 1992:62), and some environmental factors dohave particularly strong impacts on health, such as lead levels in the air and soil, airbornedust, sulfur dioxide and other gases, and nitrates in water (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:1) (seeTable 6.5).

Can a relationship between poor environmental quality and poor health be establishedfor state socialist societies? In each country of CEE health was monitored by institutes ofepidemiology, but these had limited budgets and, as a result, before 1989 the“epidemiologically detectable risks” to human health from environmental pollution had notbeen generally recognized or defined as such. By contrast, since 1989 many researchprojects have been launched in CEE in the field of environmental epidemiology, oftenwith international help, to investigate the effects of environmental pollution on humanhealth. Western models of epidemiological research are currently being extended to CEEand are attempting to determine the impact of pollution on human health. Examples ofthese efforts include comparative studies between polluted and relatively clean regionssuch as the comparative studies between the districts of Teplice in northern Bohemia andPrachatice in southern Bohemia in the Czech Republic (Šrám, Kotěšovec and Jelínek1996), and between the cities of Chorzow and Mikolow located in Polish Upper Silesia(Zejda et al. 1996). Other examples of epidemiological research launched after 1989include the investigations into the impact of environmental quality on immune mechanismsin human bodies (Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík 1992; Richter and Pfeifer 1996), onmortality and health effects in regions with spatially variable levels of air pollution(Kotěšovec and Brynda 1996; Guliš et al. 1996a; Bobak and Feachem 1995; Jedrychowski1995; Peters et al. 1996; Wojtyniak, Gorynski and Piekarski 1994; Krzy anowski andWojtyniak 1991/92), on water pollution (Guliš et al. 1996b), on pregnant women(Dejmek, Selevan and Šrám 1996), on the incidence and mortality from lung cancer and

Table 6.4 Prevalence of regular smoking and obesity (%)

Source: Bobak and Marmot (1996:38)

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other lung diseases (Vondra et al. 1996, Marel et al. 1996, Jedrychowski et al. 1990), onmolecular and genetic effects in humans (Binková et al. 1996, Perera et al. 1992), on foodcontamination (Černá 1995), and on overall health (Hertzman 1995; Levy, Rest andLevenstein 1993; Jackson 1994).

Although it is generally accepted that the quality of the environment in CEE countrieshas had negative effects on human health, the available data on environmental health risksare often of insufficient quality and quantity to definitively establish concrete causality (seefor example World Bank 1992a:8, OECD 1994a, Hertzman 1995, Mikhova and Pickles1994a). For example, poor data on air pollutant exposure prevent environmentalepidemiologists from demonstrating the relationship between duration of pollutionexposure (together with its nature and concentration) and its health effects. Lack of dataalso prevents researchers from considering total exposure assessment (that is, exposurefrom multiple locations during the day, such as at work, in transit, at home, and whileshopping), instead forcing them to consider only the site where pollution is most evident.Because of the paucity of relevant data, many studies disregard variables other thanenvironmental pollution as being detrimental to human health, and these may confoundthe health impacts of environmental pollution (Jedrychowski 1995:19–20).

Not surprisingly, many of the most acute health problems are often concentrated in themost environmentally devastated regions: Upper Silesia in Poland, northern Bohemia inthe Czech Republic; or in extremely polluted single locations such as Cop a Mic , Mediasand Baie Mare in Romania, Borsod County in Hungary, and Dimitrovgrad in Bulgaria(Hertzman 1995:19–20, World Bank 1992b:112).

Plate 6.1 International cigarette manufacturers have found profitable new markets in CEE since 1989(Prague, Czech Republic)

CONSTRUCTING RISK: ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH 131

In this chapter we chart the emergence and expansion of Western epidemiologicalresearch on environmental impacts on health. Our general goal is threefold. First, to showhow prophylactic models of health care functioned under state socialism. Second, toillustrate the shift in “health” regime from prophylaxis and the emergence of democraticmanagerialism as a model for dealing with environmental health. And third, to use thisresearch to clarify specific material conditions of environmental pollution and healthimpacts faced by the countries of CEE. We begin this work with a detailed analysis ofenvironment and health in the Czech Republic.

Czech Republic

Czechoslovakia ranked among the countries with the highest life expectancy at birth in the1950s, but has subsequently slipped considerably ranking around fortieth in the world inthe mid-1980s (Rychtaříková and Dzůrová 1987:298). In the 1960s, life expectancy atbirth decreased for men and remained stable forwomen. Mean length of life for men wasthe same in 1988 as in 1960 and life expectancy for men at age sixty was shorter in 1989than it was in 1960. During the same period Western countries achieved significantimprovement in life expectancy (Rychtaříková 1991:75). In the late 1980s, mean lifeexpectancy for men was five to seven years shorter in Czechoslovakia than in thedeveloped countries of Europe (World Bank 1992a:8) and the situation was similar in themid-1990s (Table 6.3). Life expectancy at birth in the coal mining districts of northern

Table 6.5 Health problems attributed to environmental degradation in CEE

Source: OECD (1994a, Annex 1:1–8); Hertzman (1996:79–81, 1995:73–52)

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Bohemia lagged behind the more developed countries of Europe by up to ten years(Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík 1992:36).

The mortality trends were similar in other countries of CEE. After a period ofconvergence with the West after the Second World War, CEE countries experiencedstagnation or even decline in life expectancy at birth. At the same time, life expectancy inthe West has continued to rise, creating the East-West life expectancy gap (Hertzman1995:2).

In the 1960s, and increasingly in the 1970s, epidemiologists began to reportdeteriorating health conditions in regions such as the northern Bohemian coal mining districtof Czechoslovakia, long considered to be one of the most environmentally devastatedregions of Europe (Map 6.1). Epidemiologists pointed to increased incidences of allergies,immuno-deficiencies and respiratory diseases in children living in the region, increasednumbers of birth defects and low birth-weight babies, decreasing life expectancy at birth,especially for males, and increased mortality caused by tumors and cardiovascular diseases(Šrám, Kotěšovec and Jelínek 1996:2). Reports linking worsening health conditions topoor environmental quality remained unofficial and were often suppressed. Publication ofsuch information was banned by the state socialist regime in Czechoslovakia, and researchinto such issues was discouraged and even restricted. The government completely bannedthe publication of any health statistics for northern Bohemia in the 1980s because of theworsening health situation there. Detailed monitoring of health conditions were carriedand the government was regularly informed about health conditions of citizens in theregion.3

According to some estimates, and based on the assumption that an increase inparticulate or sulfur dioxide air pollution levels by 10 µg/m3 will increase all-causemortality by one percent, in 1987 2–3 percent of total mortality could be attributed to airpollution in the Czech Republic (Bobak and Marmot 1996:33–4, Bobak and Feachem1995:84).4 However, the relationship between mortality and the quality of theenvironment in Czechoslovakia is not very clear because, as Rychtaříková (1991:77) haspointed out, mortality may be more dependent on social background than on naturalfactors. Although the districts with high mortality rates more or less correspond withenvironmentally degraded areas, these districts also have distinct social characteristicscompared with the rest of the country, such as ethnic and social structures, and levels ofeducation (Rychtaříková 1991:77, Rychtaříková and Dzůrová 1987:305). Moreover,health data are often ambiguous: overall mortality in the most environmentally devastateddistricts of northern Bohemia does not differ considerably from the CzechRepublic as awhole, but infant mortality tends to be higher and life expectancy at birth lower in the region(Tables 6.6 and 6.7).

In fact, morbidity would be a more appropriate measure of the effects ofenvironmental quality than mortality. For example, hospital days or health center visitswould give a much better assessment of the health effects of pollution because most of theillnesses associated with pollution, such as asthma, are rarely fatal. Unfortunately, goodquality data on morbidity are not collected and regional comparisons are not possible(Rychtaříková 1991:81). Insufficient data, often of questionable quality, combined withthe multiplicity of factors influencing human health thus make it impossible to estimate

CONSTRUCTING RISK: ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH 133

Map 6.1 Comparison of life expectancy and environmental quality in the Czech Republic, 1981–5,average figures

Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992: 16–1, 7)

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accurately the health effects of pollution (World Bank 1992a:9) and researchers haveinstead relied on other indicators of environmental health. For example, Carter (1993b:75) draws on Czech newspaper reports to argue that in 1988 about one-fifth of thepopulation in Czechoslovakia suffered from environmentally related diseases, andWedmore (1994:29) and Bobak and Feachem (1995:84) cite the 1993 World DevelopmentReport to support their claim that 3 percent of all deaths in the Czech Republic are due toair pollution.

The areas where health problems have been connected directly to environmentalpollution include northern Bohemia and numerous cities such as Prague and Ostrava.Environmental degradation is also blamed for lower life expectancy and higher morbidityrates in the general population, particularly in lower age groups such as infants, preschooland school age children (World Bank 1992a: II 78, Wedmore 1994:29) (Tables 6.8–6.11).

In the early 1980s, the population of northern Bohemia recorded 2.2 times higherincidence of viral liver infections compared to the Czech Republic as a whole, 3.6 timeshigher incidence of parasitic diseases, and 1.2 times higher incidence of mental disorders(World Bank 1992a: II 83). The areas with the highest ambient dust and sulfur dioxidepollution also recorded five to eight times higher infant mortality (infants less than oneyear old) from respiratory causes compared with relatively unpolluted areas, and higherrates of congenital anomalies compared with less polluted districts (Hertzman 1995:19,29).5

Table 6.6 Comparison of life expectancy at birth in the districts of northern Bohemia and the CzechRepublic, 1989

Source: Carter (1993b:81)

Table 6.7 Comparison of infant mortality and overall mortality in the mining districts of northernBohemia and the Czech Republic

Source: ČSÚ (1996:28–31), World Bank (1992a:II 81)

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After 1989 the Czech popular press and the newspapers vigorously attackedgovernment policies, blaming them for poor environmental quality and poor health innorthern Bohemia. For example, Crha (1993:9) argued that northern Bohemia recorded a40 percent higher incidence of acute bronchial infections and chronic respiratory diseasesand three times higher incidence of various allergies compared with the Czech Republic asa whole. Three-quarters of northern Bohemian children allegedly suffer from light braindisfunction. Medical doctors have also been openly talking about the direct effects of poorenvironmental quality on the health of the general population of the region. Jiří Kroch,director of pediatrics at the Chomutov hospital argued in 1993:

Children are being born to children who were born here. We are beginning to seegenetic problems. Each generation has a lower immunity than the one before it. Ican’t say we’ve seen a lot of birth defects yet but they are coming. I’m expecting anonslaught of deformed children. It’s a time bomb waiting to go off.

(Medrow 1993:5)

However, many of these reports exaggerate the seriousness of the situation. They werepublished after particularly bad temperature inversions with correspondingly high levelsof air pollution hit northern Bohemia during the winter of 1992–3. Momentary sulfurdioxide concentrations reached 2,400 µg/m3 on 18 February 1993 (the maximum limitset by the government is 500 µg/m3 of sulfur dioxide) and led to demonstrations “for

Table 6.8 Incidence of diseases observed in the population of northern Bohemia compared with theCzech Republic in the early 1980s

Source: World Bank (1992a: II 83)

Table 6.9 Incidence of diseases observed in the pre-school, school and adolescent populationof the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia, 1990 (Czech Republic=100)

Source: Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík (1992:35)

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survival” in the cities of northern Bohemia in February 1993, some organized by the localGreen Party organizations while others were spontaneous. Local governments fromnorthern Bohemia also exerted strong pressure on the Czech government to do somethingabout environmental quality in the region, and the environment and its potential healthconsequences became a weapon in the hands of local politicians competing for financialresources from the central government (Pickles, Pavlínek, and Staddon 1998:249).

Many local citizens also blame poor environmental quality for their health problems.According to one opinion poll published in 1994, two-thirds of respondents believed thatthey, their spouse or their children experienced health problems caused by air pollution(Table 6.12) (Regional Plan of Environmental Priorities 1994:3–3). In the Mostdistrict, children of 28 percent of respondents suffered from chronic health problemsattributed to air pollution while only 20 percent of children did not experience any healthproblems due to air pollution.

Does the epidemiological research launched after 1989 support these publicperceptions that the environment has very negative effects on human health in northernBohemia? The biggest research program to date designed to answer questions about therelationship between environmental quality and public health was launched by the Czechgovernment in November 1990.6 The Teplice Program has clearly demonstrated that thehealth of the Teplice district citizens differs from that of the Prachatice district withrespect to the higher incidence of the respiratory diseases and child allergies, reproductivefunctions and increased mortality. Air pollution is one of the several factors that contribute

Table 6.10 Incidence of diseases per 100,000 inhabitants in the Czech Republic, northernBohemia and coal mining districts of northern Bohemia, 1990 (Czech Republic=100)

Source: Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík (1992:39)

Table 6.11 Infectious diseases in the coal mining districts of northern Bohemia (CzechRepublic=100)

Source: Richter, Franěk and Ferenčík (1992:39)

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to the lower health status of the Teplice district population. But other factors areimportant, and these include indoor pollution by heating and overall lifestyle (diet,smoking, alcohol consumption, and lack of exercise), while ethnicity also seems to be afactor, with certain groups, especially the Roma, experiencing a higher thanaverage shareof health problems. The Teplice Program has also determined that the Teplice districtpopulation has suffered genetic damage at the level of DNA, chromosomes and cells(Šrám, Kotěšovec and Jelínek 1996:4–6), that air pollution is one of the factorsinfluencing mortality levels although it is not the most important one, and that the mostpolluted coal mining districts of northern Bohemia recorded statistically significant highermortality levels compared with the least polluted areas of the Czech Republic. The coalmining districts of northern Bohemia also have a higher share of respiratory systemtumors, but air pollution is only a contributory factor, with smoking being the mostimportant factor. The researchers found statistically significant higher incidences ofchronic bronchitis, a higher number of prematurely born children, and higher percentages

Table 6.12 Public perceptions of health problems attributed to air pollution in northern Bohemia(Answers to question: Does anyone in your family have health problems caused by air pollution?) (%respondents)

Notes: The survey was carried by AISA in January 1993Total number of respondents: 703 (health problems respondent), 569 (health problems spouse),558 (health problems children)Source: Regional Plan of Environmental Priorities (1994:3–3, Table 5 in Annex 2)

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of low-weight newborns in the more polluted Teplice district compared to the lesspolluted Prachatice district. These results held even after the standardization of data toaccount for the influence of smoking and ethnic composition (Kotěšovec et al. 1996:12–13; Kotěšovec and Brynda 1996:195–201; Dejmek, Selevan and Šrám 1996:510–14).Similarly, Richter and Pfeifer (1996:37–41) found that a higher percentage of people livingin the polluted areas of northern Bohemia have statistically significant lower naturalantibody levels than the population of the Czech Republic as a whole, and this theyconcluded results primarily from occupational exposure to the pollutants, withenvironmental exposure being a secondary factor.

Negative impacts of pollution on health have also been observed in central Bohemia. AWorld Bank study of illnesses in children caused by air pollution was carried out in threetowns of central Bohemia (Neratovice, Kralupy nad Vltavou, and Benešov which served asthe control town) between 1982 and 1984. Neratovice and Kralupy nad Vltavou areindustrial towns with considerable air pollution (dustfall, sulfur dioxide, carbon disulfide,ammonia, hydrogen mono-sulfide, and chlorinated hydrocarbons in the case of Neratovicefrom the Spolana chemical complex, and dustfall, sulfur dioxide, styrene, ethyl benzene,and acrylonitrile released from the Kaučuk chemical complex in Kralupy nad Vltavou)(World Bank 1992a: II 82).

The results of this study showed that in Neratovice the children from birth to fifteenyears of age suffered higher cumulative incidence of acute respiratory disease (includingpharyngitis, sinusitis, laryngitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, asthma, flu, and pneumonia) thanthe children in Benešov. In the case of sinusitis, the incidence rate was seven times higherin Neratovice than in Benešov. In Kralupy nad Vltavou, the overall incidence ofrespiratory disease was recorded about 2.4 times higher than in the city of Benešov, andthe incidence of acute bronchitis was three times higher (World Bank 1992a:II 82).

Toxic pollutants in drinking water and food (including aluminum, arsenic, cadmium,mercury, lead and others) which have potentially negative health effects were reportedfrom different localities in the Czech Republic. These reports document a three-foldincrease in the average concentration of lead in children’s teeth in the lead smelting areaof Příbram in central Bohemia, and higher levels of arsenic in the blood, urine, and hair ofboys living near one of thepower plants using coal with high levels of arsenic. Levels ofPCBs in breast milk are also higher than in western countries. Water pollution is also aproblem, causing epidemics of dysentery, jaundice, and virus-based hepatitis in Ústí nadLabem and Jablonec nad Nisou in northern Bohemia and other localities (World Bank1992a:II 84) (Table 6.13).

The mining districts of northern Bohemia and the most polluted districts of centralBohemia also seem to show strong correlations between air pollution and cancer and totalmortality, but these correlations require further investigations (Table 6.14). Althoughwater pollution does not pose a significant health threat in the Czech Republic right now(OECD 1994a: Annex 1:7), wide variations in metal concentrations (e.g. aluminum,arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and others) have been measured in drinking water samplesfrom the Czech Republic. Higher concentrations of metals in drinking water may be ofhealth significance (World Bank 1992a:II 84).

CONSTRUCTING RISK: ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH 139

Hungary

Like the Czech Republic, Hungary has also experienced a rise in mortality since 1965especially among men in the age group 40–59 (Vukovich 1990:18) (Table 6.15). But as inthe case of the Czech Republic, it is very difficult to find convincing evidence to link risingmortality with increasing environmental degradation. This is compounded by the fact thatwhile Hungary has not experienced pollution problems as severe as those in Poland and theCzech Republic (see Chapter Three), it has the worst health status among these threecountries (Hertzman 1995:14). Clearly factors other than environmental ones are

Table 6.13 Places where health problems related to the quality of the environment have beendocumented in the Czech Republic

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

Table 6.14 Standardized ratios for cancer in the Czech Republic in the late 1980s (CzechRepublic=100)

Source: Hertzman (1995:39)

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involved, and some researchers have even suggested that general environmental pollutionis too small to have any significant impacts on the health of the population as a whole(Hertzman 1995:25). Others have argued the opposite: it has been estimated, forexample, that even in a country with generally lower pollution levels every twenty-fourthdisablement and every seventeenth death in Hungary is caused by air pollution, and thatlosses due to illnesses and death attributed to air pollution account for 13.3 percent ofHungary’s health and social welfare expenditures and 0.38 percent of its GDP in 1984–5(Várkonyi and Kiss 1990:56). Children living in the industrial cities of Dorog and Ajka(both in regions with highly polluted air) develop twice as many respiratory diseases aschildren who live in relatively clean environments, and children one to two years old whoattended nurseries in Ajka have been shown to have annual morbidity rates 57.6 percenthigher than those in the less polluted town of Pápa. A strong correlation between monthlymorbidity rates of all respiratory diseases and mean monthly sulfur dioxide concentrationswas also found among children in the highly polluted town of Dorog (Jedrychowski 1995:19). The incidence of congenital anomalies has been also attributed to pollution, theincidence of digestive cancer has been linked to nitrate levels in drinking water in theBorsod County, and arsenic contaminated water has been associated with a number ofhealth problems in the Bekes County (Vukovich 1990:19, Hertzman 1995:34, 43).

Several studies have found high blood levels of lead among children in Hungarian citiesresulting either from heavy traffic flows or from industrial sources of lead. In Budapest, forexample, children living in inner city locations with heavy traffic record several timeshigher mean blood lead levels than those living in the outskirts of the city. Almost 60percent of inner city children were recorded to have blood lead levels above 20micrograms per deciliter (µg/dl), compared with less than 2 percent of those living in theoutskirts of Budapest (Hertzman 1995:23, Prognosis 1993:7) (Table 6.16).7 (See alsoTable 6.17.)

Poland

Together with the Czech Republic, Polish environmental health conditions have receivedmost attention. Research to date has focused on the most polluted areas of the country,especially on Upper Silesia and Kraków. The first longitudinal epidemiological study of

Table 6.15 Changes in male age-specific mortality in Hungary, 1970–85 (per 1,000)

Source: Vukovich (1990:18)

CONSTRUCTING RISK: ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH 141

the relationship between air pollution and the incidence of chronic respiratory tractdisease was conducted in Kraków in 1968 (Wojtyniak, Gorynski and Piekarski 1994:21).Polish analysts face similar data problems to researchers in other CEE countries whenattempting to establish a causal link between quality of the environment and human health.It is particularly difficult to separate the negative influence of pollution from other factorssuch as the extremely high rate of smoking (the second highest in the world, afterGreece), large population movements after the Second World War, occupational healthhazards and unregulated abortions (Kabala 1990:30–1, Osuch-Jaczewska and Baczy ska-Szymocha 1992:31).

Among Polish men mortality increased between 1972 and 1982 and life expectancydeclined (Table 6.18). By 1983, post-infancy male life expectancy for men between fortyand sixty was lower than it was in the early 1960s and had fallen to the 1952 level.Overall mortality rates increased by 27 percent between 1970 and 1985 and by 35.5percent between 1960 and 1985 (Kabala 1990:31). In the early 1990s, the life expectancyof Polish men was still shorter than it was in 1965 (Carter 1993a:121), a phenomenonvery similar to that in the Czech Republic and Hungary during the same period.However, it is impossible to determine with accuracy the extent to which increasedenvironmental degradation contributed to growing mortality.

Osuch-Jaczewska and Baczy ska-Szymocha (1992:31) reported that in 1990 infantmortality was considerably higher in the cities of the heavily industrialized Katowiceprovince of Upper Silesia than in Poland as a whole (Table 6.19). The Katowice provincealso recorded a higher percentage of newborn babies with low weight (8–16 percent) thanPoland as a whole (7.6–7.8 percent) (Osuch-Jaczewska and Baczy ska-Szymocha 1992:31). Diseases attributed to environmental pollution include pulmonary diseases, heart

Table 6.16 Blood lead levels among children in Hungary (in µg/dl)

Source: Hertzman (1995:23)

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conditions, allergies, deficient cellular immunity and chromosomal disorders (in areasaffected by lead, cadmium and zinc pollution).

In fact, the Katowice-Kraków area of Upper Silesia is the most polluted region ofPoland. Air pollution poses the greatest health threat followed by deposition of metals(especially lead) in the soil (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:2–4, Hertzman 1995: 73–5). About50 percent of Upper Silesia’s population (1 million out of 2 million) lived in conditionscharacterized in 1984 as a “daily health hazard” (Kabala 1990: 31). Health statistics fromthe region indicate a 155 percent higher incidence of circulatory illnesses than among thepopulation in Poland as a whole, 30 percent more cancer, and 47 percent more

Table 6.17 Selected locations with health problems attributed to pollution in Hungary

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

Table 6.18 Life expectancy in Poland, 1965–90

Source: Carter (1993a:121)

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respiratory diseases. Locations heavily affected by airborne deposition of metals fromindustrial point sources of pollution and from the use of inorganic industrial waste to limeacidified soils registered concentrations of lead, zinc, cadmium, and mercury in gardensoil samples 30 percent to 70 percent above the World Health Organization norms. Theindustrial towns of Olkusz and Slawkow recorded the highest concentrations of lead andcadmium in soil in the world (Kabala 1990:32, Hertzman 1995:20). As a result, childrenin the Katowice region exhibit high blood lead levels derived from the air, food and soil(Table 6.20), and other health problems of the Katowice children, such as widespreadanemia, may be related to lead poisoning (Hertzman 1995:22).

Based on a thirteen-year study of mortality and pollution in Kraków, Krzyžanowski andWojtyniak (1991/92:73) have estimated that the daily number of deaths due torespiratory system diseases has increased by 19 percent and deaths due to the circulatorydiseases by 10 percent following a 100 µg/m3 increase in sulfur dioxide concentrations.They also found that mortality is more related to sulfur dioxide pollution than to

Table 6.19 Infant mortality rates in the cities of Katowice province, 1990

Note: * annual number of deaths of infants under age one year per 1,000 live birthsSource: Osuch-Jaczewska and Baczy ska-Szymocha (1992:31)

Table 6.20 Blood lead in children in various places within the Katowice region, 1989 (in µg/dl)

Note: According to the US Center for Disease Control the damage occurs when the lead blood levelsare higher than 10 µg/dlSource: Hertzman (1995:22)

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suspended particulate matter and that it especially affects people over sixty-five years old.A similar study of mortality in Kraków followed 4,355 residents of the city for twenty-three years (between 1968 and 1991) and concluded that the mortality risk may be relatedto air pollution concentrations in different parts of the city, with higher risks of deathoccurring in more polluted parts of the city (other factors such as age, smoking, educationlevel, dwelling conditions, education level, and occupational exposures to pollution werecontrolled) (Wojtyniak, Gorynski and Piekarski 1994:318). Overall, some 3 percent oftotal mortality was attributed to air pollution in Upper Silesia, a figure similar to totalmortality attributed to air pollution in the Czech Republic (Bobak and Feachem 1995:84).8

Although the overall impact of air pollution on total mortality is low, its effects onmorbidity might be more significant. Epidemiological studies from the region suggest thatair pollution in places such as Kraków, together with other factors such as smoking,industrial exposure and nutritional factors, may increase lung cancer risk (Jedrychowski etal. 1990:114, 119). Kraków has significantly higher mortality rates from lung cancercompared with the rest of Poland. The highest standardized cancer mortality rate wasfound in the city center which also recorded the highest sulfur dioxide and suspendedparticulate matter concentrations (Jedrychowski 1995:19). Air pollution has also beenblamed for increased incidence of asthma and respiratory diseases among children ofpolluted towns of Upper Silesia compared with less polluted areas (Zejda et al. 1996:115–20). Jedrychowski (1995:17–18) and Perera et al. (1992:256–8) have linked exposure tohighly polluted environment to a genetic alteration that increases cancer and reproductiverisks in residents of Gliwice in Upper Silesia.9 Poland’s rivers and lakes are very polluted(see Chapter Three), but because tap water is not used for drinking water pollution doesnot pose a significant direct health threat at the moment (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:7;Hertzman 1995:75) (Table 6.21).

Slovakia

Unlike in the Czech Republic and Poland, Slovakia’s environmental problems are mostlyassociated with point source pollution. As a result, the health problems attributed topollution do not reach regional dimensions but are concentrated in particular cities andareas around the pollution sources (e.g. Bratislava, Žiar nad Hronom, and Nitra). Despitethis situation, the Slovak Ministry of the Environment (SMoE) argues that 55 percent ofSlovaks live in areas with damaged environments and 41 percent of these people live inthe regions with strongly and extremely polluted environments. These areas include theBratislava region, Trnava-Galanta region, Horná Nitra region, Stredné Pohronie region, Košice region, the Stredný Zemplín region, Stredná Spiš region, Horné Povážie region,and Strednogemerská region.10 According to the SMoE (1996a:12) the environment inthese regions has negative effects on human health. Slovakia also has a significant problemwith nitrates in drinking water in rural areas caused by over-fertilization, requiring largeinvestments to replace water systems, especially if newborns are to be protected againstmethemoglobinemia (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:5, World Bank 1992a:II 89).11

As in other countries of CEE, life expectancy at birth is lower in Slovakia than inWestern Europe by six to seven years in the case of males and by five to seven years in the

CONSTRUCTING RISK: ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH 145

case of females (SMoE 1996a:5) (see Table 6.3). Life expectancy declined in the 1960sand increased slightly between 1970 and 1987 without reaching the 1960 levels(Hertzman 1995:7). Mortality increased by 0.22 percent between 1960 and 1980 and hasstagnated since. However, cancer mortality andthe incidence of cancer have almostdoubled since 1965 (SMoE 1996a:5–6). According to the SMoE (1996a:6–12),environmental pollution has caused increases in the number of stillbirths and children thatdie within seven days after the birth, of deformed newborns, overall morbidity andallergies.

The fact that much Slovak pollution is point source pollution means that geographyplays an important role and strong regional variations exist in health indicators. WhileSlovakia as a whole recorded declining infant mortality in the 1990s, some districts (such

Table 6.21 Selected places where health problems are associated with environmental pollution inPoland

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

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as Lučenec, Rimavská Sobota, Michalovce, Trebišov, and Žiar nad Hronom) recordedincreased rates of infant mortality. Several districts of eastern Slovakia (Prešov, Vranovnad Topl’ou, Košice, and Lučenec) recorded much higher than average infant mortality(10.6 in 1993), reaching up to twenty-six deaths of infants under age one year per 1,000live births. Several districts (Lučenec, Rimavská Sobota, Svidník, and Vranov nad Topl’ou)also recorded higher rates of congenital anomalies (SMoE 1996a:9). The SMoE (1996a:9–10) argues that environmental pollution “significantly contributes” to these health problemsand that poor environmental quality together with unhealthy lifestyles and poor healthcare are the three most important reasons responsible for lower life expectancy andincreased morbidity in Slovakia compared with Western industrial countries.

Specific locations around individual polluters exhibit particular pathologies. High ratesof bladder cancer among male workers from the aluminum smelter at Žiar nad Hronom incentral Slovakia have been attributed to air pollution from the smelter. Fluorosis has beenobserved in workers and children living near the smelter. Arsenic is blamed for increasedrates of non-melanoma skin cancer and hearing loss in children downwind in Žiar nadHronom (OECD 1994a: Annex 1: 5). High arsenic levels were also observed in tissues ofchildren living in the vicinity of the Nováky power plant in western Slovakia. Thepopulation living in the vicinity and downwind of the power plant (in the districts ofPrievidza and Martin) has high incidence rates of non-melanoma skin cancer (World Bank1992a:II 84, Hertzman 1995:47).

Slovakia has a considerable problem with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) producedby a chemical factory at Michalovce in eastern Slovakia between 1956 and 1984.Untreated wastes from the factory were regularly discharged into the Laborec River andsolid wastes were put into a local landfill. The result was increased levels of PCBs,formaldehyde, and nitrates in water in the Laborec River and the Šírava Reservoir in thelate 1970s. Drinking water was contaminated with formaldehyde and PCBs, and by 1980a high proportion of the congenital abnormalities known as Potter’s Syndrome werereported in Michalovce (with twelve times higher incidence than expected).12 The localdrinking water source was closed and PCB production was halted at the plant in 1984.Although PCBs in the local water supply declined to negligible levels following theclosure, high levels of PCBs in breast milk and the fat tissue of hospital patients havepersisted. In 1988 and 1989, average PCB levels in breast milk reached approximately 4to 4.4 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) of fat in Michalovce and 2.5 to 3.4 mg/kg in thenearby town of Trebišov.Some samples exceeded 20 mg/kg (World Bank 1992a:II 86–9,Hertzman 1995:47) (Table 6.22).

Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia, is an example of a polluted urban center. Herehealth problems attributed to air and water pollution include a 35.2 percent increase innewly reported cancer tumors between 1981 and 1985, a three to ten times higherincidence of respiratory diseases among children than in less polluted regions of Slovakia,and increasing levels of infant mortality (Miklós et al. 1989: 132). There are alsodocumented associations between acute respiratory diseases (sinusitis, pharyngitis,bronchitis and laryngitis) and air pollution in the city (OECD 1994a: Annex 1:2).However, the city has experienced significant improvements in its quality of the

CONSTRUCTING RISK: ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH 147

environment since 1990 (with the exception of nitrogen oxides emissions) (see Klinda andLieskovská 1998:66–8; Meth-Cohn et al. 1998:34–6).

To better determine the negative health effects of environmental pollution, the Slovakgovernment and foreign institutions launched several joint research projects in the 1990s.For example, the European Union through its PHARE 2 program financed a projectaimed at investigating the effects of pollution on human health in the Nováky region, oneof the most polluted areas in Slovakia. Another project “Demonstration Project RiskAssessment—Risk Management in the Slovak Republic” has been conducted incooperation with the US EPA and focuses on the city and region of Žilina (SMoE 1995:121–2). (See also Table 6.23.)

Romania

As in Slovakia and Hungary, Romanian environmental pollution is primarily of pointsource origin and consequently does not affect large regions. Nonetheless, low lifeexpectancy at birth and high infant mortality indicates a relatively poor health status forthe country, even within the context of CEE (Table 6.3). Contrary to the situation in

Table 6.22 PCBs in human fat tissue at autopsy in selected districts in Slovakia (in µg PCB/kg fat)

Notes: Comparative values: United States (637 specimens): 69 percent < 1,000 g/kg, 26 percent 1,000 to 2,000 µg/kg, 5 percent > 2,000 µg/kg. Japan (30 specimens): range=400 to 2,500 µg/kg,average=1,000 µg/kgSource: World Bank (1992a: II 88)

Table 6.23 Selected locations where health problems related to the quality of the environment havebeen documented in Slovakia

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

148 THE LEGACIES OF STATE SOCIALISM

Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria, life expectancy of male Romanians at birth increasedbetween 1971 and 1991. However, male life expectancy at age fifteen declined (Bobakand Marmot 1996:20–1), and according to some reports life expectancy at birth declinedby six months between 1978 and 1984, a situation partially blamed on environmentaldegradation (Oldson 1997: 517–18).13

Epidemiological research investigating health effects of pollution, especially onchildren, has focused on locations with high pollution levels such as cities of Baia Mare,Cop a Mic and Medea (lead smelters), Turda (chemical plant and asbestos cement plant),Tarnaveni (non-ferrous metallurgical plant), Navodari (production of fertilizers and sulfuracid), Tulcea (metallurgical plant), and Zlatna (aluminum smelter) (Hertzman 1995:19,23, 32–3; World Bank 1992b: 112–14; OECD 1994a: Annex 4:5). Researchers in theseareas found similar effects from pollution as in other CEE countries. Analysis of registeredmorbidity in four towns with high levels of air pollution (Baia Mare, Cop a Mic , Mediasand Zlatna) between 1983 and 1987 revealed 1.4 to 1.6 times higher incidence of acuteand chronic respiratory diseases and cancers in adults than in unpolluted areas.Respiratory diseases in children were 2.5 times more frequent (1.9 times in Baia Mare)compared with unpolluted towns. The incidence of respiratory diseases in adults in Cop aMic and Medias was 1.7–7.0 times higher than in unpolluted Sibu during the same period(World Bank 1992b:112). Children living close to lead smelters suffered higher incidenceof neuro-behavioral damage, and more than 50 percent of workers at the IMN plant inCop a Mic had excessive urinary lead levels (more than 150 µg/dl) (see World Bank1992b: 112–22 and Hertzman 1995:32–3 for examples of research results of variousepidemiological projects). Overall morbidity is 20 percent above the national average inthe most polluted regions of Cop a Mic , Zlatna, and Baia Mare. Estimates for leadpoisoning alone are that the health of more than 800,000 people is threatened (Enache1994:133).

A six-year study of pollution and health in nineteen cities in Transylvania conductedbetween 1983 and 1989 yielded similar results. The study found statistically significantcorrelations between the level of air pollution and incidence of disease in adults andchildren. Levels of sulfur dioxide pollution correlated with the incidence of malignanttumors of the respiratory tract in adults. In children, the incidence of bronchitis andbronchial asthma correlated with sulfur dioxide and particulate matter pollution(Jedrychowski 1995:17). Additional reported health hazards associated withenvironmental pollution include elevated levels of soil nitrates in drinking water fromagricultural over-fertilization (found in thirty-nine out of forty-one districts and resultingin cases of methemoglobinemia innewborns in fourteen of these), and the discovery ofcarcinogens in water samples in thirty-two districts, in air samples in twenty-six districts,and in food samples in twenty-three districts (World Bank 1992b:115).

Occupational health problems are considered much worse in Romania than in otherCEE countries such as Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia (Herztman 1995:108). Dangerous working conditions in mines, mills and smelters seem to have persistedin Romania through a system of wages and other incentives paid by the government tocompensate workers. In order to continue earning wages several times the nationalaverage, workers were complicit, or at least quiescent, in maintaining dangerous working

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conditions and practices (OECD 1994a: Annex 2:2, Hertzman 1995:106). Severeoccupational exposure to various pollutants in Romanian mines and foundries resulted inapproximately 500–600 new cases of silicosis annually (of which 10 percent hadsilicotuberculosis), high levels of chemical disease in some factories (such as theAcumulatorul factory in Bucharest, the UREMOAS plant in Bucharest, the frictionmaterial factory in Rimnicu Sarat, and the synthetic fibers factory in Braila), and acute andchronic lead poisoning in plants such as the IMN plant in Cop a Mic and the Phenix plantin Baia Mare discussed earlier (OECD 1994a: Annex 2:3–4, Hertzman 1995:106–7)(Table 6.24).

Bulgaria

The Bulgarian public became concerned about the health effects of polluted regions in the1980s. Despite official propaganda about the priority given to environmentalconsiderations over economic issues and the declared intentions of the government tobring society and nature into “complete harmony” (see Zhivkov and Djolov 1989:9–11),the quality of the environment gradually deteriorated under state socialism.Epidemiological studies conducted during the 1980s indicated increasingly negative healthimpacts of polluted environments in industrialized regions of the country with single ormultiple point sources of air pollution. This pattern is similar to that of Hungary, butcompared with Hungary Bulgaria has more areas with documented associations betweenair pollution and poor health (Hertzman 1995:75). Over 3.1 million (out of a total of 8.5million) Bulgarians live in areas with excessive levels of air pollution (Carter 1993c:53).High pollution levels in Sofia and eight other cities have been blamed for significantincreases in childhood respiratory and circulatory diseases (Carter 1993c: 51), while themost severe health effects have been recorded in places such as Bourgas obstina (district)where the Neftochim chemical complex has polluted the environment for years (Plates3.2 and 3.3).

Public awareness of environmental health issues was greatly heightened in 1987 whenpopular demonstrations occurred in the city of Ruse against pollution from a chemicalfactory located in the Romanian city of Giurgiu. Chlorine and other gas emissions fromthe plant had polluted the Bulgarian city of Ruse across the Danube for years. Within tenyears after the plant opened in 1975, the incidence of various lung diseases had increasedeighteen times among the citizens of Ruse (from 969 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1975 to17,386 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1985). Spontaneous anti-pollution demonstrations tookplace in November 1987 and February 1988 calling for the closure of the Romanian plant.It was this popular discontent that led to the formation of the Ruse Committee in 1988and subsequently to the emergence of the first national public environmental oppositiongroup in Bulgaria, Ecoglasnost (Carter 1993c:58; Pickles and the Bourgas Group 1993:172). Within weeks Ecoglasnost cells had been formed in towns throughout the country.

Exposure to high levels of lead in Bulgarian cities such as Sofia, Povdidv Varna, VelikoTurnovo, Stara Zagora and Pleven has been documented, although given available data ithas been difficult to assess the relative contribution of different sources of high bloodlevels in children (such as food, soil, house dust, and air). However, studies from the

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cities of Devnya, Vratsa and Dimitrovgrad do indicate the effects of air pollution on healthin heavily polluted Bulgarian communities. These include higher incidences of respiratorydiseases (such as chronic bronchitis and asthma), reduced pulmonary functions inchildren, allergies, and irritant diseases compared with relatively unpolluted control towns(Hertzman 1995:23–4, 31–2).

Over-fertilization on collective farms has largely been responsible for high nitrateconcentrations in drinking water (Hertzman 1995:41–2), as collective farm managersused cheap state subsidized fertilizers (and pesticides) in excessof requirements to ensurethat state mandated production quotas were met. These practices were particularlydamaging in the dry-land climate of Bulgaria, where normal low water regimes andextended serious droughts in recent years have meant that such chemical applications haveremained highly concentrated in the soil and groundwater (Knight and Staneva 1996). Asa result, nitrate pollution of drinking water is also a widespread problem in rural areas ofwestern Bulgaria. In particular, Turgoviste, Stara Zagora, and Burgas obstina have beenaffected, where ten-year average nitrate concentrations reached 70 to 100 mg/l (themaximum set by the Bulgarian government is 50 mg/l). About 70 to 80 percent of thepopulation of these obstini are exposed to high nitrate levels in their drinking water. Sixadditional obstini (Pazardzhik, Kudzhaly, Yambol, Sliven, Varna, and Toboulchin)

Table 6.24 Selected places with documented associations between health problems andenvironmental pollution in Romania

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–7), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

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recorded ten-year average nitrate concentrations in drinking water in the range of 50 to100 mg/l, with about 35–45 percent of their population being exposed to nitrateconcentrations in drinking water above acceptable limits. (See Table 6.25.)

Conclusion

Above all other indicators, health is surely the most crucial one in assessing the state ofany society. The failures of state socialism to maintain whatever short- run improvementsin mortality, disease, and health indices were generated in the first years of socialistindustrialization are evident from even the rather poor quality data and intermittentstudies we have available. In particular, the time lag between environmental pollution andhealth impacts renders extremely difficult any evaluation of even the early years of rapidgrowth, when immediate conditions of food supply, infrastructure, and health care didimprove for many.

Perhaps more interesting are the ways in which competing understandings of health andenvironment were at work within state socialist societies. In this chapter we havediscussed the emergence of prophylactic approaches to public health alongside and within

Table 6.25 Selected locations where health problems related to the quality of the environment havebeen documented in Bulgaria

Source: OECD (1994a: Annex 1:2–4), Hertzman (1995:73–5)

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state sanctioned epidemiological practices, and we have seen how these practicesgenerated contradictory views of environmental protection. The immense body ofepidemiological data beginning to appear on community and worker health under statesocialism paints a gloomy picture of everyday life in CEE. But precisely because of theoften readily apparent environmentally destructive practices and the extreme health risksthey generated, and because of the official sanctioning of prophylactic medicine, we arestill faced with the need to understand in much more detail how individuals andcommunities responded to the crises in health care and health conditions theyencountered. In particular, we need to consider in much more detail how “environment”and “nature” were constructed in these communities by individuals negotiating new(hidden and transparent) hazards and risks.

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154

Part III

Post-communist transformations and theenvironment

156

7Post-communist reform and the

democratization of nature

Theorizing civil society and environmental futures

Recent changes in CEE have proved to be fertile ground for theorists from both sides ofthe former Iron Curtain to assess the democratizing impulse of the transitions under wayin the region. Analysts from positions to the left and the right have passed judgements onthe democratizing effects of market reforms, the political and economic impacts of thedismantling of the strong command state and its economy, and the social and politicalimpacts of popular mobilization in the years 1988–91 and de-mobilization since. Centralto both the debates in the East about the liberalizing of state socialism and the debates inthe West about the possibility of a socialist project no longer grounded on the unity ofrevolutionary agency or class politics is the current debate about civil society. By civilsociety is meant public voluntary associative activity, in which groups build solidarity,forge a language of common values and interests, groups which provide an organizationalframework within which people can mobilize to protect their or their neighbors’interests.

The major focus of civil society in CEE has been opposition to state socialism andcentral planning, but in some places it has taken the explicit form of mass mobilization againstthe environmental degradation caused by the “hubris of giganticism” which undergirdedthe productionist ideology of central planning. In Bulgaria especially it was environmentalproblems and local concerns about health that provided the focus for the mobilization ofmass democratic movements, and which in the late 1980s became the universal cry ofnational and local level political opposition groups.1 But if there is general agreement thatcivil society played an important role in the overthrow of communist governments in1989 (Bernhard 1993; Kubik 1994; Ost 1990; Stokes 1993; Tismaneanu 1992), there isnow equal consensus that post-communist transitions throughout CEE have resulted in aweakening and demobilizing of the institutions of a so recently flowering civil society(Ekiert 1991; Arato 1991; Szklarski 1993).

As French noted (1991:93), throughout CEE “the environment in the pre-revolutiondays also served as a rallying point from which broader demands for political changeemerged. Public protests against pollution quickly turned into organized protests againstcommunist rule. Initially perceived by governments asrelatively benign, environmental

movements in the region soon acquired unstoppable momentum.”2 However, while thepopular democratic alliances forged across CEE between 1988 and 1990 remain strong insome localities, and while post-communist societies have opened up in many ways, thereis some evidence that these gains are already in retreat in the face of deep economic andpolitical crises and the difficulties of dealing with them. In particular, the early years oftransition have been ones in which the restorative elements of the old regime combined witha revamped ideology of privatized individual rights (as opposed to individual civilliberties) were re-asserted. Two consequences were a retreat from the civil liberties thatemerged at the point of the revolution and a withdrawal from many of the strongpositions that were initially enunciated in regard to environmental regulation (see Pickles,Pavlínek, and Staddon 1998).

In Chapter Two we focused on the dilemma of transition in CEE in which issues ofdemonopolization, anti-bureaucratic actions, local power, and individual and civic rightsarose along with new and old forms of nationalism, ethnic struggle, local competition,core-periphery dominance, the segmentation of consumer markets, and the substitutionof political for economic power. In this chapter these issues are treated in terms of threecentral themes.

The first theme concerns the central role played by the environmental movement inthe politics of protest that erupted throughout CEE (and the former Soviet Union) in thelate 1980s. In each of the countries of CEE the environmental movement seems to haveplayed a distinct and important role in fostering and enabling a broader coalition ofpolitical forces to emerge under difficult and repressive conditions. Specifically, weoutline the emergence and successes of environmental politics in these years and the roleplayed by environmental politics in forging a shift from the reformist democratizationpolicies of the old regimes to the democracy movements that led to the dismantling of thecommand economies and the formation of new governments after 1989.

The second theme evaluates the new social roles, practices and institutional formsemerging around new kinds of voluntary public associative activity and new systems ofself-government. Each of these new forms contains within itself potentialities and problems.Flourishing sites of individual and group action (new subject positions) found theirexpression in the social movements emerging after the late 1980s, but they also providedvehicles for the reworking of older class powers. Thus, we focus on the way in which theenvironmental movement has served as a legitimating force for struggles for politicaldecentralization between the central and regional state and local governments, creatingnew and potentially effective environmental regulations and controls on the one hand, andstrong re-centralization of powers on the other. Second, we consider the ways in whichmarket relations themselves served to constitute autonomous economic agents, and indoing so provided new possibilities for individual action within the market economy withimplications for environmental regulation in a new largely unregulated market economy.

Third, the chapter investigates the extent to which civil society has, in fact, beenextended during the transition. Specifically, we consider the extent to whichthe transitionhas struck a new balance between what Gramsci (1971) described as restoration andrevolution in regard to civil society and the state. The popular press, which initially saw inthe new environmental and social movements the foundation for new democracies, now

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seems to see in all social action the workings of restoration, be it through nomenklaturapower, red capitalists, or mafia groups. Our own initial hypothesis is that a balance isbeing struck in favor of restoration, with the consequent and rapid demise of certain partsof civil society and the environmental movement. But it is also the case that these changesare not monolithic or predetermined, as the 1998 UNDP report on governance andtransition in Bulgaria illustrates so well (UNDP 1998). We show how there are strongdifferences in the workings of civil society between and among the Visegrad countries(Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary) and the Balkan states (Bulgaria, Romania,Albania, and the states of the former Yugoslavia). Further, we show how even in theserestorative transformations new social forces are emerging, with important implicationsfor the environment.

Thus, the initial flourishing of civil society groups for ecological defence was, indeed,quickly followed by their demobilization. But in documenting this history we also want toavoid fetishizing particular notions and structures of civil society which overlook the moreinformal associative relations that formed and still form the actual basis for much socialaction in CEE. In this sense, the chapter points to the importance of distinguishingbetween interpretations of movements for ecological defence provided by analysts andplanners in CEE which generally focus on the demise of NGOs and environmental groupsin the regions, and those that circulate in impacted communities, even among residentswho do not actively participate in formal institutions of civil society but who stronglyengage in, or at least seem to continue to support, actions of civil defence. And who,moreover, in their everyday lives are engaged in constructing new environmentalrelations and practices, albeit under rubrics not actually called “environmental.”

Central to all three of these themes are questions about how we explain and theorizechange in post-communist societies. Some authors suggest that the revolutions in CEEwere primarily political revolutions without economic or social causes (Musil 1993).Others have argued that the revolutions of 1989–90 were an important step in theevolution of a universal history characterized by the expansion of market economies,liberal democratic practices, and recognition of the incompatability of political democracyand central planning (Fukuyama 1992). Yet others have turned to a theory of civil societyand social change that emerged from the Central and Eastern European revolutionsthemselves. In this view, state socialism suppressed civil society. Yet it was such voluntaryassociational forms that became the sites of opposition to the state and operated as modelsfor the creation of liberal pluralist democracies. In this notion, civil society is a realm ofpopular economic, social, and political activity outside the state.

We take a different view. First, we attempt to situate the political changes occurringafter 1989 in the context of the social and economic conditions from which they emerged,and evaluate the implications of these social and economic conditions for the continuedsuccess of a grassroots environmental politics.Second, instead of following the Czechwriters who see civil society as a domain of activity outside the state, we follow moreclosely Gramsci on civil society, and attempt to analyze the changing relationship betweencivil society and the state. In particular, we analyze the ways in which the state and thesocial forces that underpinned it have responded to the challenges of the revolutions of1989, and what these responses mean for social movements such as the environmental

THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF NATURE 159

movement. In this regard, we reject the notion that there ever was a clear divide betweencivil and political spheres (here we follow Iris Young 1993), but we also do not wish totheorize civil society as free-floating social movements ungrounded in a political economyfrom which they emerge and within which they function.

Thus, the first half of the chapter briefly indicates the importance for the success of thepolitics of protest of the fiscal crisis in which the central state found itself by the mid-1980s,while the second half suggests that the environmental politics of mass mobilization thatflourished between 1989 and 1991 has been weakened by the normalization of politicallife at the international, national and local levels and by the continued deepening of theeconomic crisis at all levels. At the same time, these changes in political and economic lifehave involved the reconfiguration of social identities and the construction of new subjectpositions. These new social identities potentially signify an opening (or reconfiguration) ofcivil society (Young 1993), but they may also and just as well signify the constitution ofnew subject positions under new rules of the game (for example based on autonomousand selfish economic agents, see Bowles and Gintis 1986, 1990). Thus, we also linktogether the recent debates on the emergence/extension of civil society in CEE withrecent thinking about the regulation of economic and political systems and theconstitutions of new subject positions and social identities.

In this perspective the process of democratization is a multiply-structured transitioninvolving different and complex transformations. In this sense, the initial democratizingimpulse in CEE came from complex combinations of social forces, including state officialswho saw in the late 1970s, and certainly by 1980 and 1981, that the system of commandplanning would have to be changed: from scientists, academics, and students witnessingfirst hand in their research the effects on the social and natural environment of centralplanning in decline, and from trade unionists, church officials, and community organizersincreasingly frustrated by their inability to sustain democratic structures and practices.Their early efforts resulted, on the one hand, in the emergence of reform communism,and on the other in massive disinvestment in industry and social infrastructure which ledto the fiscal crises that brought down communist parties throughout CEE in 1989. As JohnAgnew (1988) has shown for Italy, “better thieves than red” became a distinguishing hallmarkof one group of nomenklatura who robbed their societies through complex joint venturesand ownership transfers, and salted the capital away overseas either to invest elsewhere orto re-invest in other sectors after 1989.

The immediate public stimulus to changes of government throughout the region wasthe emergence of outspoken social movements, organized inparticular aroundenvironmental groups (like Ecoglasnost in Bulgaria) and labor groups (like Solidarnosc inPoland and Podkrepa in Bulgaria) (see Pickles and the Bourgas Group 1993). But theweakness of this phase of social mobilization—the archetypical form of social movementand civil society— was rapidly challenged by a third phase of democratization. The socialforces unleashed in this phase of democratization were tied less to social goals thanindividual opportunities and needs, and rapidly took over from the incipient and ratherweak social movements. The “normalizing” of political life by technocrats and professionalpoliticians occurred at the expense of social mobilization. The social movements of 1988–90 were replaced by struggles for electoral power and were focused on the conditions for

160 TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

various forms of decentralization and re-concentration of power, and individual strugglesfor economic survival and well-being as economic crises deepened. As Gramsci argued in“The State and Civil Society”:

The crisis creates situations which are dangerous in the short run, since the variousstrata of the population are not all capable of orienting themselves equally swiftly,or of reorganizing with the same rhythm. The traditional ruling class, which hasnumerous trained cadres, changes men and programmes and, with greater speedthan is achieved by the subordinate classes, reabsorbs the control that was slippingfrom its grasp. Perhaps it may make sacrifices, and expose itself to an uncertainfuture by demagogic promises; but it retains power, reinforces it for the timebeing, and uses it to crush its adversary and disperse its leading cadres, who cannotbe very numerous or highly trained.3

(Gramsci 1971:210–11)

Each of these transformations of public life has important implications for the ways inwhich individuals and social movements can participate in the process of transformation,and specifically the space for environmental politics in the transformation. Thus, after ananalysis of the elements of the reform process, it will be necessary to turn to the evolvingtensions between democratic practices and the new forces of social division in CEE followingthe revolutions of 1989–90. In this regard, the chapter addresses changes in the regionaland local structure of power in CEE and particularly in Bulgaria. It focuses on the shiftingbalance between centrist/technocratic and grassroots/populist tendencies within the bodypolitic. Further, it investigates the relationship between the emergence of socialmovements and the restorative impacts of privatization and marketization on the one handand the potential impacts of local government decentralization and reform on the other.

In each of these phases, and as a result of the changes that each has generated, newsocial identities are being formed within the polities of CEE, and new social and politicalactors are emerging. These have not yet become clearly defined or identifiable in anystraightforward manner. Nonetheless, it is possible to map out some of the characteristicsof the social identities and subject positions that haveemerged, and to speculate on theirrole within the democratizing process. It is to the question of how we can theorize thetransformation process and the emergence of new subject positions that we now turn.

The new social movements, civil society, and public space

In the past decade, the new social movements literature has captivated many in the socialsciences, and with it we have begun to deepen our understanding of the role of agency insocial and environmental change. Through the new social movements literature hasemerged both a practical politics of difference and rigorous theorizations of suchdifference. These challenge a politics predicated on notions of identity which areunproblematized, taken as given, as “natural”: notions of social action based only on“acting” subjects who are white, male, and middle class (or, in CEE, Slavic, Christian, andnationalist); conceptualizations of social relations grounded in monogomous,

THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF NATURE 161

heterosexual, nuclear family units (and in some regions of CEE identified with ethnicizednational groups); a system of power and politics in which practical citizens are constitutedby their embeddedness in social, regional, or ethnic networks. Or as Iris Young hassuggested:

Universally formulated standards or norms, for example, according to which allcompetitors for social positions are evaluated, often presume the norm capacities,values, and cognitive and behavioral styles typical of dominant groups, thusdisadvantaging others. Racist, sexist, homophobic, ageist, and ableist aversions andstereotypes, moreover, continue to devalue or render invisible some people, oftendisadvantaging them in economic and political interactions.

(Young 1990:173)

All forms of naturalized identity politics are thus put into question in favor of a pluralisticpolitics in which identity is de-naturalized, and new identity forms or subject positions arerecognized and made possible. In this new plural politics, the question of public spacebecomes central as the hegemonic power of a certain type of identity politics isundermined, as its control over the spaces and environments within which civil life isallowed to occur is also broken apart, and new spatialities are opened for civic action.

What is civil society?

The epochal shift that some have seen in the transition from industrial to post-industrialsociety, from modern to postmodern culture, has marked social theory for the past twodecades. From the side of pluralism and neo-Marxism, interest has grown in non-functionalist analysis by bringing the state back into the analysis of the economy (Cohenand Arato 1992:1). Cohen and Arato, along with many other analysts have argued,however, that these efforts have been limited by the tendency to reduce explanation toclass explanation. As a consequence, “the legal, associational, cultural, and public spheresof society have no theoreticalplace in this analysis. It thereby loses sight of a great deal ofinteresting and normatively instructive forms of social conflict today” (ibid.: 2).

The current discourse of civil society, on the other hand, focuses precisely on “new,generally non-class based forms of collective action, oriented and linked to the legal,associational and public institutions of society. These are differentiated not only from thestate but also from the capitalist market economy” (ibid.: 2). Cohen and Arato go on: “[al]though we cannot leave the state and the economy out of consideration,…the concept ofcivil society is indispensable if we are to understand the stakes of these ‘transitions todemocracy’ as well as understanding the relevant actors;”

We are truly impressed by the importance in East Europe and Latin America, aswell as in the advanced capitalist democracies, of the struggle for rights and theirexpansion, of the establishment of grass roots associations and initiatives and theever renewed construction of institutions and forums of critical publics.

(Cohen and Arato 1992:2)

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Cohen and Arato (ibid.: 2) locate the central problematic of contemporary society in “theproblem of civil society and its democratization.” Alberto Melucci pushes this argumenteven further:

Today, this distinction between the state and civil society, upon which the politicalexperience of capitalism was based, has become unclear. As a unitary agent ofintervention and action, the state has dissolved. It has been replaced from above bya tightly interdependent system of transnational relationships and subdivided frombelow into a multiplicity of partial governments, defined both by their own systemsof representation and decision-making and by an ensemble of interwovenorganizations which combine inextricably the public and the private.

Even ‘civil society’—at least as it was defined by the early modern tradition—appears to have lost its substance. The “private” interests once belonging to it nolonger have the permanence and visibility of stable social groups sharing a definiteposition in the hierarchy of power and influence. The former unity (andhomogeneity) of social interests has exploded…

The simple distinction between state and civil society is replaced by a morecomplex situation. Processes of differentiating and “laicizing” mass parties havetransformed them increasingly into catch-all parties which are institutionallyincorporated into the structures of government; at the same time, theparliamentary system tends to accentuate both its selective processing of demandsand its merely formal decision-making functions. On another plane, there is anevident multiplication and increasing autonomy of systems of representation anddecision-making; this process results in the pluralization of decision-making centersbut also carries with it the undoubted advantages associated with the diffusion ofdecision-makinginstances. Finally, on a further plane, there is an evident formationof collective demands and conflicts which assume the form of social “movements”aiming at the reappropriation of the motivation and sense of action in everyday life.

(Melucci 1988:257–8)

Civil society and Central and Eastern Europe

The way in which civil society is understood is important for the interpretations oftransformation in CEE. For many recent commentators the current revival of interest incivil society can be attributed to the collapse of state socialism and the new forms nowemerging from the ruins of central planning and state owned and run economies. In muchof this debate it is assumed that civil society could not or did not exist under communism,or that those forms of civil society that did exist were highly constrained by state power.Moreover, under this interpretation the current patterns of social unrest can thus beunderstood in terms of the halting emergence of civil forms of society from conditions inwhich their exercise has been unable to draw on popular support.

Neo-classical economic analysis certainly sees the operation of the market in these terms,whereby the failure of state socialism to build financial incentives or economic levers into

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the system of economic regulation creates aberrant forms and difficult transitions whensuch natural economic conditions are introduced.

Michael Walzer has expressed clearly the connection between civil society andtransition in Central and Eastern Europe:

The words “civil society” name the space of uncoerced human association and alsothe set of relational networks—formed for the sake of family, faith, interest, andideology—that fill this space. Central and East European dissidence flourished withina highly restricted version of civil society, and the first task of the new democraciescreated by the dissidents, so we are told, is to rebuild the networks: unions,churches, political parties and movements, cooperatives, neighborhoods, schools ofthought, societies for promoting or preventing this and that.

(Walzer 1991:293)

Walzer goes on to ask, what sorts of institutions should we work for? He answers thatnineteenth and twentieth century social thought has given four answers to this question(each answer presupposing its own ideological context): the political community or thedemocratic state; the economic domain; the realm of the marketplace; and the nation. Inhis view, each is problematic because of its tendency to develop a singular argument forcausality, and thereby to miss the complexity of human society. For Walzer:

Ideally, civil society is a setting of settings: all are included, none is preferred. Theargument is a liberal version of the four answers, acceptingthem all, insisting thateach leave room for the others, therefore not finally accepting any of them.Liberalism appears here as an anti-ideology, and this is an attractive position in thecontemporary world.

(Walzer 1991:298)

The problem for Walzer (ibid.: 301) is the tendency to view the new social movementsand debates about civil society through a lens of “antipolitical tendencies that commonlyaccompany the celebration of civil society.” Similarly, Iris Young (1993) has suggestedthat a politics of difference suffers from a fundamental inability to address questions ofstructural power. Specifically, they argue that the emerging monopoly and transnationalpower of corporations and financial capital raises serious questions about the limits of thenew social movements literature. Without change in structural power, the spaces ofpublic discourse, the proliferation of social identities and subject positions, and the gains ofsocial movements run the risk of being overturned or at best limited to gains for certaingroups within a broader social formation of economic polarization. As Young (1993)recognized in her final ironic call for a return to Leninism, the network of uncoercedassociations cannot dispense with the agencies of state power or efforts to control the stateapparatus: “The collapse of totalitarianism is empowering for the members of civil societyprecisely because it renders the state accessible” (Walzer 1991:301).

Walzer’s analysis of civil society raises important questions about the relationshipbetween civil society and the state. In his view, only a democratic state can create a

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democratic civil society and only a democratic civil society can sustain a democratic state.This political idealism is grounded in an analysis of “civility” as the underlying principle ofdemocratic governance and civil life:

Only a democratic state can create a democratic civil society: only a democraticcivil society can sustain a democratic state. The civility that makes democraticpolitics possible can only be learned in the associational networks; the roughly equaland widely dispersed capabilities that sustain networks have to be fostered by thedemocratic state. Confronted with an overbearing state, citizens, who are alsomembers, will struggle to make room for autonomous associations and marketrelationships (and also for local governments and decentralized bureaucracies). Butthe state can never be what it appears to me in liberal theory, a mere frameworkfor civil society. It is also the instrument of the struggle, used to give a particular shapeto the common life…

Nor need we be involved all the time in our associations. A democratic civilsociety is one controlled by its members, not through a single process of self-determination but through a large number of different and uncoordinatedprocesses. These needn’t all be democratic, for we are likely to be members ofmany associations, and we will want some of them to be managed in our interests,but also in our absence. Civil society is sufficiently democratic when in some, at least,of its parts, we are able to recognizeourselves as authoritative and responsibleparticipants. States are tested by their capacity to sustain this kind of participation…And civil society is tested by its capacity to produce citizens whose interests, atleast sometimes, reach farther than themselves and their comrades, who look afterthe political community that fosters and protects the associational networks.

(Walzer 1991:302–3)

Civil society is also grounded in units much smaller than the demos of the working classor consumers or the nation. Instead, the notion of civil society is an attempt to develop atheoretical concept in which necessarily fragmented and localized forms of socialorganization and civil association can be incorporated in our analysis:

They become part of the world of family, friends, comrades, and colleagues, wherepeople are connected to one another and made responsible for one another… Ihave no magic formula for making connections or strengthening the sense ofresponsibility. These aren’t aims that can be underwritten with historicalguarantees or achieved through a single unified struggle. Civil society is a project ofprojects; it requires many organizing strategies and new forms of state action. Itrequires a new sensitivity for what is local, specific, contingent—and, above all, anew recognition (to paraphrase a famous sentence) that the good life is in thedetails.

(Walzer 1991:304)

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Civil society and political economy

The arguments about civil society we have discussed thus far are rooted either in a politicsof difference (and a corresponding project of opening the spaces for marginalized groups)or in a liberal politics (and a corresponding project of providing a safe context withinwhich those different groups can get along). In CEE initial struggles over civil society tooka different form. Here the struggle against the state was not directly a struggle toconstitute a politics of difference, but to create the space for any civil groups whatsoever:that is, to roll back the state from the family, the church, the economy, and the spaces ofpublic life, to enable individuals to begin to express themselves outside the scrutiny of thestate apparatus. Moreover, in rolling back the state, privatizing the economy, andderegulating everyday life, CEE countries have been engaged in transformations of therelations between politics, economic, and civil domains so fundamental that the secondgoal of creating safe spaces within which the different groups and domains can get alongremains highly problematic (indeed, as it does at a theoretical level in Walzer’s ownarguments and in practice in the West).

Before unpacking the relationship between the struggles for civil society and theproblems of democratizing the public sphere in CEE we will return to Gramsci, whoseanalysis of the state and civil society seems to take us much further than either Young,Cohen and Arato, or Walzer.

In “The State and Civil Society” Gramsci argued that as social classes becomedetachedfrom their traditional parties and as a “crisis of authority” (general crisis of the state, or acrisis of hegemony) deepens, situations are created which are dangerous in the short run“since the various strata of the population are not all capable of orienting themselvesequally swiftly, or of reorganizing with the same rhythm. The traditional ruling class,which has numerous trained cadres, changes men and programs and, with greater speedthan is achieved by the subordinate classes, reabsorbs the control that was slipping fromits grasp” (Gramsci 1971:210). Thus, the emergence of civil society must always beanalyzed in the context of the ways in which a political leadership, bureaucraticfunctionaries, and the military respond to the new circumstances. The conflict betweenthe old order and the newly emerging civil society is thus a battle between restoration andrevolution (ibid.: 219).

Restorations do not occur in toto, but they do occur to safeguard the interests of particulargroups. It is this notion of restoration that seems to be largely absent from the recentworks on civil society, such as those of Iris Young and Michael Walzer. In its absence, thearticulation of the political implications of a politics of difference and the emergence of anautonomous civil sphere is celebratory. When it is present, a much more sober anddetailed analysis of the changing constellations of power and their emergence and re-inscription in social, economic and political life is required.

Modern political technique became totally transformed after Forty-eight; after theexpansion of parliamentarism and the associative systems of union and party, andthe growth in the formation of vast State and “private” bureaucracies (i.e. politico-private, belonging to parties and trade unions); and after the transformations which

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took place in the organization of the forces of order in the wide sense—i.e. notonly the public service designed for the repression of crime, but the totality offorces organized by the State and by private individuals to safeguard the politicaland economic domination of the ruling classes.

(Gramsci 1971:220–1)

The resultant struggle between civil society and political society is reflected in manyways, such as the struggle between the church and the state. But liberalism of the kind laidout by Walzer breaks down at this point for, as Gramsci points out, liberal ideology ispredicated on the principle of the separation of powers and here its source of weaknessbecomes apparent. The bureaucracy exercises coercive power and acts as a caste.Liberalism’s argument (and Walzer’s) that the institutions and officers of a democracymust be controlled by civil society is, according to Gramsci (1971:246), “a demand whichis extreme liberalism, and at the same time its dissolution.”

From democratization to the politics of protest in Centraland Eastern Europe

In this section we outline the ways in which a politics of popular protest in the civil arenaemerged out of the problematic relationship between state sanctioned policies ofdemocratization and the restricted state controlled and manipulatedcivil arenas existingbefore 1989. It is important to note that the notion of civil society predates thedemocratic revolutions of 1989, both as an essential element of state socialism and associal strategies of everyday life under the restrictions of the state apparatus. We stressthese issues because we do not want to be seen to be claiming that civil society emerged inCEE with the collapse of state socialism. This theoretical point is particularly important incountries such as Bulgaria (and perhaps elsewhere) because it is not clear to what extentsome aspects of centralized decision-making and command communism have beenremoved or are in the process of re-configuration and restoration (shape shifting).

At the end of the Second World War the countries of CEE inherited quite distinctsocio-economic systems. By the 1960s their economies had been transformed into“industrial-agricultural” economies tied to raw material and market supports from theUSSR. For example, by 1984 71.9 percent of Bulgarian exports went to Comeconcountries and 55.7 percent of the total went to the USSR (Pitassio 1989:205). Nationalgrowth occurred along with income equalization (at least until the early 1980s), and socialservices and social welfare were rapidly improved in aggregate terms.

However, as we have seen in previous chapters, these apparent and real improvementsin the quality of life were achieved by subsuming all other concerns to a productionistideology and the hubris of giganticism. The environmental consequences were tremendousas the entire economic and political system prioritized production over preservation.Consequently, environmental issues were of secondary concern to industry, and the costsof their polluting were externalized to the surrounding communities.

In this context, local authorities and individuals had very little power or effectivejurisdiction over the enterprises and their activities, and even when fines were levied they

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did not go to those most affected, but to the national government and district councils.According to the mayor of a small village near the petrochemical complex outside Burgas,Bulgaria, “Ecology has always been the last paper in economic development plans”(interview, 24 June 1991). Similar complaints were made across CEE. For example, themayor of the village of Louka, located close to the Chemopetrol chemical complex in theMost District, argued: “We have nothing from Chemopetrol, only that stench and fly-ashdeposits.”4 The mayor of the village of Mariánské Radčice endangered by coal miningargued in 1993: “In the past the coal mines behaved as those in power, because they werein command here, industry ruled here. We were subordinated.”5 Communities inindustrial areas across CEE felt subordinated to the industrial interests and largelypowerless in the face of unconstrained environmental pollution before 1989.

Declining environmental quality and health, especially in specific environmental hotspots, became a rallying point for growing public resistance against state socialist regimesthroughout CEE in the late 1980s. Anti-governmental movements and demonstrations inLeipzig (East Germany), Teplice (Czech Republic), Bratislava (Slovakia), Sofia and Rousse(Bulgaria), Budapest (Hungary) and other places across CEE were dominated byenvironmentalconcerns (French 1990:6; Bowman and Hunter 1992:925–6; Pickles andthe Bourgas Group 1993:172–3; Kanev 1991:57; Pavlík 1996:59).

The environment and environmental clean-up were high on the agendas of the firstpost-1989 governments in countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary and formerCzechoslovakia, and in 1990 the environment was considered to be a national priority in allCEE countries except Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia (REC 1995a:8). In theCzech Republic, for example, Petr Pithart, the Prime Minister of the first freely electedpost-1989 government, argued that his government had placed the efforts to take care ofthe environment at the very top of its agenda (Mladý Svět 1994:11) and had received anelectoral mandate to do so: 83 percent of the electorate chose improvement of theenvironment as their number one priority (Moldan 1990:7).

How are we to understand these eruptions of popular environmentalism, their effectson the party state, and the degree of success they exhibited immediately following thecollapse of party states throughout the region?

Post-1989 euphoria

First, it is important to recognize that this environmental awareness was quite differentfrom that which emerged in Western countries in the 1960s. Because of the hegemony ofthe Communist Party, it was extremely difficult and dangerous for ordinary citizens toparticipate in anti-government activities, including protests against pollution andpolluters. However, in relative terms environmental opposition was more difficult for thestate to eradicate and control than other forms of anti-state activities. There was a legalbasis in the constitution for the environmental rights of citizens, and there had longexisted various means of expression for environmental concerns and activism throughofficial “party” clubs and societies for nature, recreation, and conservation. Environmentalactivism, therefore, allowed the participation of a greater number of people than did, forexample, opposition to human rights abuses (Jehlička and Kára 1993:10). Environmental

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protests thus attracted support in the late 1980s from a public that would otherwiseprobably not have participated in anti-government demonstrations.

Second, the state found it much more difficult to clamp down on environmentalorganizations than on other more directly political activities. Surveillance and arrest werecarried out against environmentalists, notably in the GDR where Stasi operativespenetrated environmental groups (Kopf 1993). Media campaigns to attack the legitimacyof environmentalist claims were also carried out, notably after the success of the massdemonstrations against state environmental policies in Sofia in 1989. But demonstrationsin fact articulated claims that had long been party policy (that socialist citizens had a rightto a clean environment, that it was the responsibility of the state to provide clean air andwater, good health care, and to improve the health of citizens). In this regard, the statewas both officially committed to the demands of the protesters while also being the majorcause of their grievances. At the same time, the state accurately perceived suchenvironmental protests to be direct political protests against the party.

Third, this environmental activism was also different from that in the West because,with the political successes of 1989, far from broadening the base and activities ofenvironmental organizations, the environmental euphoria and participation in and supportfor environmental action quickly disappeared as well.6 The very reasons environmentalismwas able to stand against the force of the state were the reasons that led to its rapiddemise: since the environment was no longer needed as a political tool for people whowere not genuinely committed to environmentalist goals, and since new governmentsinitially prioritized environmental reconstruction very high in their policy goals,environmental activism lost momentum and support. Such declines in environmentalpolitics occurred quickly after 1989 in several CEE countries including Hungary, Bulgariaand former Czechoslovakia, where the role of the environment in the collapse of the statesocialist system was the strongest.

Fourth, many environmentally committed activists also left environmental organizationsto take up positions in government and the private sector. Political changes after thecollapse of state socialist regimes brought many of these opposition leaders into the newdemocratic governments, new green parties were quickly established, and multi-laterallending agencies took on a “green” hue by hiring directly out of the leadership ofenvironmental NGOs that had been so active up to and after 1989.

Although the environment lost its priority relatively quickly after 1989 andenvironmental parties generally failed to attract any significant support during the firstfree elections, the period of high environmental awareness following the revolutions hadimportant impacts on environmental quality. During this period many environmentalinstitutions such as new Ministries of the Environment were established or completelyreorganized. Constitutions were re-written providing, among other rights, the right ofthe public to a clean environment. The foundations of new environmental legislation werelaid in most countries and the process of environmental clean-up was begun. Newpolitical parties, such as greens, were formed and a number of environmental NGOsemerged and began to operate independently of governmental control. Thus the shortperiod of environmental euphoria after 1989 served as an important impetus for a gradualand long term improvement in the quality of the environment in the region.

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With the extremely difficult period of economic transformation that followed, theenvironment lost some of its priority among the governments and the public as thefailures of neo-liberal reform and rigidities within the old bureaucracies produced severeeconomic and social impacts on the everyday lives of millions of people. Governmentswere also able to reduce their commitments to environmental reconstruction becausethroughout the region economic collapse associated with shock therapy resulted inproduction declines and cleaner environments. The perception that environmental qualitywas improving was thus mobilized by governments desperate to persuade their publicsabout the successes of reform, to justify their environmental policies, and to demobilizetheir more vocal environmental critics.

Environmental politics and ecological defence in Bulgaria

The particular origins of the environmental movement as an opposition democraticmovement in Bulgaria lie in the formation of local political groups involved in civildisobedience as an attempt to prevent the continued pollution of local communities.These local environmental movements are all the more remarkable because they aroseduring a period when the central state had placed strict prohibitions on any such civilactions, and in a society in which information about environmental issues was suppressed(Plate 7.1). For example, since Bulgaria’s uranium mines were a state secret, publicdebate about the health effects of mining and the shipment of ore in uncovered rail-cartson residents in nearby villages and on workers in the mines was virtually impossible(Searle and Power 1989:25). Until 1992 topographic maps were still classified documentsand penalties for their use, possession, and copying were severe. Under such constraints,how did the environmental movement succeed in becoming a national social and politicalmovement?

Sharp criticism of ecological problems in Bulgaria emerged publicly in July 1987. At anational ecology conference in Sofia on 1 July, organized by the National Committee forthe Protection of the Environment, several researchers revealed that:

The most severe sanctions known to have been imposed on polluting enterprisesare fines, but in 98 percent of cases courts refuse to fine offenders in accordancewith the law, mainly because managers have repeatedly circumventedenvironmental legislation in order to fulfill plan targets.

(Radio Free Europe Research 1987:13)

In the same year, criticism of government policy and of scholars emerged in Sofia, andenvironmental groups were formed demanding an open discussion of health problemscaused by heavy industry and a decentralization of the search for solutions. For example,the Civil Committee for the Ecological Defence of Ruse (later “Civil Initiative”) organizedwell-publicized protests in 1987 and 1988 in the city of Ruse, focused on toxic emissions

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from a Romanian chlorine and sodium plant which wafted over to the Bulgarian side ofthe Danube.7

In April 1989, Ecoglasnost was formed as a grassroots environmental movement andumbrella organization for independent organizations striving for “a democratic publicclimate and up-to-date ecological consciousness to challenge the stagnating monopolismand demoralizing command centralism in all spheres of social life having to do withecological problems” (Ecoglasnost n.d.; Pickles and the Bourgas Group 1993:172–3). Thegroup emerged to counter a reformist group of politicians who argued that change wouldbe best achieved within the old system by the gradual reform of the party and thecommand economy. This reformist position was the basis for the government’s ownmeasures to democratize central planning by devolving limited powers to the local andregional councils and to enterprises (Creed 1990:45–65, Pitassio 1989: 204–16).Ecoglasnost and the trade union federation Podkrepa, by contrast, advocated the abolitionof the old system and the turn to liberal democratic principles.

The major goals of Ecoglasnost were:

• free access to environmental information• protection of people’s health and safety• the change of the old system and the building of democracy.8

The Policy Statement of the Social Movement Ecoglasnost argued:

Plate 7.1 Opposition to environmental degradation took unexpected forms. This anti-developmentposter produced in the 1980s was used by the Committee on Environmental Protection in their1989 publication Man and Nature (Sofia)

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We should be aware of the fact that [bureaucratic functionaries] are usuallyentrapped in an all-embracing network of biased administrations, whose apparatusruns like a steam-roller OVER both environment and public opinion, as well asOVER the merely symbolic punitive sanctions applied by official environmentalprotection agencies. This calls for DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC CONTROL OVERECOLOGICAL POLICY.

Recognizing the need for ECOLOGICAL SELF-DEFENCE of the citizens, theparticipants in the movement ECOGLASNOST are resolved to unite their effortsfor a deep SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION. They see themajor strategic weapon of the struggle as FULL ECOLOGICAL GLASNOST,which is the precondition of the people’s control over the existing institutionalactivities.

(Ecoglasnost n.d., emphasis in original)

This constituted an explicit call for the building of a “radical democracy” based on citizenrights and citizen participation. Demands by the movement included the right to clean air,water, soil and foodstuffs, the abolition of classified data, full disclosure of nuclear dumpsites, medical information about the population, broader access to and dissemination ofinformation as it is collected, expansion of environmentally protected areas, new lawsgoverning the press reporting of environmental issues, freedom to travel and discussenvironmental issues, and changes in school curricula to include ecological education.

In early 1989 several other civic opposition groups emerged to challenge the hegemonyof the Communist Party and the central power of President Zhivkov in particular. TheLabor Confederation Podkrepa, the Committee for Religious Rights and Liberties, andthe 272 Committee, among others, arose alongside the environmental groups.Approximately fifty organizations formed during 1989, but by the end of the year themost important groups had joined together to form the Union of Democratic Forces(UDF) (Bell 1990:420). The UDF was extremely effective in organizing massdemonstrations in Sofia, and these demonstrations resulted in an agreement with theCommunist government to enter into televised round table discussions about the futureof the country and agreements to legalize political parties, to move towards multi-partyelections in 1990, and for the government to provide resources to the opposition presswith time on television to be given for debates between the candidates.

How do we account for the emergence and success of such democratic environmentalmovements, and how have these new social forces begun to affect both the body politicand the economy?

As we have seen in other parts of CEE, with the rise of new forms of democraticpolitics new structures of civil society emerged.9 Grassroots environmental movementsand the struggle over environment and health have been a central part of this democraticpolitics. Popular struggles and ecological defence have challenged crucial elements ofbureaucratic management, state-enterprise collusion, the destructive effects ofproductionist ideologies, and the inefficiencies of large state enterprises which are notaccountable to workers, the local community or the law. Through these struggles,emerging strong local democratic practices and institutions have been developed.

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By 1993 there were eighty-three formally registered environmental non-governmentalorganizations in the country, ranging from bird-watchers’ clubs to radical environmentalprotection groups. The proliferation of these NGOs under conditions of extremeeconomic difficulty reflected, in part, the reconstitution of a new regulatory environmentout of groups which had operated under the auspices of the state prior to 1989(restorative elements, but reworked for new circumstances). But it also reflected theformation of new groups based on a strengthening of the legal and social rights ofindividuals to act as political agents and groups: rights which may currently be more realthan legal, as the regulatory and legal framework within which individual and group rightsstill remains undeveloped. Consequently, civil groups were able to form and operate, andin some cases to carve out effective domains of action because of the absence of formalregulatory and legal frameworks to circumscribe or formally enable their actions. Thiswas also true of the emergence of new powers at the central government level.

Bulgarian social movements, NGOs, and the loss of political momentum

Initially, the environmental movement permitted a diverse array of political interests tomobilize around Ecoglasnost, and to present a common front to the government. Aspolitical life normalized after the ousting of Zhivkov in 1991, environmental groups beganto articulate independent agendas, new groups have arisen, new problems in the economyhave come to light, and the universal support previously given to the environmentalgroups has begun to diminish. Consequently, a shift has occurred within theenvironmental groups themselves.

While environmentalists entered the post-communist governments throughout CEE,Ecoglasnost refused to take part in government. As a result many of its politicallyambitious members left the movement (Baumgartl 1993:167). Another group formed apolitical wing of Ecoglasnost, which did take part in the 1990 parliamentary elections as amember of the UDF coalition, receiving 4 percent of the vote and nineteen seats in theparliament (the UDF as a whole received 35 percent of the vote and 111 seats). TheGreen Party of Bulgaria, which was founded in December 1989, received 3.25 percent ofthe vote and thirteen seats (Frankland 1995:336).

Ecoglasnost and other environmental NGOs, together with the Green Party,significantly contributed to the development of new environmental legislation after 1989.The new Ministry of the Environment was established in early 1990. The newconstitution, adopted in July 1991, provided for the right of all citizens to a healthyenvironment, and the new Environmental Protection Law enacted in October 1991 gavethe right to all citizens to access environmental information (Stec 1993:95, OECD 1996a:163–4). However, the number of parliamentary deputies from environmental parties andNGOs declined sharply after the 1991 national elections, from 9 percent of parliamentaryseats to 4 percent, and their influence declined accordingly (Georgieva 1993:86, Mindjov1995:27). The environmentalists in the parliament were also accused of being moreinterested in power than the environment (Georgieva 1993:77). However, several otherimportant successes were achieved. For example, strong opposition of environmental

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NGOs to construction of the Belene nuclear power plant forced the government toabandon the project in 1990. Other protests led to the suspension of plans to build theCherni Osam dam and divert the flow of Rila River to Sofia, and uranium mines wereshut down after the protests in 1992 (OECD 1996a:30).

Nonetheless, the mobilization of mass support has gradually become more difficultbecause of continued economic difficulties and the normalization of politics aroundparliamentary, council and informal structures of influence and power. Moreover,environmental groups have to deal with internal tensions resulting from their dual goal ofmobilization and democratic organization on the one hand, and the need to organizeresources to carry out research on environmental “hot spots” on the other hand. The 1991split within Ecoglasnost occurred along these lines, between the “hippies” and the“yuppies.” The former supported continued mass mobilization and political action; thelatter supported a withdrawal from politics and a concentration on building an effectivenon-governmental organization organized for ecological defence. While the former groupsought to extend networks of Ecoglasnost at the grassroots level, the latter group soughtto concentrate efforts on distancing itself from political parties in order to maintain andextend links with the emerging international agencies concerned with environmentalproblems, many of whom will only fund non-political NGOs.

A parallel shift has taken place in the Green Party (GP). In distinction to green partieselsewhere in Europe, the Bulgarian Green Party began to argue in 1991 that it was not asocial movement but was engaged in parliamentary politics. Ecoglasnost was seen by theGP as the social movement for the environment, whereas the domain of responsibleaction for the GP was in government. This was also partly a response to the size of thetask facing the new parties (from writing a constitution to writing laws governing everyaspects of social and economic regulation) and the limited resources available for suchwork. But the decision not to concentrate on mass mobilization and environmental andpolitical education through engaged practice became more significant when thisdelimitation of the Green Party’s activities to parliamentary politics was seen in the lightof Ecoglasnost’s own decision to reduce its own emphasis on popular action andgrassroots organization. The consequence was a loss of momentum in mobilizing thegrassroots democratic movement around environmental issues at the very time thatpopular support and expectations were high and just as economic conditions began todeteriorate rapidly.

One consequence of this normalization of politics, the adoption of a Western multi-partyand electoral system, the apparent shift from mass mobilization to the creation of atechnocratic NGO, and the weakening of the environmental movement nationally, hasbeen a loss of political momentum in environmental groups in the country generally (seeStaddon 1996 for a similar discussion of the fortunes of Green Patrol in southwestBulgaria). The turn away from grassroots organization to the formation of research cadresin the environmental movement has meant that popular struggles for ecological defence willin future be much less central to the democratic process than had previously been thecase. The failure in the 1991 elections of the Green Party to gain the necessary 4 percentof the vote to remain in Parliament was indicative of these shifts from popular to formalenvironmental politics.

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Immediately after the fall of the Zhivkov government in 1989, it appeared that strongenvironmental regulation would play an important role in mobilizing civil society andcreating strong and clear legal protections against environmental damage. Civil societywould again take up its pre-war role in promoting sustainable practices, this time throughnational legislation. Popular groups like Ecoglasnost would assure that environmentalproblems were the subject of extensive public discussion and that government officialslistened to their programs. Improved environmental conditions would be a high publicpolicy priority. And indeed, legislators did incorporate the right to a “healthy andfavorable environment” and citizens’ obligation to protect the environment into the newconstitution. And they passed legislation protecting citizens’ rights to information aboutthe environmentalconditions to which they are subjected (Friedberg and Zaimov 1994:247–8), making it easier for those affected by pollution to demand appropriate regulation(Pavlínek, Pickles, and Staddon 1994).

In the first half of the 1990s, however, significant changes occurred. As we have seen,like other Bulgarian political organizations, Ecoglasnost split into a number of political andnon-political groups and in the process lost much of its focus and clout. Further, part ofthe organization became a political partner of the anti-statist Union of Democratic Forces,prioritizing market development and privatization as the main means of improvingenvironmental conditions. At the same time, the great optimism which predicted rapidtransformation of centrally planned economies into (imagined) western-style consumerheavens was drowned in a sea of budget deficits, unemployment and discontinued socialservices. Long-term goals such as environmental sustainability have been replaced by back-of-envelope calculations about how to keep a city’s main employer afloat for anothermonth.

Under these conditions, the interests of the new Bulgarian state are not very differentfrom those of the old one: maximize export earnings, keep down industrial wages, ifnecessary by keeping down food prices, and worry about one year at a time. While theincreased levels of openness and democracy do mean that people can obtain moreinformation about the health and environmental consequences of production decisions andbetter pressure the state to protect their long-run health and economic welfare, there arefew social actors willing to take advantage of these opportunities. In a report on theenvironmental movement in Poland, one research center noted, people “prefer beingpoisoned slowly to losing their jobs and thus experiencing an immediate reduction in theirincome” (Manser 1993:93). The interests of individuals and the state again coincidearound the promotion of short-run growth.

Balancing “other needs”: Polish environmentalism and shocktherapy

Although the first green party established in CEE was founded in Poland in September1988, Polish environmentalists played a surprisingly insignificant role in the 1989 politicalchanges compared with countries such as Bulgaria, former Czechoslovakia and Hungary,and this despite the emergence of a relatively strong grassroots environmental movement

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in Poland in the 1980s when hundreds of independent environmental organizations andclubs formed (Frankland 1995:324).

The beginnings of an independent environmental movement were associated withsporadic public protests against environmental devastation, such as the marches against thepollution of the Baltic Sea in June 1981 and environmental demonstrations and marches inKraków. Many environmental groups formed under the umbrella of Solidarity (Hicks1996:123), and some like the Polish Ecological Club (founded in Kraków in September1980) were initially closely related to the independent trade union.

As in other countries of CEE, anti-government opposition groups used the environmentalcrisis to challenge the government (Kabala 1993a:62), but unlike those countries thePolish opposition elected not to use the environment as one of its major weapons againstthe state. As a result, the environment and issues of environmental management played arelatively small role in the economic reforms proposed by Solidarity in the early 1980sand before martial law in early 1982. The limited role given by Solidarity toenvironmental protection did not change very much after the Chernobyl disaster on 26April 1986, even though the disaster did lead to a substantial increase in environmentalactivism against the development of nuclear energy in Poland.10 Economic and politicalconcerns dominated the political opposition. Environmental mismanagement wasunderstood simply as an additional reason for political change, although independentenvironmental groups did receive support from Solidarity, they benefitted from itsunderground press and networks, and members of the Polish Ecological Club participatedin the round table talks (sub-table for ecology) between the government and Solidarity in1989 (Hicks 1996:123, 125–6, 129–31, 133–4).

As in other CEE countries, the environmental movement was fragmented (as was theentire political scene in Poland). Attempts by the Polish Party of Greens to unify themovement failed, as did their repeated efforts to win seats in parliamentary and localelections (Szacki et al. 1993:18).

Although the environment was a relatively high priority of the government in the late1980s (Rakowski’s government) and early 1990s, in 1990 a spokesperson for the Polishgovernment’s environment ministry could still argue that “right now, the environmenthas no priority, because there are so many other needs” (quoted in Jensen and Wilson-Smith 1990:54). The 1989 Balczerowicz’s program did include proposals forenvironmental improvement using economic policy (Slocock 1992:28), but neoliberalshock therapy launched in 1990 and designed with the help of foreign advisors andinternational financial institutions failed to address explicitly environmental managementissues at all (see Sachs 1990, 1992). Instead, it was expected that the introduction of amarket economy would “automatically” lead to environmental improvements since theworst polluters, as the least efficient ones, would be forced by market conditions torecapitalize or go out of business. New technologies and higher energy prices would besufficient mechanisms to clean up most air pollution (Economist 1990a: 54–6, 1992:29;GAO 1994:25).

In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a short period of relatively highenvironmental awareness, and during this period several important environmental lawswere enacted. For example, the law for the formation of a State Inspectorate for

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Environmental Protection and the National Environmental Policy were both approved byParliament in 1991 (Matuszewska and Spyrka 1995:79; Stec 1993: 111). Theenvironmental round table negotiations between Solidarity and the government in early1989 yielded a list of the worst polluting plants and it was agreed that these were to beclosed. Closing these polluters was one of the priorities of the Polish government in theearly 1990s. The National Environmental Policy document identified the eighty worstpolluting plants at the national leveland the 800 at the regional level that were supposed tobe closed or restructured. Closure and restructuring were, however, slow to occur anddeadlines were repeatedly extended by the government (Manser 1993:72–3).

As in other CEE countries, the environment quickly disappeared as a high priority issuefrom government priorities as the economic collapse associated with shock therapyundermined living standards and threatened political stability. As a result, the governmentand major political parties were preoccupied with economic issues and concern overenvironmental pollution diminished. Solidarity too lost interest in the environment in theearly 1990s. Some of its members became openly hostile to environmental issues, fearingthat environmental protection could undermine their jobs (Slocock 1992:30). As a result,the close relationship between the trade unions and environmental movements of the1980s was disrupted. As in Hungary and former Czechoslovakia, many environmentalistsbegan to work for the government and withdrew from environmental NGOs, furtherweakening them (Szacki et al. 1993:19). The public also shifted its attention away fromthe environmental crisis toward the growing economic crisis and unemployment (Slocock1992:31). Media coverage of environmental issues decreased, contributing to reducedpublic awareness of and interest in environmental activism. Thus by the early 1990s, two-thirds of the population in the most environmentally devastated areas were opposed to theclosure of polluting factories because this would lead to job losses and declining personalincomes. They were also against investments that would finance environmental clean-up(Manser 1993:92).

Neo-liberalism, healthy environments and the debate aboutpriorities in the Czech Republic

As in Poland, the 1989 November revolution in Czechoslovakia was preceded byenvironmental demonstrations. In Prague, five small demonstrations were organized inJune and July 1989 to protest plans to build a tunnel under one of the Prague’s largestparks (Stromovka). According to these plans, concentrated exhaust fumes would havebeen released directly into the park through a ventilation system. Environmentalistsargued that this would destroy many precious trees growing in the park. Theimplementation of the project was stopped after the revolution (Vaněk 1996:125–6).

In early 1989, four Prague mothers began to protest against increasing levels of airpollution in the city and the inefficiency of a “smog decree” enacted by the city in 1988.They argued that the number of children with respiratory diseases was growing rapidlybecause of increasing air pollution. These women were soon joined by other mothers,who formed the movement called the Prague Mothers. The movement organized severalenvironmental demonstrations of mothers with their small children in buggies in front of

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Prague’s city hall and in the pedestrian areas of the city center during 1989 (Nika 1996:6).

One such demonstration took place on 29 May 1989 involving about thirty motherswith fifty children. The Prague Mothers collected signatures for a petition asking forinformation about the quality of the environment. They alsoprotested against theconstruction of the Gabčíkovo-Nagyamaros dam on the Danube at the Slovak-Hungarianborder, construction of nuclear power plants, industrial pollution of the cities, the tunnelunder Stromovka and construction of the lift on the highest Czech peak, Sněžka. As withsimilar demonstrations throughout the region, the police were not able to use theirtraditional methods such as water canons and beating to disperse demonstrators becauseof the presence of women and children.11

In Teplice, environmental demonstrations took place one week before studentdemonstrations began in Prague. On 11 November 1989, about 1,000 demonstrators,some equipped with gas masks, marched through the heavily polluted town to the districtheadquarters of the Communist Party shouting “We want clean air!”, “Oxygen!” and “Wewant healthy children!” Similar demonstrations continued for the next three days. Thepolice were totally unprepared to face the demonstrators on the first day of protest, but inthe subsequent demonstrations police clashed with demonstrators using water canons anddogs to disperse them (Pavlík 1996:59; Vaněk 1996:130–1). Similar smallerdemonstrations took place in other polluted northern Bohemian towns: in Litvínov on 15November, in Most on 16 November, and in the town of Děčín on 17 November 1989(Vaněk 1996: 131–2).

Following the 1989 revolution, the environment became an important priority for thenew Czechoslovak government. During this period, both the enthusiasm of thegovernment for rapid environmental clean-up and public awareness of environmentalproblems were high. The Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic was establishedin 1990.12 At the federal level, the Federal Committee for the Environment (FCE) wascreated after the parliamentary elections in the summer 1990. The FCE was designed as acoordination committee for the environmental efforts of various governmental ministriesand institutions. Josef Vavroušek, who became the FCE chairman, was a typical ecologicalactivist with a dissident background and employed many ecologists in the FCE who, priorto the 1989 revolution, had constituted the core of the semi-official environmentalmovement.

The goal of the FCE was to rebuild and further develop the government’s role inenvironmental management based on recent parliamentary legislation and underconditions of an emerging market economy. The FCE also saw its role as increasingenvironmental awareness, providing accurate information about environmental quality,sustaining and extending the new monitoring system, supporting environmental NGOs,and fostering cooperation with Western and other Eastern European countries in the fieldof environmental management and protection. The post-1989 federal governmentsupported these activities. Throughout its existence, however, the work of the FCE washindered by internal divisions between Czech and Slovak commission members, and thesedivisions became more pronounced as tensions over the break-up of Czechoslovakiaincreased.13

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Post-1989 environmental euphoria lasted only until the middle of 1991 (Jehlička andKára 1993:13–14). After that, economic concerns regained their priority as the countrybegan to feel the effects of shock therapy introduced in January 1991. Inthe Czechoslovakgovernment, the proponents of fast environmental clean-up lost ground in their struggleswith supporters of a more pragmatic liberal view of the environment. Theenvironmentalists, led by the FCE chairman Josef Vavroušek, emphasized the need to tackleenvironmental problems first and even at the expense of short-term economic growth.The liberals, led by then the federal finance minister and later the Prime Minister of theCzech Republic Václav Klaus, maintained that only successful economic transformationwould create favorable conditions for solving the environmental crisis. By mid-1992 theliberal view of the environment had prevailed amid rapidly declining economic outputassociated with shock therapy. Environmentalists lost their positions in the governmentafter the 1992 parliamentary elections and in the same year the FCE was abolished(Pavlínek 1997:102).

One indicator of environmental euphoria during the 1989 revolution was theestablishment of the Green Party in former Czechoslovakia. The Green Party was foundedin Prague on 21 November 1989, just four days after the first student demonstration thatbegan the revolution. The speed with which the Party was established is surprising giventhe chaotic nature of late November 1989 in Prague. Another surprising fact is that it wasestablished by people who were not previously active environmentalists. These facts led toaccusations that the Green Party was orchestrated by the still communist secret police inthe Czech Republic, particularly in Prague (the situation in Slovakia was different)(Jehlička and Kostelecký 1992:74, 1991:6–9, 1995:228; Chorváthová 1996: 76).Another green party called the Green Alternative (Zelená alternativa) was established inPrague in December 1989. As in the case of the Green Party, the founding members ofthe Green Alternative did not include any recognized environmentalists but the GreenAlternative claimed to be completely independent of political forces (Jehlička andKostelecký 1991:7).

Unlike the situation in Hungary and Poland, environmental awareness among theCzech population did not decline dramatically after 1989 and in many ways ran counter tothe government’s perception of the importance of the issue. At the national level,between 1992 and 1994, the environment consistently ranked high among the “very orrather urgent problems” facing the country, together with crime, living standards,economic reform and health care (Brcha ová and Hrušková 1994:3). Support forenvironmental issues certainly did decline, but remained relatively high: in 1990 83percent of citizens claimed that it was “very important” for them “to live in a healthyenvironment”, by 1991 this number was 76 percent and by 1992 67 percent (REC 1995a:43). Based on opinion polls conducted in the Czech Republic in 1994, only 17 percent ofthe 800 respondents prioritized economic prosperity over the environment, 40 percentprioritized the environment over economic prosperity, and 35 percent thought that botheconomic prosperity and the environment were equally important for them (LN 1994a:9). In environmentally devastated regions, such as the Most District of NorthernBohemia, local citizens considered the poor quality of the environment to be by far themost important single problem they had to face in the near future (Pavlínek 1997:334–6).

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However, this environmental awareness did not translate into votes for the GreenParty during the national elections. In the June 1990 elections the Green Party won only4.1 percent of the vote for the Czech Parliament and 3.3 percent for the FederalParliament in the Czech Republic (Jehlička and Kostelecký 1991: 15). As a result theparty failed to enter the Czech and Federal Parliament. Support for the party wassurprisingly low, even in the most environmentally devastated districts of northernBohemia. The strongest level of support attained was only 9 percent in the district ofChomutov (ibid.: 17). As a part of a three-party coalition, the Green Party won threeparliamentary seats in the Czech Parliament and three in the Federal Parliament duringthe 1992 parliamentary elections. At the same time, however, the Green Party lost two-thirds of its members who objected to the dubious coalition for various reasons (seeJehlička and Kostelecký 1995:225–9). Plagued by internal disputes, membership losses,marginality and overall disintegration, the Czech Greens failed to become a parliamentaryparty during both the 1996 and 1998 parliamentary elections and any electoral supportthey might have had vanished.14 Nonetheless, popular support for specific environmentalissues remained strong, as the case of the cement industry in Tma illustrates.

Case study: foreign investment, the cement industry and environmentaldegradation in the Czech Republic

The efforts to build a new cement factory close to the Czech Karst Preserve became one ofthe rallying points for the emerging Czech environmental movement after 1989. This casealso illustrates the role of state socialist legacies after 1989 and potential negativeenvironmental effects of foreign direct investment in the region.

The original project to build a new cement factory close to the village of Tma , justoutside the Czech Karst Preserve, was first proposed in the early 1970s. The projectwould involve a substantial increase in limestone mining and the production of lime andcement to supply Czechoslovak and CMEA markets. The proposed cement factory wassupposed to replace the existing facility located between the towns of Králův Dvůr andBeroun (the Královodvorská Cement Works or Královodvorská cementárna—KDC).Although construction was to begin no later than 1985, concerns about the environmentaleffects of the proposed cement factory were raised in an ecological study completed in1983, and this led to a new plan to modernize the existing KDC facility.

The idea of locating the new cement factory close to the village of Tma reemergedafter 1989. In 1992, the Královodvorská Cement Works formed a joint venture with theGerman firm Heidelberger Zement AG which eventually acquired 100 percent of KDC’sshares in December 1993. Also, the nearby Čertovy schody Lime Works formed a jointventure with the Belgian firm Lhoist SA and later the Čertovy schody Quarry formed ajoint venture with a foreign partner too (one half is owned by the Heidelberger ZementAG through the KDC and a large portion of shares is also owned by Lhoist SA). TheHeidelbergerZement AG promised to invest DM 366 million to finance the constructionof a new large cement factory close to the village of Tma and planned to export morethan one-third of the factory’s cement production.

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After conducting the environmental impact assessment, the Czech MoE refused toapprove the construction in August 1993. However, under Czech law the Ministry’sdecision is not binding. Construction was approved by the Beroun District Office, whosedecision is binding. Indirectly, construction was supported by the Ministry of Economyand the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The subsequent struggle over the new cement factory involved not only the companyand the state but also citizens from the surrounding communities, several environmentalNGOs (Children of the Earth, the Rainbow Movement, the Prague Mothers, Friends ofthe Earth), and several academics. Opposition was based primarily on the environmentalimplications of building the proposed cement factory, located close to the Čertovy schodyQuarry itself in the Czech Karst Preserve. The factory was to be built only severalhundred meters outside the Czech Karst Preserve. The Čertovy schody Quarry is thelargest limestone quarry in the Czech Republic and is already responsible for seriousenvironmental devastation of the region. Mining limits were set at 4 million tonnes oflimestone annually in the 1970s and have not changed since 1989.

At the end of 1997, Prague’s supreme court ruled that both the Ministry of Economyand the Beroun District office that approved construction of the factory followed illegalprocedures during the approval process. As a result, the court ruled against constructionof the new cement factory. Five months later, in May 1998, the director of theCzechomoravian Cement (owned by the Heidelberger Zement AG, the KDC is one of itsplants in the Czech Republic) announced that the company had decided not to build thecement factory and that it would rather modernize the existing facility between the townsof Králův Dvůr and Beroun. The director argued that the decision was based on severalfactors: the original project had become outdated, land ownership at the proposed site hadchanged, and the continuous campaign against the factory by environmental NGOs madethe project unfeasible (Kvasničková 1994a, 1994b, Baroch 1998a).

Environmentalism as politics by other means: the case ofHungary

In Hungary, environmental movements also played a major role in the demise of statesocialism, contributing substantially to anti-government feelings among the generalpublic. Sporadic and isolated local environmental protests took place in the 1970s andincreasingly in the 1980s. For example, lead poisoning caused by lead contamination fromBudapest’s Metallokémia company led in 1978 to local public outrage at Nagytétény, asouthern industrial suburb of Budapest. A decade later in the summer of 1989, severalNagytétény activists formed a local environmental group, Green Future, to addressenvironmental problems in their district such as pollution from Metallokémia, ChinoinPharmaceutical and large pig farms, and the plans to construct a ring road aroundBudapest that would cut through a densely populated housing estate in the district(Pickvance 1998:76–83). In 1980, in the town of Vác, people complained aboutcontamination of drinking water by improperly stored hazardous wastes by the ChinoinPharmaceutical company. In 1984, in Ajka the glass factory workers protested againstexcessive solid emissions from the power plant in the town. The same year, the

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inhabitants of Dorog opposed plans to build a hazardous waste incinerator in the city(Szirmai 1993:150, Enyedi and Szirmai 1998:150). In 1987, a local group began toorganize to oppose construction of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in thevillage of Ofalu in southern Hungary. The protest culminated in a large demonstration inthe spring of 1989. The government subsequently abandoned the project (Juhasz, Vari andTolgyesi 1993:228–32).

In the mid-1980s the movement against the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros project on theDanube developed into a major anti-governmental opposition group led by the DanubeCircle that brought together other social and political groups.15 Public support forenvironmental issues was strong: in 1988, 62 percent of Hungarians believed thatenvironmental protection ought to have priority over production issues and 36 percentsaw the environment as the most important concern (Persanyi 1993: 137). The success ofthe environmental movement in stopping the Hungarian part of the project and thesignificant role it played in the collapse of the state socialist regime in Hungary was, in thelonger term, self-destructive. The overall importance of the environmental movementdeclined as its leadership gradually disintegrated and public support evaporated. After1989 the leaders of the Danube Circle and other environmental opposition groups beganto pursue new goals and careers, taking jobs in the new government and in newly formedenvironmental organizations, new political parties or private research organizations(Hajba 1994:184–6).

The Danube Circle was Hungary’s leading environmental organization and itsdisintegration has negatively affected the entire environmental movement in the country.With the exception of the Danube Circle, the environmental movement was actuallyquite poorly developed: existing groups were small and they had very little influence orpublic support (Salay 1990:27). The Hungarian Green Party, established in November1989, failed to transform initially high public environmental awareness into votes duringthe March 1990 parliamentary elections, receiving only 0.37 percent of the final vote(Frankland 1995:327). As a result, the overall importance of the environmentalmovement greatly diminished and its ability to influence the course and direction of thetransformation were negligible. The public, which had previously supported theenvironmental movement, became preoccupied with political and economic problems(Kabala 1991b:15, Salay 1990: 27). One plausible explanation for this sudden change inpublic support for environmental issues is that environmental protests served primarily asa vehicle for the expression of popular discontent with the existing system. When thesystem collapsed, environmental protest and its support lost their significance among thepublic (Persanyi 1993:141). By early 1992 few Hungarians thought that the environmentshould be a major national priority (Okolicsanyi 1992:67).

Although the influence of the environmental movement declined rapidly,environmental problems were recognized as an important national issue by all parties inthe first free parliamentary elections in 1990 (Salay 1990:25–6). Initially therewassignificant support for the environment in the new Hungarian government. In 1990, thegovernment opened the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe(REC). REC was largely financed and partly staffed from the West but the support of theHungarian government was also substantial; the US government and the European

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Community allocated $5 million each and Austria and Hungary allocated $1 million each(Kabala 1991b:15). In the same year, the Ministry of Social Welfare’s Public Health andDisease Office closed down the Metallokémia factory in Budapest. The factory recycledcar batteries and produced toxic waste that polluted the area around the factory.However, this was the only case where the government took radical action against a chronicpolluter and similar actions against other chronic polluters did not materialize(Okolicsanyi 1992:67). The government did not keep its promise to introduce forestryprotection and new legislation to deal with the safe disposal of hazardous waste. The firstfreely elected Hungarian parliament also failed to address environmental issues despite itsinitial commitment to introduce effective environmental protection policies (Hajba 1994:180, 187).

In 1991 the existing Ministry for Environmental Protection and Water Management,originally established only in 1987, was reorganized into the Ministry for EnvironmentalProtection and later into the Ministry of Environment and Regional Policy, but it wascriticized for being no better than the one existing under state socialism (Okolicsanyi1992:69; Reeves 1995:71, Erdey and Karcza 1996:75). Legal experts began to draft a newcomprehensive environmental law in 1991 but the process was a protracted one and thelaw was not finished until 1995 (Stec 1993:103; Woodard 1995:62; Bowman and Hunter1992:949–52; MERP 1995). This delay in legislative action reflected the decliningimportance of environmental concerns in the government in the early 1990s despitecriticism by the opposition parties (Okolicsanyi 1992:69; Enyedi and Szirmai 1998:151).When the opposition won the 1994 parliamentary elections the newly appointedenvironmental minister, Ferenc Baja from the Hungarian Socialist Party, argued thatenvironmental protection was a priority issue within the economic program of theSocialist Party. The new government planned to increase environmental expenditures(from 0.5 to 1 percent up to 1.5 to 2 percent of Hungarian GDP) (MERP 1994a:8).Overall, however, all post-1990 governments showed little interest in the environment,political agendas were dominated by economic concerns (Pickvance 1998:149), and theenvironmental movement became fragmented and marginalized (Enyedi and Szirmai 1998:152).

Environmentalism and nationalism in Slovakia

In Slovakia, Public Against Violence (PAV) was the leading anti-government movement toemerge during the 1989 revolution in Slovakia, and was largely based on theenvironmental movement formed in Slovakia in the 1980s. The authors and editors ofBratislava/nahlas (Bratislava/aloud), which in 1987 had independently and criticallyevaluated environmental conditions in Slovakia, became the founding members of thePAV. Through them the environmentalmovement substituted for the lack of a well-organized political opposition against state socialism. This role as the center of anti-government resistance and in the 1989 revolution was comparable with the role of thecivil rights movements Charta 77 in the Czech Republic (Budaj 1994:107). The membersof the environmental movement were the largest and best organized group during the“velvet revolution” and became its organizers and leaders (Tatár 1994:107). The

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revolutionary committee of the PAV was originally located on the premises of the SlovakUnion of Nature and Landscape Protectors and the members of the environmentalmovement accounted for more than half of the revolutionary leadership in Slovakia (Huba1996a:283–4; Gál 1994:108). Podoba (1998:129) has even called the revolution inSlovakia the “green velvet revolution” to reflect the prominent role the environmentalmovement played during the 1989 collapse of the state socialist regime. Several membersof the environmental movement were elected to the Slovak and federal Czechoslovakparliament in the 1990 Czechoslovak parliamentary elections (Huba 1994:117).

The Slovak Green Party was established on 28 November 1989 as one of the firstpolitical parties to emerge in Slovakia during the 1989 revolution. The main priority ofthe party was to protect the environment using political means. Unlike the Czech Greens,the Slovak Green Party was founded by active members of the pre-1989 environmentalmovement. In February 1990, the regional Green Party organizations from Slovakia andthe Czech Republic established a national organization with relatively strong publicsupport. According to pre-election polls, 16 percent of potential voters supported theGreen Party (18 percent in the Czech Republic). However, this initial enthusiasmdeclined rapidly and the party received only 3.5 percent of the actual vote during the June1990 parliamentary elections. The party did exceed the 3 percent threshold for enteringthe Slovak Parliament, giving it six deputies (four of them were members of the GreenParty and two were the members of the Slovak Union of Nature and LandscapeProtectors) (Chorváthová 1996:76, Škodný 1996:77).

Rapidly declining political support for the Green Party before the 1990 parliamentaryelections illustrates the changing fortunes of environmentalism in Slovakia after therevolution. The degree of environmental awareness among the public was high during andshortly after the revolution. According to opinion polls at the time, the environment wasthe main priority for the majority of Slovak citizens until May 1990. Subsequently publicenvironmental awareness dropped sharply and by October 1990 only 7 percent of Slovaksconsidered the environment to be the top priority facing the government (Huba 1996a:284). As in the case of other CEE countries, the environment served as an anti-communist platform that briefly united the public and different political leaders during therevolution. During the struggle, environmental politics provided new and effective spacesfor action for different political interests. After the collapse of the state socialist regime,the growing importance and publicity of other issues (such as growing nationalism,economic and social problems and a sharp increase in crime) overshadowed theimportance of the environment in Slovakia.

As in other countries of CEE, however, this initial period of environmentaleuphoria,though short-lived, was extremely important: new environmental institutions wereestablished or completely reorganized and new environmental legislation was enacted.Despite declining fortunes, popular struggles for environmental justice transformed thepolitical terrain on which governments had to operate. Slovakia benefitted from processestaking place at both the federal level of the former Czechoslovakia and the national levelof Slovakia. Many environmental laws passed at the federal level during this period werelater adopted by Slovakia after independence. The Slovak Commission for theEnvironment (SCE) was established as a central governmental environmental body in

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1990. Other governmental environmental institutions, subordinated to the SCE, werealso established such as the Slovak Environmental Inspectorate, the Slovak EnvironmentalProtection Agency, and the Slovak Fund for the Environment.

As in the case of the Czech Republic, the period after the revolution was one in whichthe environment was perceived as a priority, especially by the government of “nationalunderstanding.” As in the Czech Republic, economic and social concerns graduallyregained priority. In June 1990 the program presented by the first freely electedgovernment led by Vladimír Mečiar reflected the diminishing importance ofenvironmental issues among Slovak politicians. The shift of attention toward economicand social issues was associated with the extreme rapidity with which the effects of shocktherapy and economic transformation were felt. Slovakia was much harder hit by aneconomic transformation orchestrated from Prague than was Czechoslovakia as a whole.Production declines were sharper and unemployment rates were much higher in Slovakiathan in the Czech Republic (Pavlínek 1995:361–5).

During this period, Slovak nationalism became the dominant political ideology inSlovakia, with serious consequences for the environmental movement. Nationalismundermined the relative political success achieved by environmentalists in the 1990elections. The Greens were divided along nationalist lines between supporters of anindependent Slovakia and defenders of the Czechoslovak federation. Once in parliament,all but one Green Party deputies joined the nationalist platform and promoted nationalistideology at the expense of environmental parliamentary advocacy. As a result, tiesbetween the Green Party leadership and the environmental movement weakenedconsiderably during 1991. Eventually internal disputes led to the break up of the GreenParty into the nationalist Slovak Green Party and the pro-federal Green Party. Internaldisputes, nationalist orientation and the fragmentation of the Greens undermined politicalenvironmentalism in Slovakia in the early 1990s. The pro-federal Greens disappeared fromthe Slovak political scene after their electoral failure in the 1992 parliamentary elections,as did the Slovak Green Party (Podoba 1998:131–2; Snajdr 1998:55).

Political marginalization was just one of several negative consequences of nationalismand populism on the environmental movement in the early 1990s. Other effects have beenequally devastating. For example, resistance toward the restructuring of heavy industry(the armaments industry in particular) became acenterpiece of the nationalist propaganda(Pavlínek 1995:364). These industries had almost invariably been the most seriouspolluters and environmentalists had, as a consequence, supported their rapid restructuringwhich they believed would lead toward cleaner production or the closure of some majorpolluters such as the infamous aluminum smelter at Žiar nad Hronom. However, thepopulist Slovak government, strongly supported by the nationalists, chose to defend andfinancially support many monuments of state socialist gigantomania which oddly becamesymbols of Slovak national identity and pride after 1989. Podoba (1998: 138) has arguedthat “in this respect nationalistic propaganda has adopted central features of Communistrhetoric, with the phrase anti-Communist now replaced by ‘anti-Slovak’ or ‘anti-national’.”

Similarly, environmentalists fighting against the construction of the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros dam on the Danube were labeled anti-Slovak. In 1991, the democratic

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government used more aggressive media attacks against the environmentalists than thecommunist government had done after the publication of Bratislava/nahlas in 1987. Thegovernment did not even hesitate to use special anti-terrorist police units to disperse apeaceful demonstration of environmentalists and their supporters against the dam in thesummer of 1991 (Podoba 1998:140–1). The struggle against the construction of theMochovce nuclear power plant represents another example of the government and mediadefending a state socialist monument as a symbol of Slovak nationalism regardless of itsenvironmental impacts. Greenpeace Slovakia, which represents the new generation ofenvironmentalists in the country, staged a non-violent protest at the Mochovce plant in July1994. After the incident, Slovak newspapers described it as an act of “terrorism”, accusingGreenpeace Slovakia of organizing “terrorist activities” and “anti-propaganda” againstSlovakia (Snajdr 1998:54–5, 58). The government withdrew its financial support for thetraditional environmental organizations such as the Slovak Union of Nature and LandscapeProtectors and the Tree of Life (Strom života) in the early 1990s. A desperate lack offunding has further weakened the environmental movement, and remains a seriousobstacle for the work of both the traditional environmental NGOs and the developmentof newly emerging environmental groups such as For Mother Earth (Za Matku Zem)(Podoba 1998: 132; Snajdr 1998:61).

After the 1992 elections and the abolition of the Federal Committee for theEnvironment, the Slovak Commission for the Environment was renamed the “Ministry ofthe Environment” and became the central governmental institution responsible forenvironmental management (Huba 1996a:287). During this period, the development ofcomprehensive environmental management slowed considerably. The government ofPrime Minister Vladimír Mečiar considered environmental management to be a lowpriority, and in fact its policies toward the environment were described by some as“ignorant” (Huba 1994:125, see also Huba 1996a:287–8). It remains to be seen whateffects the defeat of Mečiar and his party in the Fall 1998 parliamentary elections will haveon the environmental movement in Slovakia.

Environmentalism without origins: the case of Romania

The situation in Romania differed from other countries of CEE because there was almostno independent environmental movement before the 1989 revolution. The Stalinist regimeof Nicolae Ceau escu prevented the development of any real opposition, including theindependent environmental movements. The only exception was the RomanianDemocratic Action movement (RDA) founded in 1985, an anti-government oppositiongroup that was not specifically environmental. In 1986 the RDA released the “Greenreport” that described the serious environmental conditions in the country (Frankland1995:333, Fisher 1993:94).

The environmental movement emerged only during the Fall 1989 revolution but, as inother CEE countries, it was fragmented from the beginning. In December 1989 theRomanian Ecological Movement (REM), the Romanian Ecological Party (REP) and theEcological Humanist Party were established. Other newly emerged environmental

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movements and parties included the National Ecological Party, the Ecological DemocraticParty, the Ecological Youth in Romania, and the Federation of the Ecologists in Romania(Jordan and Tomasi 1994:165). During the May 1990 parliamentary elections, the REPand REM won eight and twelve seats respectively out of a total of 396 seats in theRomanian Parliament Chamber of Deputies and each party gained a seat in the Senate.Together these two parties attracted 4.05 percent of the total vote (591,000 votes) (Pehe1990:37, Frankland 1995:333; Turnock 1993:159). The REM, which gained 359,000votes in the 1990 parliamentary elections, advocated a liberal rather than ecologicalplatform. The party believed that environmental reconstruction could be quickly achievedthrough rapid privatization and the introduction of a free market economy. This was acommon philosophy in the majority of Romanian green parties and movements emergingafter 1989, with the exception of the REP. The REP, which was closely affiliated with theruling National Salvation Front, gained 232,000 votes during the elections. It has beenargued that the REP was established mainly to split the opposition. Its electoral successwas largely attributed to its much better location on the actual election ballot with eightydifferent parties. It is thought that many voters were confused and cast their vote for theREP instead of the intended REM (Jordan and Tomasi 1994:165–6). The governmentregarded the environment as one of its top priorities. The Ministry of Water, Forests andEnvironmental Protection was established at the beginning of 1990 (Lesnic 1995:89).

The relative political success of Greens in Romania compared with other CEEcountries immediately after 1989 is indicated by the fact that one of the REM leaders,Marcian Bleahu, became the environment minister. However, public environmentalawareness and political support for green parties also declined rapidly in Romania. Thegreen parties did not do well in the 1992 local and national elections and their politicalinfluence further decreased in 1993 (Frankland 1995:334). Nevertheless, the REM wassuccessful in several polluted medium-sized cities such as Zlatna, Bistri a and Suceavawhere REM members became mayors. The National Ecological Party, which did not getenough votesto enter parliament in 1990, did relatively well in the 1992 local elections. Theparty was in a position to nominate the mayor in Baia Mare, a heavily polluted industrialcenter (Jordan and Tomasi 1994:166). By 1995 only REP was represented in theParliament (Lesnic 1995:91).

Although the political influence of the environmental movement and Green partiesdeclined, the early 1990s was an extremely important period for the Romanianenvironment. Environmentally devastating projects initiated by the Ceau escu regime,such as the plans to industrialize and channel the Danube Delta or to drastically reducenumber of villages and consolidate rural settlement, were canceled (see Mainland 1991:237–40; Turnock 1993:145–7, 152). Several chronic polluters, such as the cementfactory at Bra ov and the industrial polluters in Giurgiu, were closed (Turnock 1993:155;Lesnic 1995:89). A new system of environmental protection and monitoring wasestablished in the early 1990s and new environmental NGOs were formed (Lesnic 1995:89–93).

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The future of environmental activism and environmentalmanagement

In Bulgaria the deepening economic crisis since 1989, exacerbated by the absence of clearnational policy and the rapid adoption of market-oriented mechanisms, created problemsfor the environmental and democratic movements. New forms of economic power arosein the interregnum, capturing the discursive terrain of the public imagination and thepublic spaces of its display. The public sphere is now one in which images of highconsumerism are juxtaposed with discourses of “bread and butter” politics. These twotogether have squeezed environmental concerns out of the public arena, and now threatenthe emerging civil structures which are so central to effective democratic andenvironmental politics. The deepening economic crisis has also had a weakening impact onthe emergence of an independent policy arena within Bulgaria, and has favored a (re)assertion of a culture in which solutions are sought from the outside and from technicalexperts. In these circumstances, international agencies and foreign governmental bodieshave been surprisingly influential in the formulation of public and environmental policy,and correspondingly Bulgarians have been surprisingly eager to accept those policyrecommendations.

The conjuncture of new challenges and old powers, the difficulty of putting newregulations in place, the emergence of new political forces, and the problems for theenvironmental movement arising out of economic crisis must also be situated in a broadertheoretical and geographical perspective of international restructuring and the emergenceof new forms of production, new regulatory environments, and new challenges toenvironmental politics.

The modern future that will emerge for the new democracies of CEE is not yet clear.Will an economy emerge which produces any social surplus at all or will countries likeBulgaria emerge with economies and societies in perpetual crisis? If economic growth canoccur, will it permit the development of a Keynesian social welfare state, in which socialmarkets are protected, regulations are institutionalizedto protect health and the workingday, and to provide insurance and decent wages? Or will post-communist Europe emergeinto a postmodern world of deregulated markets and fast capitalism, in which speculationin property, services (such as tourism), and finance capital has higher priority thaninvestment in production?

It has been clear for some time that economic crises have substantially weakenedenvironmental movements throughout the region and that the “normalization” of politicallife has effectively closed off spaces for a radical politics of civil or environmental action.But these two processes are only partial explanations for the changes taking place in CEE.It is to a third element that we now return: the role of changing social forces and the rapidshifts in political space within the country.

The emergence of an open civil sphere and the appropriation of public spaces by theopposition movements of 1989 had by 1993 been rapidly transformed into a politics ofmanagement. However, in this three- to four-year period new social identities emergedand their effects on public debate has yet to be clarified. In particular, the longer term

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impacts of the opening of new subject positions, and the creation of what Chantal Moufe(1992) has called nodal points of political action, remain unclear.

At one level, the oppositional politics and subject positions that produced the publicrealm and public spaces after 1989 have gradually become more and more focused ontaking over control of the state apparatus. At another level, those parts of the stateapparatus and those social forces that supported social change before 1989 have reassertedthemselves and in reconfigured form have begun to close down some of the spaces forcivil action and expression. Aided by economic difficulties, current post-communistpolities are characterized as much by a civil society (and official state policy) of incipientchauvinism and real ethnic conflict as they are by a blossoming of new identities and newforms of civic action, as much by fear of war as by an onslaught against pollution at home,as much by a struggle to “get mine” as by a concerted public debate about economictransformation and sustainable futures, as much by a reassertion of patriarchal constraintsas by a debate about the differential hardships created within the family by economichardships and poor environmental health.

In these new spaces of restoration and transformation, the environmental politics of1989 seems to have become a formal element of political life and an absent issue inpractical politics. Management of the economy and cleaning up the environment nowseem to be firmly in the hands of the state, albeit more firmly controlled by localgovernments. The environmental movement seems to be in shambles, and manyenvironmentalists seem to be more fully embedded in state politics than in environmentalpolitics. In these new circumstances the extension of the spaces of civil society, especiallysocial movements supporting a clean environment, remains a complex and ambiguousissue.

A citizens’ politics of environment certainly emerged under earlier forms of centralizedand bureaucratic administration. In the new circumstances environmental quality has beenameliorated in the worst hot spots, many of the mostvisible forms of pollution have beeneradicated, and for many conditions have improved. In the long run it may well be theintense desire of CEE politicians to enter into formal relations with the EU that bringsabout the biggest change in environmental policies and practices in the region, as for exampleEU mandates on food quality and agricultural practices are met for export crops. At theopposite end of the spectrum, we simply do not yet know what the effects of severeeconomic crises are on the land management practices of Central and Eastern Europeans.It is to these emerging frameworks of legal and social regulation that we now turn.

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190

8Environmental legislation and policy

Regulatory successes and strong opposition

Introduction

Since 1989 there have been real improvements in the development and content of newenvironmental legislation and, to a limited extent, the enforcement of existing laws andregulations throughout CEE. From the 1960s on, state socialist countries actually enactedvery good environmental legislation, and in many cases pollution limits were muchstricter than those of Western European countries. However, for the most partgovernments were unable, or chose not, to enforce the existing environmentallegislation. Economic concerns received higher priority and the need to fulfill plannedproduction quotas was usually more important than the need to protect the environment.The state found itself in a paradoxical situation: it was supposed to enforce theenvironmental legislation on its own industrial enterprises which would negatively affectthe fulfilment of planned production targets. Incentives for enterprises to comply withenvironmental laws were small; penalties for exceeding pollution limits were low andfines were paid out of budgets supplied by the central ministries. As a result, existingenvironmental legislation was largely ineffective and did not prevent the deterioration ofenvironment quality during the state socialist period.

The period after 1989 has been typified by efforts to develop new environmentallegislation or to update the existing laws in ways that support the needs of emergingmarket economies and regulate the environmental impacts of private property regimes. Ofall the changes in CEE since 1989, this process of legal and regulatory reform has beenparticularly important for environmental policy because of the ways in which so manyissues governing everyday life have been (in some cases completely) rewritten. Inproperty law, regulations governing transactions and contracts, in laws and regulations onlocal and regional governance, on state finances, and on environmental regulation andjurisdiction, wholesale revisions of the legal codes and regulations have occurred.

At the same time, CEE countries have been developing and updating mechanisms thatwould enforce these laws. No CEE countries completely abandoned the environmentallegislation developed under state socialism. Few environmental laws were drafted entirelyfrom scratch, and instead, many were only revised and updated. Similarly, the majority ofeconomic instruments originallyintroduced under state socialism but never actually

enforced were in many cases incorporated into the new environmental policies after theirrevisions.1 The entire process has been driven not only by the efforts to improve thequality of the environment in the region, but also by the attempts to bring theenvironmental legislation closer into line with European Union standards: a crucial issuein any understanding of contemporary environmental politics in CEE, since oneprecondition for EU membership is compliance and enforced environmental policy andstandards.

Under state socialism, existing environmental laws and regulations were very good butthey were not enforced, staff and monitoring equipment were lacking, and regulationsand laws codified in a system in which enforcement and sanction were not practicallypossible without an independent judiciary meant that regulators were restricted to usingpersuasion, influence and nominal fines to persuade polluters to desist. Interestingly, inall reforming countries, while some minimal efforts to improve enforcement haveoccurred, national level enforcement agencies have actually lost personnel, budget, andjurisdiction as a result of institutional and fiscal reorganization. It is not yet clear what thiswill mean for environmental policy in the future.

Efforts to rewrite state socialist environmental legislation began immediately followingthe collapse of communist governments in all CEE countries. Environmental awarenesswas high and the role of environmentalists and environmental movements in bringingabout the political transition and in the governmental institutions was strong, especiallyduring the short period of environmental euphoria after the revolution. But—as we sawin the previous chapter—the pace of change slowed as economic difficulties deepened andas major pieces of new or amended environmental legislation were enacted by nationalparliaments.

Marketization and democratization have made it possible to overcome the biggestobstacles that prevented state socialist environmental policies from being effective: thenew legislative environment should allow the co-ordination of environmental and economicpolicies through the introduction of enforcement and incentive mechanisms that weremissing in the centrally planned economy (CPE); and the democratization of societyshould allow the public to protest against polluting practices and demand bettergovernmental action.

In terms of environmental legislation, the nature of the post-1989 break is complex.Many environmental laws enacted prior to 1989 still exist in an amended form, but in thenew regulatory and political environment they can, in principle, function more effectively.However, while state ownership produced severe limitations on the ability of environmentalagencies to regulate, private ownership has produced its own problems for environmentaloversight.

The legislative revolution in Czechoslovakia and the CzechRepublic

Environmental reforms were launched in Czechoslovakia in 1990. This section willdiscuss both the federal policies of the former Czechoslovakia between 1990 and 1992 andthe policies of the Czech Republic after Czechoslovakia split on 31December 1992. The

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discussion of the situation in Slovakia after independence follows this section. The federallaws became the bases for the laws of both Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Czechoslovakia had quite comprehensive but largely ineffective environmentallegislation during the state socialist period. Major environmental laws enacted in the late1960s and 1970s included the Air Purity Law (1967), Water Act (1973, which revised theWater Conservation Law of 1955), Agricultural Land Protection Act (1976), andRevision to the Forestry Act (1977, which revised the Forestry Act of 1960) (Hrbáček,Binek and Mejstřík 1989:144–6; Andrews 1993:13; Carter 1985:36–7) (Table 8.1). By1972, over 350 environmental regulations had been enacted into law (Carter 1985:36),introducing among other measures fines and fees for air and water pollution,compensations for conversion of agricultural land to other uses, and protective measuresfor land and forested areas. Pollution charges, fines and user fees were so low, however,that they provided no incentive for the polluters to reduce pollution discharges (WorldBank 1992a–I:17).

As a result, environmental protection was very fragmented. No central office existedthat could deal with environmental protection, management and enforcement of existinglaws and regulations. Instead, different ministries such as the Ministry of Forest andWater Management and Woodworking Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture andNutrition, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Buildingand Development were each responsible for different areas of environmental protectionand management (World Bank 1992a–II:6). In 1988, jurisdictional ambiguities werefurther compounded with the creation of the Ministry of Interior and Environment byadding jurisdiction for environmental matters to the existing Ministry of Interior. Thepowers of the enlarged ministry and its role in the area of environmental management andprotection were poorly defined and institutionally weak.

The government was preparing to establish a Ministry for the Environment before theevents of November 1989 speeded up the process. The Ministry was established on 1January 1990 and the establishment of the Federal Committee for the Environment (FCE)followed in early 1990. The Federal Committee for the Environment was not a ministryled by a minister. Instead, it was a committee of ministers, both federal and republic(Czech and Slovak), led by a chairman. It was designed to coordinate environmentalprotection and management among different sectors of the economy and government.The priorities of the FCE were to build state environmental administration, inform thepopulation about environmental conditions, and develop a new system of environmentallegislation and laws for the transformation from a centrally planned to a market economy.The FCE was also very active on the international level by establishing cooperativeprojects in environmental protection and management with neighboring countries.2 TheSlovak Commission for the Environment was set up in August 1990 and it wasrestructured into the Slovak Ministry of Environment (SmoE) in 1992 (Klinda andFischerová 1995:97).

At the national level, the Czech MoE as well as Slovak Commission for the Environment had to set up a completely new system of environmental protection andmanagement including basic environmental administration, information systems,environmental funds and more detailed agendas for each major environmental issue and

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program. The Czech MoE published its Rainbow Programme in 1991, the EnvironmentalRecovery Programme for the Czech Republic (Moldan 1991), which set the basic principles forenvironmental protection and management during the period of political and economictransformation. The program listed basic short-term and long-term goals designed toarrest environmental degradation in the Czech Republic. These goals were based onpreviously published analyses of the quality of the environment in the country (Vavroušekand Moldan 1989; Moldan 1990). New environmental protection and managementpolicies were to be based on a number of economic and administrative tools such as the“polluter pays” principle, in which revenues collected through economic charges andpenalties would be used for environmental projects and clean-up. These were limited toregionally specific environmental programs to clean up severely polluted andenvironmentally devastated regions such as northern Bohemia. The program also specifiedconcrete goals in the areaof state environmental administration and inspection,

Table 8.1 Selected environmental legislation in the Czech Republic

Sources: GAO (1994:28), MoE (1995:4–5, 1996b:49), Hrbáček, Binek and Mejstřík (1989: 144–6),Neumann (1998:19)

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development of new environmental legislation, and foreign cooperation in environmentalmanagement (see Moldan 1991).

The foundations of the new system of environmental law and regulation were laid inCzechoslovakia in 1990 and 1991. Huba (1996b:116) has called this period the “legislativerevolution.” Between 1990 and December 1992 when Czechoslovakia broke up, severalprincipal environmental laws were enacted (Table 8.1) and a Charter of FundamentalRights and Freedom was incorporated into the Federal and national constitutions. TheCzech Republic and Slovakia were each in the process of introducing their own moredetailed provisions and regulations based on the Federal Laws. In the Czech Republic,fifty-one environmental laws and regulations were passed between 1990 and 1992 (MoE1993:52–5). The general goal of these new environmental laws was to bringCzechoslovakia’s (and later the Czech Republic’s and Slovakia’s) legal system as close aspossible to the legal system of the European Union (Andrews 1993:26). After the split, allfederal environmental laws and regulations were adopted by the Czech Republic and theCzech Parliament enacted additional eight laws and amendments and eighteenenvironmental regulations between 1992 and 1995 (MoE 1996a:P–12, Baltus 1993:12).Overall, between 1990 and 1995, the Czech Republic adopted fourteen newenvironmental laws, numerous amendments and dozens of other legal instruments toprotect the environment (MoE 1995:4).

The Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms was enacted on 9 January 1991 bythe Federal Parliament. The Charter grants all citizens certain basic political rightsnecessary for environmental protection. Its environmental section grants everyone theright to live in a favorable environment and the right to receive information about thestate of the environment and natural resources. It also prohibits anyone from endangeringor damaging the environment, natural resources, the diversity of species, or culturalmonuments. The Charter allows citizens to enforce these rights in an independentConstitutional Court (Bowman and Hunter 1992:940).

The General Environmental Protection Law was passed by the Federal Parliament on 5December 1991. The law lists the basic rights and duties of the government, industry andcitizens in the area of environmental protection and the use of natural resources. The guidingand underlying principle of this law is to pursue the goal of sustainable development(Bowman and Hunter 1992:940; Smetana 1993:795–7). The General Environmental Lawgrants everyone certain environmental rights:

Everyone has the right to true and accurate information about the state anddevelopment of the environment, the causes and consequences of that state,activities which are being prepared and which could change the environment, as wellas to information about measures taken by the authorities responsible forenvironmental protection in order to prevent or remedy environmental damage. Aspecial regulation may stipulate cases in which such information can be restricted orwithheld.

(cited in Stec 1993:100)

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The General Environmental Protection Law also makes it a duty for industry to developand provide such information (Bowman and Hunter 1992:941). The Law also obligescitizens to participate in environmental protection and monitoring:

Everyone who learns about a threat to the environment or about environmentaldamage is obliged to take such measures that are within his or her powers toeliminate the threat or minimize its consequences and to report the facts withoutdelay to the state administrative authorities.

(cited in Stec 1993:100)

The Waste Act was passed on 22 May 1991 and became effective on 1 August 1991(Bowman and Hunter 1992:941). This was the first waste law in the history ofCzechoslovakia. In the Czech Republic much of the authority for enforcement andimplementation was decentralized to the district level. In Slovakia those powers remainedat the central level (Bowman and Hunter 1992:944). The Federal Waste Act providedonly general guidelines. The detailed requirements were developed in both the CzechRepublic and Slovakia later and separately in order to accommodate specific conditions inboth republics. By 1995, the Waste Act was considered to be insufficient because it didnot adequately address waste problems in the Czech Republic. The law also did notcomply with the EU and the OECD standards and did not provide sufficient economicincentives to encourage enterprises and other organizations to minimize the waste theygenerated (MoE 1995:5). The Waste Act was amended in 1995 to address these problems(MoE 1996b:49).

The Air Pollution Act (Law on the Protection of the Atmosphere from PollutingSubstances, No. 309/1991 Sb) was passed by the Federal Parliament on 9 July 1991,replacing the 1967 act (Bowman and Hunter 1992:944–5; Smetana 1993: 797). Itestablished a general obligation for air quality protection for fixed and mobile sources.The Czech and Slovak environmental agencies were given the authority to close down apolluter in emergency situations or when a source fails to respond to compliancerequests. The law provided the conditions for the establishment of emission limits for newsources of pollution, ambient concentration limits and deposition limits. It also setemission limits for existing large air polluters and individual timetables for the reductionof emissions (MoE 1993: 60–1). The Air Pollution Act was amended in the CzechRepublic in 1994 in order to allow the regulation of large polluters not only duringtemperature inversions but also when temperature inversions are likely to occur. In theCzech Republic, large power plants and other large polluters were required to drasticallydecrease their emissions by 31 December 1998 or face high penalties. As a result, energyand industrial producers invested billions of Czech crowns to install desulfurizationequipment, scrubbers and other pollution control technologies into existing enterprises.It was expected that nearly 75 percent of all polluters would meet the 1998 deadline to reachthe prescribed emission limits (MoE 1995:4).

Other new laws are listed in Table 8.1 (see MoE 1995:4–5 for their brief description).The Water Pollution Law has not been substantially changed but anew comprehensivelegal norm for water management and water protection was supposed to be prepared by

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1998 (Bízek 1997:8). The law dealing with legal rights to environmental information wasenacted in 1998 (see also Baroch 1997a:5).

The efficiency of new environmental legislation and the feasibility of many deadlinesand limits set by new environmental legislation have been questioned. Although the newenvironmental legislation was drafted with the specific aim of bringing Czech standardscloser to those of the EU, many of the laws enacted during this period, such as the WasteManagement Act, did not comply with the EU standards or were not adequate in certainareas and had subsequently to be amended (Table 8.1). Following criticism from the EU,the then environmental minister Jiří Skalický revealed in 1997 that the Czech Republicwould need 200 new or amended environmental laws and regulations in order to complywith EU environmental laws. This would account for two-thirds of the 300 existing EU’senvironmental norms (MF Dnes 1997a:2, Čech 1997:7). There has also been muchcriticism of the very low levels at which fees and penalties have been set for air polluters,thought to be too small for industries to actually reduce emissions (MoE 1995:4). Theallocation of resources by the Czech Environmental Fund has also been criticized becausedecisions were made by only one person (Špaček 1993:13). Finally, new environmentallegislation has been prepared and enacted so quickly that questions have been raised aboutits quality. For example, the Czech MoE has been criticized for blindly copyingenvironmental legislation from Western Europe without respect to the specifics of theCzech situation (Špaček 1993:13). The number of laws passed during 1991 and 1992 thathave since had to be amended gives credence to this claim (Table 8.1). Newenvironmental legislation did not give any significant new powers to municipalities anddistrict offices to regulate large sources of pollution. Instead jurisdiction was retained bythe Environmental Inspectorates, creating tensions between the central state, districtoffices and large cities (see Pavlínek 1997:307–18).

Czech environmentalists and the MoE were under permanent attack from liberaleconomists led by the then Prime Minister Václav Klaus. Klaus consistently challenged theimportance of environmental protection and management during the transformation, andundermined efforts to deal with the legacy of environmental devastation. He sawenvironmental protection as a secondary problem that should be dealt with only aftereconomic transformation of the country had been “successfully” completed and then onlythrough economic levers. He also repeatedly refused to accept the concept of a stateenvironmental policy because it included the principle of sustainable development. ForKlaus sustainable development was a Western invention that was not relevant for theCzech Republic.3 He argued, for example, that:4

Ecology is first and foremost an economic problem. Environmental policy is basedon a country’s resources and economy is the limiting factor whether we like it ornot. Environmental policy, as understood and implemented by this government, ispragmatic and not fundamentalist. It is not separated from the overall context ofsocietal transformation. It is not based on someconcepts separated from reality,such as the concept of “sustainable development,” but it is focused on theprotection and improvement of the environment based on our means. We can

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neither exceed these means nor change the overall direction of the transitionprocess somewhere to [the sphere of] planning practices.

(HN 1993:9)

A state environmental policy was eventually passed in 1996, but at the same time theenvironment minister František Benda was replaced by the liberal economist Jiří Skalický.

Economic instruments for environmental protection in the CzechRepublic

Economic instruments for environmental protection are based on charges, tax relief anddirect payments from the state budget (MoE 1995:5). The system of charges wasdeveloped in the 1960s, but had not been systematically enforced before 1989. Instead,charges were included into the operating costs of enterprises, but they were neveradjusted for inflation so that their importance for enterprise budgets gradually declined,providing no real incentives for enterprises to reduce pollution levels. By the 1980s it wascertainly cheaper to pay fines rather than invest in anti-pollution measures (Hrbáček,Binek and Mejstřík 1989:139; World Bank 1992a–I:17). Existing industrial paternalismand the resulting relative strength of industrial enterprises vis-à-vis towns and villages onwhose territories the enterprises operated, and whose environment they polluted, led to asituation in which local governments did not, or could not, use their existing powers toregulate the polluters. Even where fines were levied, enterprises used their influence withthe Ministry and the party to reduce the charges or lift them completely (Hrbáček, Binekand Mejstřík 1989:148; see also Pavlínek 1997:160–4).

The current system of charges includes charges for the discharge of waste waters intosurface waters, releasing harmful substances into the air, waste disposal, requisition ofagricultural land, and withdrawal of ground water (MoE 1995:5). However, the 1996system of payments for discharge of waste water was still based on charges set by thegovernmental decree of 1979 (Decree of the Government of ČSSR No. 35/1979). Thecharges set in 1979 were not adjusted for inflation until 1992 when they were increased toonly twice the original level, barely covering inflation between 1979 and 1992. Since thenthey have been gradually undermined by inflation again. The result is that this system stilldoes not provide sufficient incentives for polluters to improve their treatment of wastewater and a new system of water pollution charges is badly needed (MoE 1996b:50).

Tax allowances are provided for products and activities that meet “environmentally-friendly criteria” and include reduced VAT taxes and temporary relief from income, roadand real-estate taxes (MoE 1995:5). In addition to incentives to reduce pollution emissions,one of the most important goals in using the economic instruments was to collectrevenues for environmental improvements.The new legislation has not been verysuccessful in this area either. By 1994, the State Environmental Fund collected only 12percent of actual environmental expenditures (MoE 1995:6), and in 1995 this droppedeven lower (MoE 1996b:50).

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Slovakia’s environmental policy and legislation afterindependence

Reform of Slovakia’s environmental legislation moved more slowly than that of the CzechRepublic after the break up of the Czechoslovak Federation. Slovak environmental policyis based on the Slovak Constitution enacted on 1 September 1992, in which each Slovakcitizen is guaranteed the right to live in a clean environment and has the right to obtainfull and timely information about the quality of the environment. The state is responsiblefor efficient management of the environment, for maintaining a healthy “environmentalbalance” and sustainable levels of resource exploitation (Articles No. 44 and 45). TheSlovak economy is based on the principles of what the government describes as a “sociallyand ecologically oriented market economy” (Article No. 55) (SMoE 1996a:92).

The environmental laws enacted before 1989 and those passed before the break up ofCzechoslovakia during the “legislative revolution” became the basis of Slovakenvironmental legislation (see Table 8.1). As in the case of the Czech Republic, the moregeneral federal laws were adapted in greater detail to the specific conditions of Slovakia.After the June 1992 parliamentary elections, which determined the fate of a unifiedCzechoslovakia, there was a considerable slowdown in the development of newenvironmental legislation (Huba 1996b: 116). The Slovak government was preoccupiedwith state-building processes that were in many cases detrimental to environmentalprotection and environmental management: the most progressive chairs of districtdepartments of environment were replaced; state support for environmental NGOsdeclined to about 10 percent of its 1990–2 level; the new state provided only minimalsupport for environmental education (Huba 1996b:116, 118); and it moved ahead withconstruction of the widely criticized Gabčíkovo dam on the Danube which became a“symbol” of Slovak independence.

The process of development of new environmental legislation accelerated after theopposition came briefly to power in 1994. The Environmental Impact Assessment Act(No. 127/1994) and the Nature and Landscape Protection Act (No. 287/1994) werepassed by parliament (Huba 1996b:116, SMoE 1995:94, Klinda and Fischerová 1995:97).The Health Protection Act was enacted (No. 272/1994) and the 1991 Clean Air Act wasamended (No. 148/1994). In 1995, the Slovak government and parliament enacted theAct on Professional Competence in Selected Construction Activities and amended theLand Use Planning and Building Order. In 1996, the Waste Act was enacted and theEnvironmental Information Act and the Protection of Ozone Layer Act were enacted in1998. Several other laws were amended between 1996 and 1998, including the OzoneLayer Act, the State Environmental Fund Act, Water Act, the Waste Act, the AirPollution Act and the Land Use Planning and Building Order Act (see Huba1996b:119,1999:486–7; Klinda and Fischerová 1995:98; Klinda and Lieskovská 1998:127;Gasparikova, Gressova and Stykova 1996:165; see SMoE 1996a:94–109 for complete listof environmental laws and regulations). The government planned to complete its systemof environmental legislation by the end of 1998 (see SMoE 1996b: various pages).

According to the National Environmental Action Program approved by thegovernment in 1996, Slovakia planned to spend more than $3 billion (102 billion Slovak

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crowns) on 1,356 different activities over the next several years to improve the quality ofits environment (44.3 percent should be spent by enterprises, 42.5 percent by thegovernment, and 13.2 percent by municipalities) (SMoE 1996b:7). For example, 42.3billion Slovak crowns (about $1.26 billion as of 22 November 1997) were to be investedto reduce air pollution (including de-sulfurization of major thermal power and heatingplants, and installation of fluid boilers in some heating and power plants or theirconversion from coal to natural gas) (SMoE 1996b:11–28). As in the Czech Republic,large air polluters must comply with emission limits set by the 1991 Clear Air Act by theend of 1998 (Gasparikova, Gressova and Stykova 1996:165). Similarly, 20.4 billion ofcrowns ($606 million) should be spent to reduce water pollution, mainly through theconstruction of a number of water treatment plants and sewage systems (SMoE 1996b:31–53).

Despite these achievements, the position of the MoE among other sectoral ministriesremained weak and the environmental protection and management was obviously not oneof the governmental priorities. Compared to other ministries, the MoE received the leastamount of money from the state budget between 1994 and 1997. Its 1995 budget was 40percent lower than its budget in 1993. The government also lowered dramatically itscontribution to the State Environmental Fund, from 950 million crowns in 1992 to 250million in 1995 and 160 million in 1998 (Podoba 1998:133; Huba 1999:486).Additionally, this sum was not adjusted for inflation which reached 75 percent between1992 and 1998 (BCE 1999). As a result, the MoE and the entire system of stateenvironmental management operated under severe financial constraints in the late 1990s.It is not surprising then that the ability of state apparatus to implement and enforce newenvironmental legislation remained weak and it even deteriorated during this period(Podoba 1998:134, Huba 1999:487).

Slow but steady progress in Hungary

By comparison with the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary has not experienced a post-1989“legislative revolution.” Changes in environmental legislation and policies have been moregradual, in part reflecting the fact that environmental degradation had not reached thesame levels it had in some regions of Czechoslovakia (such as northern Bohemia). It alsoreflects a different approach on the part of the Hungarian government toward thedevelopment of environmental legislation. After 1990, and with the installation of thefirst democratic government of Prime Minister Antall, there were long discussions onwhether anew comprehensive environmental law should be drafted at all to replace theineffective 1976 law (Bowman and Hunter 1992:948, Okolicsanyi 1992:69).

The former Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources was reorganized intothe Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry in May 1990, butenvironmental responsibilities continued to be scattered among a variety of governmentdepartments (Okolicsanyi 1992:66). The Ministry had similar goals as the FCE in theformer Czechoslovakia: consolidation and extension of its authority, the completion of acomprehensive nationwide study of the quality of the environment, increasing

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environmental awareness among the public and replacing the 1976 law on theenvironment with new more effective environmental legislation.

The reduction of air pollution was declared to be the top priority of the Ministry (ibid.:67), but government environmental policy has been criticized as ineffective (ibid.: 69).Some environmentalists have even argued that since 1989 the political and economicsituation in Hungary has been less favorable for environmental protection than it wasunder state socialism (Kerekes and Bulla 1994: 100) and that, while the environmentalrecord of the government before 1989 was gradually improving, environmental legislationhas been neglected by subsequent governments (Erdey and Karcza 1996:75).

Among the more important state environmental activities of the early 1990s was the1993 revision of legal basis of the Central Environmental Protection Fund. This fund wasoriginally established in the early 1980s to finance environmental investments and isfinanced from various environmental charges and penalties, such as a tax of 50 filler (1forint=100 filler) on one liter of gasoline. The tax was increased to 80 filler per liter ofgasoline in January 1994. Other funds whose sources are used for environmentalinvestment were established later, including the Water Management Fund, LandProtection Fund, Tourism Fund, and the Regional Development Fund (Pomazi and Zsikla1994:88, 90). A comprehensive network of monitoring stations was completed in Budapestin 1991 and stricter emission controls were introduced (Okolicsanyi 1992:68).

The history of environmental legislation in Hungary dates back to 1729 when huntingand fowling was regulated by a decree of Charles III. Forests were protected by Act LVIIof 1790 and water was protected by Act X of 1840 (Szebényi and Pálmai 1989:179).Despite this legacy, as in other countries of CEE, the state socialist government ofHungary did not take environmental considerations seriously until the 1960s whenconcerns about worsening environmental degradation increased. As a result, a number oflegal measures were taken which prepared the way towards more comprehensiveenvironmental legislation. These included the creation of the National Office for NatureConservation by the Nature Conservation Act in 1961 and new environmental legislation:the Act on Protection of Agricultural Land (1961), the Act on Forests and Hunting(1961), the Act on Water Management (1964), the Act on Plant Protection (1968), the Acton Human Settlement (1971), and the Act on Public Health (1972) (Szebényi and Pálmai1989:179–80, Kilényi 1990:35,Slocock 1992:56). The first measure to control airpollution was taken in 1973, the measures regulating hazardous waste were introduced in1981 and noise and vibration abatement was targeted in 1983. The Nature ConservationAct, Water Act and air protection regulations were amended in 1982, 1984, and 1986respectively, but the gradual nature of their introduction and the unevenness of theirapplication meant that some areas were not covered by law at all (Szebényi and Pálmai1989:188).

The first comprehensive law on the environment, the Act on the Protection of theHuman Environment, was passed in 1976 (Act II of 1976), but there were seriousproblems with the implementation and enforcement of this law and a lack of funds rightfrom the beginning (Kilényi 1990:36): emission limits were unrealistic and thereforewere not enforced; pollution charges and fines were low and therefore did not provideany real incentives for polluters to introduce any preventive measures; and the Act did

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not provide for public participation in environmental protection and management(Emmott 1997:5; Pomazi and Csanády 1995a:53; Slocock 1992:56–7). The NationalAuthority for Environmental Protection, an executive agency, was established only in1985 and its authority was limited to toxic waste and noise pollution (Slocock 1992:56).Environmental investments remained low, not exceeding 1 percent of the country’sGDP, while the cost of environmental damage was estimated as high as 3 to 5 percent ofannual GDP (Pomazi and Zsikla 1994:84).

Despite these problems, the Act helped slow the rate of environmental degradation andcontributed to some real environmental improvements. For example, solid air emissionsdeclined by 70 percent between 1980 and 1985 as a result of the installation of scrubbersand closures of some heavy polluting plants. Sulfur dioxide emissions began to declinewith the increased use of less polluting fuels in power plants. Sewage capacity increasedby 50 percent and soil conservation was completed on 700,000 ha of land (Persányi 1991:212). By the early 1990s, however, there was an urgent need to prepare new environmentallegislation that would modernize and make more effective existing environmentalprotection and management practices.

After the collapse of state socialism, a committee of experts was established in 1991 todevelop a new environmental law for Hungary. The first draft was presented in January1992 but it was criticized for being “too modern” for Hungary’s present economic climate,too long, and allowing too much public participation (Bowman and Hunter 1992:949–51). Consequently, the Ministry for Environmental Protection and RegionalDevelopment prepared an alternative draft which was presented in April 1992. This draftwas more general, provided little substantive guidance for environmental protectionactivities, and granted minimal participation rights to the Hungarian public (ibid.: 951–2).

Although the law was supposed to be passed sometime in 1993, the Act No. LIII on theGeneral Regulations Concerning Environmental Protection was not enacted until 1995(MERP 1995). According to the Act, its aim is to develop “a harmonious relationshipbetween man and his environment, to protect theelements and processes of theenvironment, and to ensure environmental conditions for a sustainable development”(ibid.: 2, Article 1). Polluters are financially responsible for the clean-up ofenvironmental damage (ibid.: 58, Article 101), a measure aimed to encourage them toinvest in preventive measures (the “polluter pays principle”).5 They are also obliged torestore any environmental damage caused by their activities (ibid.: 8, Article 8).Potentially environmentally harmful activities are required to undergo environmentalimpact assessment (Article 67) (EIA has been mandatory since 1993) and investors arerequired to implement pre-purchase environmental audits to avoid liability for previouslyexisting environmental damage (Article 69) (ibid.: 40–4). At the moment, this seems tomean that in order to avoid liability for past environmental damage, foreign investorsprefer to build their enterprises on previously undeveloped sites and avoid old industrialsites, a rational economic decision but one that in no way promotes environmental clean-up (Reeves 1995:71).

The Act covers soil conservation measures, water protection, air protection, and wastedisposal guidelines. The responsibilities of various actors in environmental protection and

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management are clearly spelled out and the Act gives substantial powers to localgovernments (MERP 1995:26–8). Municipalities can set stricter local environmentalstandards than the national ones (ibid.: 28) and are given powers to enforce the pollutionstandards. On paper, the public is given extensive rights to participate in environmentalprotection (ibid.: 56–7). The Act lists eighteen additional laws that will be prepared andenacted to complement the comprehensive environmental law and complete the systemof environmental regulation (ibid.: 3). (See Table 8.2.)

Struggles over environmental change in Poland

Environmental policies in Poland were first introduced in 1925 when the State Councilfor Protection of Nature was established.6 In 1934 the first Nature Protection Act waspassed and it was amended in 1949 (Bolan 1992:303). Other environmental lawsfollowed in the 1960s and 1970s (Water Protection Against Pollution Act in 1961, AirProtection Against Pollution Act in 1966, Environmental Protection Act in 1980) (Bolan1992:303) (Table 8.3). However, as in other countries of CEE there was littleenforcement of existing regulations, pollution charges were generally low and were oftenevaded, and powers to close chronic polluters were seldom used. As a result,governmental environmental policies were largely ineffective (Bowman and Hunter 1992:931; Slocock 1992:21).

Several government ministries and institutions dealing with the environment wereestablished following the Second World War, for example the Ministry of Forestry and

Table 8.2 Selected environmental legislation in Hungary

Sources: Szebényi and Pálmai (1989:179–80), Erdey and Karcza (1996:75, 85, 88), GAO (1994:28)

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Forest Industries and the National Council for the Protection of Nature in 1949, thePolish Committee for Environmental Protection in 1970, and the Ministry of TerritorialManagement and Environmental Protection in 1972 (Kabala 1993b:137). However, thefirst positive changes in Polish environmental policies began in 1985 when a Ministry ofEnvironmental Protection and Natural Resources (MoE) was established withresponsibilities for the most important areas of environmental protection: watermanagement, air quality, soil protection, protection of natural resources and natureconservation (Kabala 1993a:52, Slocock 1992:20).7

In 1989, Poland adopted environmental impact assessment regulations and set up acommittee to draft a new omnibus environmental law. The National Fund forEnvironmental Protection and Water Resources (National Fund) was established in thesame year (Bowman and Hunter 1992:930; ylicz 1994:110). With the introduction ofshock therapy in 1990, however, environmental reform has slowed considerably(Bowman and Hunter 1992:930). The major obstacle has been political instability andpolitical fragmentation coupled with economic difficulties associated with shock therapy.In November 1990, the government adopted a revised National Programme forEnvironmental Protection whose task was to direct state environmental policy in the early1990s. The document was enacted by parliament (the Sejm) in May 1991 (Slocock 1992:22; ylicz 1994: 110). New laws passed in 1991 included the Act on the State Inspectorateof Environmental Protection, the Forestry Act, and the Nature Conservation Act. TheGeological and Mining Act was amended and the Environmental Protection Act wasdrafted in the same year (Ministry of Environmental Protection, Natural Resources andForestry (MoE) 1995:149–50; Nowicki 1993:145; ylicz 1994: 110). The 1980 Act on theShaping and Protection of the Environment was amended in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1993(Sommer 1996:127). The new Geological and Mining Act was enacted in 1994 and Acton the Protection of Agriculture and Forest Lands in 1995 (Sommer 1996:125) (seeTable 8.3). In June 1995, the MoE began to prepare a comprehensive Act on theEnvironment which would make Polish environmental legislation compatible with EU standards. The Act was also intended to increase the role of public participation in thedecision-making process (REC 1995b:65).

As in all CEE countries, the preparation and passage of these laws has not beenunproblematic. Different groups in the Sejm with quite distinct interests have struggledover the legislation. The development of the Nature Protection Law illustrates howcontested such legislation has been. A draft of an omnibus environmental law wassubmitted to the MoE by the committee in Spring 1991 and the revised draft wasapproved by the Council of Ministers in Fall 1991. A group of representatives from the Sejmprepared its own draft law using the general provisions and nature protection provisionfrom the MoE’s draft, but excluding all pollution control provisions. In fact, most of thepublic participation provisions had already been eliminated from the original draft prior tothis by the MoE itself. The draft was submitted in this form to the Sejm as a private billand was approved and later signed into law as the Law on Nature Protection by PresidentWalesa on 12 December 1991 (Bowman and Hunter 1992:932–3).

Another example of contested legislation was the dispute among the owners of coal-fired greenhouses and the government of Poland over how much emission fines should be.

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In 1990, greenhouse owners sued the government over what they believed were excessiveemission charges. The dispute was eventually solved by the Supreme Constitutional Courtin 1991 which ruled that it was unconstitutional to institute regionally differentiated airpollution charges. As a result, regional differentiation of air pollution fees has beeneliminated. A third dispute occurred over attempts by the MoE to introduce fuel chargesto finance environmental protection and reconstruction. These failed because fuel chargeswereopposed by nearly all political groups, including Solidarity ( ylicz 1994: These casesindicate not only the declining importance of environmental issues for the government inthe 1990s, but also the role played by the private sector, strong sectoral ministries andpolitical parties in opposing effective legislation.

Economic instruments for environmental protection in Poland

Poland uses a system of charges, non-compliance fines, taxes, duties and subsidies toregulate and control water and air pollution, solid waste disposal, water withdrawal, treecutting, water transport, minerals extraction, mining concessions, conversions of forestland into non-forest uses and conversions of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses (seeSleszynski 1996:127–8).

Environmental charges were first introduced in the 1970s, but as in other CEEcountries they largely failed to stimulate polluters to change their practices despite thefact that the fees were periodically increased. Increases continued after 1989, and since1990 the charges have been increased annually by the Council of Ministers to relatively

Table 8.3 Selected environmental legislation in Poland

Sources: Sommer (1996:125–7), GAO (1994:28), Toman (1994:28), Hicks (1996:57)

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high levels based on expected inflation rates and other factors. The charges and non-compliance fees are used as a source of revenues for the National and RegionalEnvironmental Funds. Fines and charges are redistributed by the National Fund in theform of grants and soft loans for environmental investment (Sleszynski 1996:127, 129,ylicz 1994:94, 110). In many specific cases, however, emission fees and fines have

remained low and have not been enforced (Toman 1994:28–9). In some cases, emissioncharges have fluctuated wildly. For example, the charge for the emission of one kilogramof sulfur dioxide was 680 zlotys ($0.07) in 1991, and 1,100 zlotys ($0.08) in 1992. It waslowered to 770 zlotys ($0.05) in 1992 and went back to 1,100 zlotys ($0.07) in 1993.The fluctuations of emission charges for lead and benzene were even greater (Table 8.4)(Manser 1993:94). The result is uncertainty among enterprises about investing inenvironmental technology to reduce their emissions and the disadvantaging of those thatdo invest (Manser 1993:93).

The Polish system of pollution charges is based on the “polluters pay principle” ratherthan the “polluter pays principle” ( ylicz and Lehoczki 1994: 139). The “polluter paysprinciple” means that an individual polluter is charged for the pollution he or she producesin excess of the pollution limits established by law. Under this principle, the individualpolluter is also responsible for the clean-up of the environmental damage caused under statesocialism if direct responsibility for damage can be established. The “polluters payprinciple” is applied in cases when it is difficult to prove or enforce the directresponsibility of a given polluter. In Poland, as well as in other CEE countries, manyenterprises that caused environmental damage no longer exist, many polluters (such asmunicipalities without adequate sewage and waste-disposal facilities) are unable to pay forthe environmental damage they cause and at the same time cannot be closed, and manypolluters are unable to generate large enough profits to pay for forty years of neglect andenvironmental devastation they caused while the government was siphoning off theirsurpluses and failing to re-capitalize their technologies. Under this situation, all thepolluters are charged proportionally based on the environmental damage they cause. The

Table 8.4 Polish charges for air emissions of lead, sulfur dioxide, benzene and fluorine, 1991–3 (inzlotys and US$)

Source: Manser (1993:94)

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fees collected are then used to finance investments that are necessary to comply withpollution limits ( ylicz and Lehoczki 1994:139, ylicz 1994:95).

Recent reforms in Romania

Romania also had environmental legislation that was weakly enforced and manipulated bythe one-party system under state socialism. Environmental protection was based on acomprehensive environmental law from 1973 (Act No. 9) but its enforcement was “virtuallynonexistent” in 1990 (World Bank 1992b: 52). The basic principles of environmentalprotection and management provided in Act No. 9 were developed through special lawsand regulations for the protection of water, air, soil and subsoil, forests and vegetation,land and water fauna, reservations and natural monuments, and “human activities.” TheAct was still in place in the mid-1990s. A new comprehensive environmental law, theEnvironment Protection Act (EPA), has been prepared but it was not enacted until 1996.The EPA was prepared in 1992 but political instability and economic difficulties delayedits passage and approval by the Romanian Parliament and its promulgation by the president(Lesnic 1995:89, Hancu, Hortopan and Lesnic 1996:143, World Bank 1992b:50).8

Without the new EPA the development and revisions of environmental legislation werequite limited after 1989. Environmental protection and management were regulated bysecondary regulation in the first half of the 1990s based on Government Decisions,Government Orders, and Ministerial Orders (Hancu, Hortopan and Lesnic 1996:143). Anew Ministry of Environment (the Ministry for Water, Forests, and Environment) wasestablished shortly after the revolution in December 1989 (Bowman and Hunter 1992:953). Environmental Protection Agencies were established in all forty-one administrativeregions in Romania. The agencies are supervised by the MoE and are responsible forenvironmental monitoring and inspection (Lesnic 1995:89; Hancu, Hortopan and Lesnic1996:143).

The emphasis seems to be one which places primary importance in dealing withenvironmental clean-up on the need to first reconstruct the economy and only second todeal with the environmental problems. In 1990 the voters in Zlatna, one of the mostpolluted Romanian towns, were afraid to vote for the radical Romanian EcologicalMovement (REM), fearing that electoral success for REM would result in the closure ofthe heavily polluting nonferrous smelter in the town with the consequent loss of jobs(Jordan and Tomasi 1994:166–7). The deepening economic crisis of the 1990s onlyreinforced this perception. The workers of the Sometra metallurgical plant at Cop aMic , one of the worst polluters in the country (see Chapter Three), successfully resistedits closure in the early 1990s (Dragomirescu, Muica and Turnock 1998:167). Fearsremain, in part because of the uncertainty of MoE plans to adopt EU emission standardsfor newly constructed factories. According to original plans, existing factories were to beencouraged to observe the EU limits by special tax incentives, but would not be fined forpolluting in excess of these limits. However, the 1996 Environment Protection Actintroduced new pollution limits and the “polluter pays principle.” All polluters mustcomply with these limits in five years or face potential closure (ibid.: 174).

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Albania

In contrast to other state socialist countries of CEE, Albania did not have well developedenvironmental legislation under the state socialist government. Its 1976 constitutionmentioned the responsibility of the state, institutions and citizens for environmentalprotection, but concrete environmental legislation was almost non-existent (Selfo andHaxhimihali 1995:22). The environment was regulated directly by decisions of theCouncil of Ministers, addressing specific sectors including national parks, fishing, hunting(1951), forestry protection (1963), food safety and public health (Stec 1993:91, Hall1993:10). Within the Council of Ministers, the Central Environmental ProtectionCommission was established in 1979 from representatives of ministries and researchinstitutes to monitor and coordinate the environmental work of various ministries andstate and local institutions (Hall 1993:11). However, until the early 1990s, no stateagency existed with responsibility for overall environmental protection (Selfo andHaxhimihali 1995:22).

After the political changes, Albania began to build new environmental institutions andenact environmental legislation. These efforts were supported by the internationalcommunity through training, seminars, classroom courses and joint environmentalprojects. The World Bank and the Albanian Committee of Environmental Protectionprepared a study of environmental strategy in 1992–3 which became the basis for theNational Environmental Action Plan. The Committee of Environmental Protection (CEP)was established in 1992 as part of the Ministry of Health and Environmental Protection. Newregional environmental agencies were also established. The Law on EnvironmentalProtection, which introduced new environmental standards, was approved by theAlbanianParliament in January 1993. Additional laws followed, such as the HazardousWaste and Residues Act, the Fauna Protection Act, and the laws on the NationalEnvironmental Protection Fund and Environmental Impact Assessment. Although Albaniafollows the pathway of other former state socialist countries of CEE in terms of buildingnew environmental institutional and environmental framework, the country is still laggingbehind the rest of the region (Selfo and Haxhimihali 1995:19–23).

Delayed reform in Bulgaria

Before 1989, the situation in Bulgaria was similar to other CEE countries in manyrespects. The first Nature Protection Act was enacted in 1936 (Georgieva 1993:70) andthe country had a well developed system of environmental legislation that went back tothe 1950s and 1960s (Table 8.5). The official “fundamental principle” of Bulgaria’secological policy under state socialism was “combining rapid development of the nationaleconomy with protection and improvement of the natural environment” (Zhivkov andDjolov 1989:9). Article 31 of the Bulgarian state socialist constitution madeenvironmental protection a constitutional duty of all state bodies and of every citizen (ibid.:10). Despite these provisions and state environmental propaganda (see ibid.: 9–11),Bulgaria’s legislation was largely ineffective because it was poorly enforced. Financialresources, professional experience and political will were all lacking (OECD 1996a:26;

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REC 1994b:17; Mindjov 1995:26; Georgieva 1993:71). For example, air qualitystandards were set for ambient concentrations of 171 pollutants and were in many casesmore stringent than World Health Organization guidelines (OECD 1996a:40). However,the state had no capacity to monitor all 171 pollutants or to enforce their own emissionstandards. Unrealistically high effluent standards for wastewater discharge also madeenforcement ineffective. As elsewhere in the region, pollution charges and fines weregenerally too low to encourage polluters to reduce their toxic emissions (OECD 1996a:58; Georgieva 1993:71).

Bulgaria also had several central government institutions dealing with environmentalmanagement and protection. Since the 1960s, the setting of an environmental agenda wasthe responsibility of the Ministry of Forests (renamed the Ministry of Forests andEnvironmental Protection in 1971). In 1976, an Environmental Protection Committeewas established and a center for research into environmental protection and waterresources was created. Regional Environmental Inspectorates were also established(OECD 1996a:29).

In 1990, the new Ministry of Environment was established and the reform ofenvironmental legislation began in 1991. Its aim was to create market oriented legislationthat would be enforceable (Mindjov 1995:26). The 1991 Constitution gives the citizens ofBulgaria the right to a “healthy and friendly environment” and obliges them to protect theenvironment (Article 15). Citizens also have the right to be informed about environmentalconditions affecting them (Article 41) (Tzvetkova 1996:25). The new EnvironmentalProtection Law was enacted in1991 and amended in 1992 and 1995. The law introducedthe “polluter pays principle,” the prevention and precautionary principle, and the publicright of access to environmental information. The law also introduced charges for the useof natural resources, environmental impact assessment procedures, and established theNational Environmental Protection Fund and Municipal Environmental Protection Funds.Detailed regulations for the law on Environmental Impact Assessments were passed in1992 (Mindjov 1995:26, OECD 1996a:28, Georgieva 1993:74–7), and based on this lawa number of sectoral laws were prepared dealing with protected areas, waste, protectionof medicinal plants, land protection, marine environment, water, air, and mineralresources (OECD 1996a:29).9 (See Table 8.5.)

The new legislation is not without its own problems: for example, the EnvironmentalProtection Act has been criticized for promoting highly centralized environmental policythat is difficult to enforce and which emphasizes post-pollution regulatory activitiesinstead of prevention (Georgieva 1993: 77). Passing new environmental legislation intolaw has also been slower in Bulgaria than in other countries of CEE such as the CzechRepublic and Slovakia. After the initial post-1989 years of environmental euphoria theenvironment and environmental legislation were regarded as a low priority by Bulgarianpoliticians (Mindjov 1995:27, Georgieva 1993:73). Given the magnitude of economiccollapse and overall political instability in the 1990s, this is not surprising. As a matter offact, some observers argue that there has been little change in the approach toward theenvironment after 1989. In the words of Georgieva (1993:73): “the first and the secondcommunist (socialist) dominated post-totalitarian governments followed the past tradition

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 209

of wishful thinking by developing an ambitious, completely unrealistic, and not related tolegal and institutional changes strategy for environmental improvements.”

In this political environment, environmental legislation has been neglected. As before,the regulations needed to enforce existing laws have not been passed by parliament. Someregulations do mandate the preservation of land resources, but these are vague and poorlyenforced. While the MoE has indicated that it plans to issue recommended animal-to-landratios, there is no proposed mechanism for their enforcement. Perhaps most importantly,the balance between the rights of individuals to exploit their property and right of thestate to legislate to protect social interests has not been legally clarified (Kolev 1992).

Where government attention can be directed to regulating externalities and promotingthe creation of public goods in agriculture, monies are sorely lacking for implementation.Nominal amounts spent on environmental protection and restoration more than doubledin 1991 and again in 1992, but the amount remained small (CSO 1993:91;329). Eventhose public goods which are already in place, such as existing agricultural data baseswhich may serve as a basis for extension work or existing wind breaks, require resourcesfor maintenance. Other problems, such as long-term preservation of the land base, controlof farm runoff, and regulation of livestock management will require more funds for thepreparation of legislation and its eventual enforcement. These funds are unlikely to be

Table 8.5 Selected environmental legislation in Bulgaria

Source: OECD (1996a:27–8), Georgieva and Moore (1997:88)

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forthcoming without greater political pressure and commitment. With the newgovernment, since 1997 several new commitments to environmental legislation andenforcement have been made, new laws such as those on the privatization of forestspromise to have important environmental implications, and the activities of the MoE havebeen restructured and made more publicly accountable. The effects of these changes areas yet unknown.

Conclusion

Since 1989 the process of enacting and enforcing new environmental legislation has beenhighly contested, uneven and often contradictory. The severity of economic problemsassociated with shock therapy has undermined environmental concerns and slowed thepreparation of new environmental legislation. The quality of laws has occasionally beenpoor and they have required frequent amendments partly because they have beenprepared hastily, often under pressure to comply with EU environmental legislation.

Establishing sound regulatory practices and institutions has been more difficult.Regulatory institutions are usually under-funded because of severe fiscal crises. They are alsoin a weak position to implement and enforce new laws vis-à-vis sectoral ministries,economic institutions and industrial lobbies. Statesocialist perceptions of economicprimacy combined with neo-liberal beliefs in unregulated markets and the actual effects ofshock therapy have all contributed to a situation in which many political leaders stillconsider environmental reconstruction to be a secondary problem.10

But while this conclusion captures a general sense of the political context ofenvironmental policy reform, it does not deal with those issues most material to reformon the ground. It is to these that we will turn in Chapter Ten, first through an assessmentof the environmental effects of transition generally across CEE, and second through a casestudy of ecological regulatory change in Bulgarian agriculture.

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212

9State, environment and information in post-

communist transformations

Introduction

In the process of post-1989 economic and environmental reconstruction, one of thecrucial needs for researchers, environmental activists, policy makers and businessesthroughout CEE is good longitudinal data on production systems, technology use, energyand chemical inputs and outputs, and their impacts on particular ecosystems. Whilecontemporary Western scientists, environmentalists, policy makers and businesses havebecome accustomed since the 1960s to direct access to well-organized electronicdatabases and relatively reliable national accounts, those in equivalent positions in statesocialist societies have had little access to reliable information about environmental andecological conditions at either local or national scales. For a variety of reasons, thepractices of data collection, handling, and dissemination that have become commonplacein Western capitalist countries did not emerge in CEE, or where they did emerge theyhave not been systematically sustained or made publicly available. State information-gathering practices were well supported, rigorous, and detailed, but they were aimedmore at surveillance of citizens than they were at the monitoring of “public” enterprisesand state firms.

In this chapter we present an account of the social and political role played byenvironmental data and databases in CEE countries under central planning and in thepresent period of transformation. The chapter gives a detailed account of data availabilityand accessibility in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, and assesses its reliability for researchon environmental change. The development and adoption of geographical informationsystems (GIS) are then explored in the context of one reforming country, Bulgaria. Thechapter ends with an assessment of the processes of sectoral differentiation in theemerging “data industry” and considers its implications for broader social transformation.Particular attention is given to the consequences of fiscal and financial crises in 1996 inBulgaria and the prospects for data “democratization” in such reforming countries.

The information revolution in a bureaucratic state

If state socialist societies did not undergo the “massification” and “generalizing” ofinformation that so typified the United States and to a lesser extent WesternEurope fromthe 1960s on, can we conclude that there was no information revolution under centralplanning? The constitutions of communist states throughout CEE enshrined certain rightsof individuals to be protected against harm and to obtain access to information about theconditions affecting them. This was especially true of environmental information.However, in practice information about environmental conditions was thought to beextremely sensitive to state interests and a threat to party power. Because it was alsonecessary for the smooth functioning of state planning and essential if popular oppositionto state enterprises were to be quelled, the information that was collected was oftenclassified as secret and punishments for unauthorized dissemination were harsh.

Received wisdom has it that environmental information was as a result poorly collectedand, where it was produced, vigorous efforts were made to keep the information from thepublic. It is certainly the case throughout CEE that environmental information gatheringagencies were poorly funded, operated with out-dated technologies, and focused theirattention on polluting “hot spots,” often to the exclusion of any measures of backgroundatmospheric or soil conditions. As Elster, Offe, and Preuss (1998:2) have argued: “Statesocialism…is a system that does not generate knowledge, least of all public knowledge,about indicators of its own malfunctioning.” Castells and Kiselyova are stronger in theirclaims:

We contend that the rampant crisis that shook the foundations of the Sovieteconomy and society from the mid-1970s onwards was the expression of thestructural inability of statism and of the Soviet variant of industrialism to ensure thetransition towards the information society.

(Castells and Kiselyova 1995:3)

Certainly, state socialism tried to produce diagnostic information about societalmalfunctioning, but it did so in a very specific form: the security state. Security andsecrecy were, in this sense, a form of technical and social revolution, perhaps illustratedmost clearly by the emergence of the Democratic German Republic’s offices of the Stasi(secret police). The Stasi represented most directly the extremes of the surveillant societyin CEE, and a particular form of the generalizing of information about society. But it wasprecisely the dominance of information-gathering activities and the ideological andpractical importance of the information gathered by the security forces that made the ideaof “public information,” rights to know, and rights of access to information little morethan empty constitutional claims.

But there is another reason that environmental information was collected sporadicallyand made available in only limited arenas and for purposes approved by the state. Thereason has to do with the location of environmental discourses and practices within thepolitical economy of state socialism beyond the specific concerns of the security state.

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Specifically, it has to do with the needs of structuring and building a modern industrialsociety in the post-war period and the ways in which risk was produced in those efforts.

On the one hand, the concrete result of such constraints on information was a decliningrate of technical change and diminishing returns from the extensive regime ofaccumulation, a point made by Abel Aganbegyan in explaining the necessity for perestroika:the slow-down in economic growth was a result of “the exhaustion of a model ofindustrialization based on extensive use of capital, labor, and natural resources” (Castellsand Kiselyova 1995:24; Aganbegyan 1990) (Figure 9.1).

On the other hand, Ulrich Beck’s (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity has madeclear how reflections on environmental conditions and struggles over environmentalinformation must be located within a broader context than the political economy ofproduction and consumption. The issues of risk go to the very ideological heart of modernsocieties, to the ways in which risk is constituted through specific deployments ofstatistics, information and science. As Lash and Wynne (1992:3–4) have argued: “Thedominant discourses of risk, for all they have taken on the trappings of liberal pluralism,remain firmly instrumentalist and reductionist.”

Lash and Wynne go on to detail a contemporary example from Britain of the ways inwhich experts and social groups contest notions of risk and how particular notions ofscience are at work:

When farm workers claimed that herbicides were causing unacceptable healtheffects, the British government asked its Pesticides Advisory Committee toinvestigate. The PAC, comprised largely of toxicologists, turned automatically tothe scientific literature on laboratory toxicology of the chemicals in question. Theyconcluded unequivocally that there was no risk. When the farm workers returnedwith an even thicker dossier of cases of medical harm, the PAC dismissed this asmerely anecdotal, uncontrolled non-knowledge.

When they were forced by further public objections to return to the question,the PAC again asserted that there was no danger, but this time added an apparentlyminor, but actually crucial qualification. This was that there was no risk accordingto the science literature, so long as the herbicide was produced under the correctconditions (dioxins could be produced as contaminants by small variations inproduction process parameters) and used under the correct conditions. On thislatter question the farm workers were the experts. They knew from experiencethat “the correct conditions of use” were a scientists’ fantasy—“Cloud-cuckoo-landfrom behind the laboratory bench” as one farmers’ representative put it. Theinstructions for use were frequently obliterated or lost, the proper sprayingequipment was often unavailable, protective clothing was often inadequate, andweather conditions were frequently ignored in the pressure to get the sprayingdone.

The idealized model of the risk system, reflected in the scientists’ exclusivefocus on the laboratory knowledge, contained not only questionable physicalassumptions but a naive model of that part of society. What is more it was deployedin effect as a social prescription, without any interest or negotiation over its validity

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or acceptability. The completely unreflective imposition of these bounding premiseson the risk debate only polarized the issue around the realist distraction concerningthe truth value of scientific propositions, and polemic about the alleged irrationalityof the farm workers and corruption of scientists and regulatory institutions.

(Lash and Wynne 1992:4–5)

This notion of scientism and risk is instructive for broadening our analysis of the ways inwhich environmental information and political control over information functioned undercentral planning and now functions in reform societies.

To understand ‘risk society” more clearly we need to consider the role of myth. Beckexplains the role of one unbroken yet barely recognized myth at the heart of the project ofindustrial society:

This myth asserts that developed industrial society with its pattern of work and life,its production sectors, its thinking in categories of economic growth, itsunderstanding of science and technology and its forms of democracy, is a thoroughlymodern society, a pinnacle of modernity, which it scarcely makes sense even toconsider surpassing…industrial society is a permanently revolutionary society. Butafter each industrial revolution what remains is an industrial society, perhaps a bitmore industrial.

(Beck 1992:11–12)

In modern societies, science, industry, planning and security operate under differentpolitical and legal regimes as part of a broader mode of societal regulation which

Figure 9.1 Soviet GNP growth rates, 1951–89

Note: The annual growth rates are averaged over three years and plotted at the mid-year ofeach period

Source: Data from Desai (1987:8), CIA (1981–9: various pages)

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normalizes discourses and practices in particular ways. How risk isconstructed, as much aswhat the risks are in a particular society, thus becomes a vital point of entry into ourinterrogation of the role played by information in our consideration of the environment,state socialism and transformation.

Environmental data in a centrally planned economy

The structure of environmental data collection at the national level in centrally plannedeconomies was organized under statute law, with responsibilities for collection, storageand dissemination of environmental data falling to national centers. In Bulgaria, therewere the Research Center of the Bulgarian Ministry of the Environment, the Institute ofHygiene and Epidemiology, the Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology and thePushkarov National Soil Institute. The Research Center of the MoE was responsible forinformation on the state of the environment and the “National System of Monitoring.”The Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology and the Institute of Hydrology andMeteorology had statutory obligations to supply monthly data to the Research Center. Allfour were funded by the state to monitor and compile data on environmental conditions.

Regional-level databases were also compiled by a range of organizations. Again inBulgaria, these included: the offices of the Regional Environmental Inspectorate with datasent to the National System of Monitoring at the Research Center in the MoE; theRegional Inspectorate of the Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology; the Institute ofHydrology and Meteorology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; the PushkarovNational Soil Institute; the National Cadaster; the environmental laboratories of largestate enterprises such as the petrochemical combinat Neftochim; dedicated researchinstitutes, such as the Sea Ecology Laboratory of the Institute of Ecology of the BulgarianAcademy of Sciences; and reports of citizen environmental groups, such as SOS andEcoglasnost.

Although a number of different institutions and enterprises collected variousenvironmental data, integrated information systems that would gather, analyze andprovide complex information about the quality of the environment did not exist in theindividual countries of CEE. In Czechoslovakia, for example, only partial environmentalinformation systems existed; these were developed for decision-making and managementpurposes at the enterprise level, and were controlled by the respective ministries. Thesesystems were of different quality, used different standards and protocols, and differed inthe ways environmental information was collected, transferred, analyzed, stored andutilized. As a result, data was not comparable (Moldan 1991:23). Before 1989 nocomplex national environmental database system had been successfully developed, despitesome initial efforts to do so in the late 1980s (Moldan 1990:29).1

In 1981, the Czechoslovak government launched the first part of an air qualitymonitoring and warning system for northern Bohemia. Similar air quality monitoring andwarning systems were subsequently established for Prague and northern Moravia. But allused poor quality equipment which suffered frequent breakdowns: lack of hard currencyand deteriorating economic situation in the1980s led the government to opt for the use ofinferior Czech-made monitoring equipment, which was eight times cheaper than western

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equivalents. Different standards and methods for data analysis among machines furtherdecreased the quality of the data collected (Vaněk 1996:67–8). Finally, the number ofpollutants monitored was limited. Air pollution measures, for example, were based onthe emissions of particulate matter. Later monitoring for sulfur dioxide was added. Otherpotentially dangerous gases released by polluters were not monitored at all because of thelack of monitoring equipment.

The effectiveness and reliability of these activities were also compromised becauseenterprise managers and environmental inspectors and regulators operated withininterlinked systems of power and control. The state itself had a strong interest in maintaininga public image of environmental quality: socialist planning was meant to have supersededthe nature-production contradictions inherent in capitalist society. Managers of pollutingenterprises had a financial interest in keeping some details of the production processsecret, including weekly and monthly input, output and production figures, as well as dataon pollution (see Pickles 1995b). The state also had a practical interest in the unregulatedand rapid development of industrial capacity and very little immediate interest to protectagainst, or even monitor accurately for, environmental hazards and risk. The practicalconsequence was the suppression and distortion of information on actual levels ofhazardous wastes.

State enterprises were the only institutions responsible for both production of goodsand the regulation of pollution and hazardous wastes. Often the same institutions wereresponsible for both. This dual responsibility was, in nearly all cases, resolved in favor ofmeeting production quotas. Moreover, large state enterprises were controlled by theMinistry of Industry or Ministry of Agriculture. The Regional Environmental Inspectorates(reporting to the MoE) and the local and regional councils in heavily polluted areas rarelyhad sufficient political power to override the decisions of Ministries and enterprisemanagers.

At the center of these systems of power was the importance of controls overinformation. An “economy of information” was generated within the command system,the tools of which were hierarchy, secrecy and restricted funding. Information wascollected at every level of the economy, fed into the planning system, and channeled upthe hierarchy to the central Ministries and party committees. Although mayors of townsand municipalities had a legal right to this information, field interviews suggest that inpractice this was rarely the case (Burgas Group, field surveys, 1991, 1992). Citizens hadfew rights of access to environmental data, much of which remained confidentialthroughout the period of central planning, and its use by the public could be illegal. As amatter of fact, public access to environmental information became more restricted inmany CEE countries in the 1980s as governments attempted to maintain their informationmonopoly over environmental information and data, amid rapidly worseningenvironmental conditions in badly polluted areas such as the Black Triangle. In EastGermany, the Council of Ministers adopted an official “Order for Ensuring the Secrecy ofEnvironmental Data” on 16 November 1982. The order, which hasnever been published,banned the publication of any information on actual pollution levels (DeBardeleben 1991:175–6). In the same year, the Health Ministry of Czechoslovakia banned the publicationof any health related documents if they included “summary data about environmental

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pollution, the levels of ionizing radiation, and data about the incidence of certain diseasesand defects, in particular if this concerns retardation of the development of children inspecific locations with high levels of air pollution” (Vaněk 1996:67). In October 1986, theCzechoslovak Federal Interior Ministry included even summaries of environmental andepidemiological data among highly classified information, effectively banning itspublication in any form. These severe restriction were partially lifted in March 1988 butthe summary of environmental and epidemiological conditions remained classified(Moldan 1990:34–9).

Poland experienced the opposite situation in the early 1980s. As Solidarity becamemore powerful the censorship of environmental information was lifted. Solidarity’s FirstNational Congress, in September and October 1981, adopted a number of programmatictheses concerning the environment. Among others it called for the “introduction ofmandatory publication of full information on the state of threats to the environment andsocial health, as well as development of school programs on the topic of environmentalprotection” (Hicks 1996:124–5). Articles discussing environmental issues in Poland beganto appear in the underground press in 1984 and increasingly in 1985 where there waspublic concern about the extent of environmental degradation (ibid.: 128). Throughoutthe 1980s, Polish scholars could publish about the environment much more openly thanscientists in other CEE countries (Jancar-Webster 1991:28).

In all countries, however, the information that was collected was often collected forparticular purposes and was often not generalizable. Data collection was grosslyunderfunded and the result was poor data: at some national monitoring sites in Bulgariaair quality was recorded by “sniffing the air” and grading the smell on a ten-point scale(Burgas Group, field surveys, 1991), while municipalities in Czechoslovakia monitoreddischarges of “dark” smoke, where the darkness of smoke was used to indicate the amountof soot in the smoke. White or light color smoke indicated a small amount of soot andwell-adjusted furnaces. Darker smoke indicated that more soot was being released,suggesting that furnaces were not well adjusted and inappropriate fuels were being used.2

The net result was an archive of environmental data which was missing, poorly collectedand reported, and distorted for enterprise, Ministry or state reasons. When research onenvironmental problems did occur, results were normally only available for“administrative use” or were highly aggregated. As a result, limited public availability andpoor quality of information contributed to a scarcity of published literature on theenvironment.

Under central planning, access to information was severely restricted and carefullycontrolled. Access was limited to representatives of particular institutions, such asresearch institutes. An individual or group needed a letter from the institution theyrepresented stating the purposes for which particular data sets were required. If the datarequested did not appear on the list of informationclassified as “secret,” the informationwas then provided free. However, a great deal of information was “secret.” Even wheninformation was made available, limitations were placed on the legitimate use to which itcould be put (for a parallel situation in the GDR see Kopf 1993).

In his foreword to Boris Komarov’s (1980) The Destruction of Nature in the Soviet Union,Marshall Goldman explained the role of secrecy in regard to industrial and environmental

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information in the Soviet Union. Discussing the absence of public knowledge of ecologicalproblems, Goldman explained that even Soviet officials had incomplete information aboutwhat was happening in the Soviet environment. In this case the two main reasons weremilitary security and embarrassment. The refusal of the USSR to support Leontief’sproposal for a worldwide project to inventory waste discharges in order to prevent unduebuild-ups of potentially hazardous wastes was, he suggested, a result of the fear that suchinformation would permit Western governments to identify from waste materials theproduction of military materials and estimate inefficiencies in production.

Similar fears underpinned a wave of secrecy in Bulgaria during the 1960s. Economicand environmental information was judged to be of importance for political and militaryreasons. In these clamp-downs, government officials feared that information on enterpriseinputs and outputs could be used to determine the products of an enterprise and, specifically,inputs and outputs could be used to identify production for military purposes. Special jobsto generate and control information were created as a result. Gradual expansion of thisinformation bureaucracy led to new waves of secrecy in the 1970s and the 1980s.

Control of access to information was also achieved in less formal ways. In most cases, datahad to be copied by hand according to the needs of each of the specific research projects.Ordinary people and researchers were not allowed access to copying and reproductionmachines. Since data collection was always specific to a particular research project,compilation of systematic and complete databases was difficult. Moreover, since no“information market” existed, there was only restricted development of the tools ofinformation storage, management and flow. Practically none of the work of the kindcarried out in the US in the 1980s on the computerization of databases, data formatting,transfer, storage and retrieval was carried out in Bulgaria. A supercomputer is reputed tohave been built, but this was a demonstration project and was not incorporated into thestate information apparatus.

Large data banks did exist under central planning. These were developed at the regionalcomputation centers in the early 1970s, for example at the computation centers of thedifferent ministries (such as the Ministry of Planning and the Ministry of Economics in thecase of Bulgaria). Their aim was to provide data for the management of the economy andto foster rational decision-making. Physical geographic and environmental data wascollected at several sites, including the Hydro-Metereological Institute and the ResearchCenter of the MoE. Unfortunately, data from these centers was difficult to use;monitoring criteria were not clear, data formats were frequently changed, and usersmaking requestsfor information from the data banks were charged relatively high rates.These charges covered not only the costs of accessing and copying data, but also part ofthe costs of the maintenance of the facility and the labor to run it. Bulletins werepublished on some topics, but in most cases the data were released at an aggregate level,in standard—although frequently changeable—formats. Data were either too general fordetailed analysis or not particularly reliable, and were often not provided until severalmonths after requests for access had been made. As environmental researchers know onlytoo well, original monitoring data were usually stored in the “dusty files” of the special storesof the Ministry. If and when access to the files was permitted, the researcher had to beprepared to spend days or weeks copying by hand number by number.

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In Czechoslovakia, the first complex scientific analysis of environmental conditions wasconducted in the Fall of 1983. At the request of the government, ten members of theEcological section of the Biological Society of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciencesprepared the Analysis of Ecological Situation in Czechoslovakia. The governmental requestallowed the scientists access to classified environmental information previouslyunavailable. Since only a few high ranking Communist Party government officials weresupposed to read the report, only twenty copies of the Analysis were printed. However,one copy of the report was “lost” during distribution and was delivered to members of theopposition civic group Charta 77. Charta 77 published the document in its undergroundperiodical in December 1983. In January 1984, the Paris newspaper Le Monde published apart of the Analysis and subsequently parts of the document were broadcast in Czech bythe Voice of America and the Radio Free Europe. In February 1984, parts of the Analysiswere published in two West German newspapers and the full text was published in Listy,the Czechoslovak opposition journal published abroad (Vaněk 1996:68–9).

This situation represented a serious blow to the Communist government ofCzechoslovakia because it damaged its monopoly over the most comprehensive source ofinformation about the Czech environment available anywhere. The Analysis providedevidence that the government had not paid sufficient attention to environmentalconditions and that Czechoslovakia had become one of the most environmentallydevastated countries in Europe. For the first time, this information reached the Czech publicthrough the foreign broadcast. Based on the Analysis, the West increased its pressure onthe government to deal with environmental problems, especially those that involved trans-boundary pollution. Vaněk (1996:70–1) argues that this was the cause of theCzechoslovak government’s change in position toward the environment. In its 1984/No.160 resolution, the Czech government called for a radical change in environmentalmanagement. A new State Conception of Production and Protection of the Environment andRational Exploitation of Natural Resources of Czechoslovakia until the Year of 2000 was preparedbetween 1985 and 1988. The document set new goals to improve environmental qualityby the year 2000 and allocated dramatically increased levels of financial support from thenational budget for environmental management for the period of 1986–90.

Democratizing access to environmental data and the limitsof state institutions in the period of transition

The environment played a major ideological role in the old regime. In the present period,poor monitoring, archiving and dissemination of information about the environmentperpetuates this situation. At the present time there are still only poorly developedmechanisms or legal provisions guiding data production, collection and dissemination, andinstitutional stimuli and rules to encourage those who collect data to permit public accessto them are still ad hoc or absent. Although in recent years the environmental problems ofCentral and Eastern Europe are receiving much less attention locally and in the West thanthey were between 1989–94/95, the environment (along with security) remains one ofthe strongest cards Eastern and Central European governments have been able to play in

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maintaining Western media interest in, and in attracting foreign financial support for, thetransition (notably from the EU, the IMF, and the World Bank). As a result, individualgovernments have made strong commitments—at least on paper—to improvingenvironmental monitoring, data gathering and public access to information.

The situation in Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech Republic was typical. The 1989revolution represented a radical change in the rights of the public for access toenvironmental information. In 1990, the government published a report on theenvironment originally prepared by independent scientists at the behest of the old regime(see Vavroušek and Moldan 1989; Moldan 1990). One of the most important priorities ofthe newly created Federal Committee on the Environment was to inform the public aboutenvironmental quality and to establish a new monitoring system (Plate 9.1). In the 1991Rainbow Programme, the MoE of the Czech Republic pledged to publish a yearbook with“detailed, complex and updated information on the environment in the Czech Republic”,periodical environmental updates, a departmental Bulletin that would include theinstructions and regulations set out by the Ministry, a newsletter with information onactivities of individual departments of the Ministry, and professional environmentaljournals. The Ministry also pledged to cooperate with TV and radio broadcasters todevelop “systematic ecological education” (Moldan 1991:19). All these goals have beenachieved in the 1990s. The Public Relations Department of the Ministry provided awealth of free information (in both Czech and English) about the quality of theenvironment in the Czech Republic and about the work of the Ministry in the early1990s. The situation changed dramatically in 1996, however. Budget cuts limited theamount of free environmental information provided by the Ministry, although the annualReport on the Quality of the Environment was still available free of charge, and free access tothe Public Relations Department of the Ministry was restricted.

Similarly, since 1994/95 the Bulgarian Socialist Party government has reversed someof the previous policies of “openness” in dealing with environmental issues and hasattempted to slow down the penetration and influence of Western institutions and capital(including environmental NGOs) in the transformation ofbusiness and government. Atthe same time pollution abatement has become a lower priority of the government, withserious consequences for the development of, and access to, a national environmentaldatabase. Moreover, the public dissemination of environmental data can still be politicallydangerous and challenged as unpatriotic, particularly because it often demonstrates thecontinued inability of government to deal with chronic environmental problems quicklyand effectively, it raises difficult legal questions about the citizen’s right in a democraticsociety to know whether one is being harmed by pollution, and it threatens the rapidprivatization of industrial enterprises which have been (and often still are) heavy polluters.

Thus, a fundamental ambiguity regarding data availability permeates state institutions.On the one hand, state institutions have been formed that recognize the need to adoptmore open policies in data collection and dissemination. The Bulgarian National StatisticalInstitute, for example, has revamped its entire operations and now produces a broadrange of statistical data for different types of users. The Privatization Agency has alsoreorganized its policies towards public access to information, and now readily providesdetailed information on plants and enterprises that are being sold. On the other hand,

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other state institutions and actors retain strong interests in data control and limited publicaccess.3

Bruno Latour (1996) has recently shown us how technical innovation and change donot have simple referents in state policy, but must be understood in terms of actors,institutions and interest-based discourses acting in complex and unpredictable ways. Inthis sense, we can think of Alain Lipietz’s (1987) notion of stabilized modes of socialregulation as “chance occurrences” as reflecting thiscomplex and over-determined set ofsocial and institutional engagements and assemblages. Michael Curry (1996a) has spokenof “spatial data institutions” in this context. Such notions of spatial data institutions,institutional assemblages and stabilized (or non-stabilized) modes of social regulationprovide important theoretical insights into the ways in which data compilation anddissemination are actually “functioning” in the transformation of public and private lives inpost-communist societies.

Such analyses of the political and economic role of data monitoring, compilation anddissemination force us to think about the interests of data institutions in much morecomplex ways. For example, it is essential to an understanding of Bulgarian spatial datainstitutions to recognize that there is (or was at least until 1997) a strongly-held beliefamong scientists and policy makers that environmental data is first and foremost a form ofsectorally specific intellectual property, and that this belief functions to maintain andperpetuate a limited interpretation of public accessibility. That is, data which are to bemade public for one purpose (for example, national statistics or research data produced bygovernment institutions or with state funding) are also seen to be the private intellectual

Plate 9.1 A curbside atmospheric pollution monitoring device for public information (northernBohemia, Czech Republic)

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property of institute researchers at another level. For example, the National StatisticalInstitute (NSI), which now publishes an immense amount of data on many aspects ofsocial and economic aspects of life, remains reluctant to release anything but basic socio-demographic town and village level data. Such disaggregated data is the “bread and butter”of researchers at the NSI and the material for NSI’s institutional national role andreputation. By contrast, regional statistical offices are either still caught within thehierarchy of command and control (releasing no information to the public with expresspermission of the National Institute) or they are trying to operate at the forefront of “dataoutreach” in the community, where institutional and personal interests are tied directly tothe use of disaggregated data to assist local actors and to foster regional and localdevelopment. In this case, branches of the same organization exhibit distinctly differentpractices of data dissemination and public access.

Compounding these professional and regional differences is the fact that the nationalsystem of environmental monitoring and data collection has not been efficientlymaintained. Though some of the facilities are automated, poor management has typifiedtheir operation. Consequently, besides limitations on access due to organizational andstrategic secrecy constraints, procedures for organizing data collection, formatting andreporting have been variable. Data formats change often, presenting great difficulties forthe development of temporal data ranges. Because of the dominance of sectoral planningover territorial planning, the spatial organization and presentation of data have remainedunder-developed. Only in recent years have geographical information managementprinciples been adopted, but even then these have yet to be instituted beyond the planningstage.

Throughout CEE the district statistical offices that functioned under state socialismhave been allowed to deteriorate. Before 1989, district statistical offices published theirown statistical bulletins, containing a wealth ofdemographic, social and economicinformation and data about districts and their individual cities and villages. Environmentalinformation was not included in these bulletins, however. After 1989, the practice ofpublishing district statistical bulletins was either abandoned or became financially moredifficult. With privatization it became impossible to publish data about individualenterprises, and as a result of the small number of enterprises in individual towns,disaggregated data about the towns and villages became unavailable. In the CzechRepublic, for example, only selected district level statistical data is published centrally inPrague. As a result, since 1989 scientists have been unable to obtain the same quality localand district level data as was published before 1989.

One of the first demands of multi-lateral international agencies working with post-communist governments to implement liberalization policies after 1989 was the overhaulof the national system of accounts. The World Bank, for example, allocated $1 million forthe reorganization of the Bulgarian national statistical system. The renamed NationalStatistical Institute (formerly the Central Statistical Office) has now begun publication of awider range of national statistics (in Bulgarian and in English, French, and German). Andin 1991–2 the Bulgarian government received 140–60 million ECUs for reconstruction,15 million of which was to be directed towards the financial sector specifically to bring thecountry’s customs statistics, the tax system, and administration, banking and insurance

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statistics into line with European standards (168 Hours BBN 1991:1). Part of this moneyhas been directed towards environmental monitoring and data collection. The RegionalCenter of the MoE has received funds to establish a geographic information system.However, this is envisaged primarily as a data bank on a national, rather than a regional orlocal level, and as with previous systems, seems designed more to foster national planningand administration, and less to deal with the needs of research and management at the sub-national levels.

Throughout CEE, the most important source of environmental information is theMinistry of Environment. In Bulgaria, the Research Center of the Ministry is currentlybeing reorganized as funds coming to Bulgaria through the PHARE Program have beenallocated specifically for the modernization of the Center to bring the quality ofenvironmental data collection and handling up to world standards.4 As with many suchreorganizations, the US EPA has provided equipment and assistance in the process. Theoutcome has been the development of a new structure and system of environmentalmonitoring within a new Center of Environmental Data and Sustainable Development.The first version of this concept of a National System of Ecological Monitoring was released inDecember 1993, although it has been periodically changed mainly because of insufficientresources to implement it.

The Center has four basic aims. It seeks to:

• “provide for reliable, up-to-date information about the state of the environment forreliable evaluations, analysis, prognosis, and basic information for environmentallysound decisions”

• introduce automation of the processes of data collection, storage and display of data onnatural and environmental processes

• provide for quick decisions within the Ministry• link regional, national, and international systems and programs of environmental

research, monitoring and management.

The Center also coordinates data gathering and analysis from several sources within theMoE and other Ministries, and gathers information aimed at carrying out backgroundmonitoring (that is change in the natural environment that is not attributable to humanactivity within a radius of 100 km) and impact monitoring (dealing with the direct results ofhuman impacts).5

Environmental monitoring for the national territory is carried out by the variousenvironmental agencies of the government. These supply data to the MoE. However, thenetwork of monitoring has been seriously neglected and techniques are limited in scopeand accuracy. Equipment is outdated or broken, staff receive wages intermittently, littlemodernization of the monitoring stations has occurred, and money to support even basicsampling or computerization of monitoring and data entry is non-existent. Backgroundmonitoring is supposed to be carried out at three stations (at Rozhen, at a site in theBoatin forest reserve in the Teteven region of the Balkans, and at the Shkorpilovtzi BlackSea base of the Institute of Oceanography of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences nearVarna), where meteorological data is supposed to be measured daily, sulfur dioxide and

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nitrous oxide diurnally, dust weekly, and surface waters, soils, and plant life at setintervals ranging from every three months to annually. However, in summer 1998 onlythe Rozhen station was reporting data. Impact monitoring for atmospheric pollution iscarried out by the Regional Environmental Inspectorates at 105 sites in forty-twosettlements, plus specific monitoring of emissions from the 100 enterprises known to bethe largest polluters.6 Ten monitoring stations are automatic, measuring pollution levelsand meteorological parameters such as air temperature, humidity, wind strength anddirection, atmospheric pressure, and radiation receipts. The remaining sites have manualsampling. Samples are taken four times each day throughout the year, but not at night: amajor problem which fails to measure fugitive—but regular—night-time emissions bypolluters. Water pollution is monitored at river basin (272), canalized waterway (twenty-two), lake (thirteen) and Black Sea (twenty-five) sites. But the samples taken are assessedonly for a limited range of pollutants and heavy metals. Underground water sampling sitesare maintained by the Regional Environmental Inspectorates (112) and the Institute ofHydrology and Meteorology (124), but no data has been submitted by the Institute ofHydrology and Meteorology to the MoE since 1986. Currently there is no functioningnetwork for monitoring soil pollution, although there are plans for establishing a networkof 208 sites to check for heavy metals at intervals of one, three, and then five years, forpesticides every year at 200 sites, water erosion at 100 sites, wind erosion at twenty-fivesites, and salination at fifty sites.

Other CEE countries were also developing environmental monitoring systems in the1990s. Slovakia, for example, established a country-wide environmentalmonitoringsystem.7 Parts of the system, such as the waste information system, were built with thefinancial help of the PHARE program, but completion of the system was plagued by lackof financial resources. As a result, some of its monitoring responsibilities, such as assessingthe burden of environmental hazards on people and settlements, have seen only limiteddevelopment. Slovakia also plans to develop regional and local environmental monitoringsystems, but environmental monitoring of the area affected by the dams on the Danubewas the only functioning regional environmental system in the mid-1990s (SMoE 1995:9).

In the Czech Republic, there were 550 air pollution monitoring stations in 1996.Eleven different state organizations participated in air pollution monitoring. The CzechInstitute of Hydrometeorology had the most extensive network of air pollutionmonitoring stations (178), followed by the public health service (hygienic) stations (162),the Plant Production Research Institute (64) and Ekotoxa (sixty-four). The regionaldistribution of air pollution monitoring stations reflects the distribution of air pollution,with stations being concentrated in the regions with highest levels of pollution. NorthernBohemia has 26 percent (142) of all stations in the country, followed by northern Moraviawith 18 percent (101), while only nineteen stations are located in the least pollutedsouthern Bohemia. Almost two hundred air pollution measuring stations (187) usecontinuous automatic measurement while 356 use twenty-four-hour manualmeasurement (MoE and ČSÚ 1997:106–7).

The establishment of a countrywide environmental monitoring system was also amongthe top environmental priorities in Romania. However, the severity of economic crisis in

226 STATE, ENVIRONMENT AND INFORMATION

the 1990s has meant that Romania had to rely completely on foreign sources of finance forthe project, and implementation has been slow (Jordan and Tomasi 1994:167).

In Bulgaria, the financial and currency crises of 1996–7 seriously reduced budgets formonitoring activities, and inflation undermined the spending power of the budgets thatwere allocated. The Research Center lacks money to deepen and sustain the networks ofmonitoring and data acquisition. Money for sampling is limited and decreasing, and as aresult sample quality has deteriorated. Equipment is not being replaced when it breaks,and the planned automatic monitoring stations are currently on hold. Wages to qualifiedpersonnel are low and payments have not been regular. Funding for the computernetwork planned to link the Regional Inspectorates and the Central Laboratory of theInstitute for Environmental Monitoring and Sustainable Development (LIK) within theMoE has not been allocated, and there is little prospect of this in the immediate future.GIS software has been provided only to the Central Laboratory of LIK, and even this isnot used for anything but basic mapping. Much of the funding from international lendersand donors is thought to have been used for the construction of a new Ministry buildingand ancillary projects, including a great deal of international travel. By contrast,background monitoring at two stations—Shkorpilovtzi and Boatin—has ceased owing tolack of funds.

As these examples illustrate, much of this overhaul of the environmental monitoringand reporting system is occurring within contexts of financial scarcityand economicdifficulty. Foreign agencies have an increasing influence on defining needs, and theseagencies tend to assume that a national system controlled by the central ministries isnecessary. They also assume that the old system did not work, not because of inherentproblems with centralized information control, but because of “inefficiency” and “badmanagement.” However, information and data—as we have seen—are elements of abroader political economy of the state. In the democratization of society serious questionsneed to be asked about the role of information and the ways in which it is controlled.These roles and controls must be considered in the broader context of the relationshipsbetween democratization, marketization and decentralization of state power.

Several important questions need to be addressed as this relationship develops and asnew systems of monitoring and data collection are established. What are the needs for acomprehensive system of environmental data collection, retrieval and distribution? Whatsystems of rules are needed to protect access? What are the social and political implicationsof adopting any particular system of database management? How might spatial datahandling approaches foster environmental research and ecological management?

In Bulgaria, for example, the Ministry of Environment and Waters publishes reports onthe state of the environment, but in the past there was no institutional coordination formanaging environmental data storage and use beyond that contained in the reports. Therewas no “market” for information, only weak public pressure to release additional anddifferent types of information, and no stimuli for data centers such as the Research Centerto offer users more readily accessible and usable data formats. There is still no officialpricing mechanism for primary data, and individuals in charge of providing access to dataare therefore either unwilling to permit access without guidance from supervisors, givingit away free without regard to cost recovery, or they privatize the process and charge

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arbitrary fees to users. If an application for data comes from a state institute, informationis generally supplied. But as more and more functions of central planning are privatized,and as new private organizations with a need for data emerge, bureaucratic rigiditieswithin such data centers present problems to individuals, private enterprises, stateorganizations and non-governmental organizations alike. Moreover, as state deregulationcreates greater levels of autonomy within the state institutions themselves, suchorganizations are becoming more independent and less willing to fulfill requests fromexternal applicants.

The consequence is a strange situation in information handling. It is currently not clearto whom the established data banks belong, or who has the right of access to theinformation they contain. Legally they are state-owned. But individuals within particulardepartments who handle the data increasingly feel that they should no longer provide datafree, especially as conditions change towards market relations in the rest of society and asthe budgets of the departments within which they work are cut. Reduced budgets havebeen achieved by the encouragement of greater levels of self-funding by governmentdepartments and agencies. The interim solution to these problems has been the adoption,by bothholders and users, of ad hoc agreements and financial arrangements to permitaccess to needed data.8

Some organizations clearly feel that they should be the owners of data, though datacollection and maintenance have been and are state funded. There are precedents for thiswhich arise out of the system of intellectual property relations under central planning.Research was carried out on a contract basis, with the results becoming the property ofthose who paid for the research. In some cases, state agencies and communityorganizations which paid for research from public funds subsequently privatizedintellectual property along with the enterprises they controlled.

The problem is further compounded by the monopolistic practices under whichgovernment departments operated, and in many cases still do operate. Because databasessuch as those dealing with the environment are inherently under the monopoly control ofthe agency with statutory authority for collecting and managing the information, agencieshave raised prices for data to levels which are practically unaffordable by researchers. Dataaccess becomes almost impossible when there is a need to use databases and results fromdifferent sources and institutions. In the past almost all research projects were statefunded. But many of these were not published and reports were not issued or placed inpublic archives. The documentation from research projects (databases, maps, reports,etc.) were usually kept in the institute that funded the research.

At the national level, institutions such as the Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology,the Institute of Ecology, the Institute of Soils, the Agricultural Academy and theAGROPLAN Project organization generate and maintain valuable databases on aspects ofenvironmental conditions and change.9 However, comprehensive indices and informationabout the data have not been compiled and it remains difficult to gain access to originaldata and finished reports. Even individuals working within the same governmentorganization are often unaware of databases and reports available next door. At the presenttime, the only practical way of getting access to such information is to employ someone who

228 STATE, ENVIRONMENT AND INFORMATION

works in the organization, or on the research project, and charge that person with the taskof fishing out the needed information and data.

Until recently, there have been no general and systematic guides to the availability ofenvironmental data, and no publications detailing which organizations and governmentbodies collect what information. And there are only a few small private sources of databecause of the absence of an information market and corresponding stimuli.

In the present conditions of transformation, the previously established responsibilitiesfor data handling and management are being transferred, consolidated or dismantled. Asorganizations are rationalized or closed, and responsibilities transferred, data is being lostor scattered. There are currently no regulations governing ownership and control ofpublicly generated data.

Existing data formats and scales are frequently geared more toward the needs of datagathering agencies or the reporting needs of government bureaucracies than to the needsof those who seek to analyze and use the data. Establishingcomparability between datasets, formats and scales is time-consuming and often difficult. In some cases, as with theNational Cadaster, there has been little effort on the part of state organizations toaggregate detailed information in ways that permit its ready use by the public.

In Bulgaria, topographic maps and aerial photographs were classified as secret documentsuntil May 1992, with very severe prison penalties for the dissemination of such mapswithout due authority. Even for those with access to topographic maps, access was limitedunder a severe regime of control. Such maps can only be used during office hours even bypeople with the correct authorization, and then only in the offices of the holding agencyor researcher. Copying of the maps was prohibited. Even given these restrictions, mapswere purposely kept outdated. The absence of any widespread public demand for suchinformation has militated in favor of continued bureaucratic control and against any widerdissemination of information.

The issue is of particular significance given the recent creation of new legal andregulatory procedures for dealing with secret information. In Bulgaria, in April 1992, thegovernment issued a decree abolishing the secrecy of many government documents,including all topographic maps, land-use maps and aerial photographs that do not showobjects of importance for national security. The former Institute of Geodesy,Cartography, and Cadaster (part of the Council of Ministers) was abolished and anotherunit of Cadaster and Geodesy was established in the Ministry of Territorial Organization,Housing and Construction. The new decree substantially opened up public access toinformation collected by the state. The law represents a major step forward inconstructing an open society in Bulgaria. However, the law remains problematic inseveral ways: while 100,000 topographic maps have been declassified, 25,000 will remainsecret; the law does not deal clearly with issues of intellectual property; it does not createregulatory procedures governing access to and release of data and information; and manyof the bureaucratic procedures that limited access to information in practice remain inplace.

The final decision regarding public access to topographic maps will remain under thecontrol of the military, and change is expected to be slow. A great deal of research iscarried out at these military institutions that may be turned to civil needs, including

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sophisticated digital terrain modeling. Whether this research will be redirected for civilianuse in the near future is unclear. As a consequence, there is currently no publicly availableup-to-date detailed land-use map for the country. A European Community funded project—the CORINE project—has recently released a Europe-wide mapping at 1:1,000,000 ofland cover, biotopes, and atmospheric conditions, and this includes land-use mapping forBulgaria, integrating surface information and the digital terrain model provided by themilitary topographic institute with remotely sensed data. With land restitution, theemergence of property markets, and the necessity of evaluating taxable value, such mapsare urgently needed in Bulgaria. However, to date the data files are kept in WesternEurope and are not readily accessible to Bulgarians either because permissions are difficultto obtain or local storage and analysis capacities are too limited.

Reliable data on environmental conditions and change remain rare. Systemsof datacollection, testing and handling now standardized in European and North Americancountries are yet to be put in place and enforced in CEE. Environmental data collection inBulgaria has not been coordinated among relevant agencies, and no systematically appliedgeographic information system (GIS) has yet been adopted.

In the Czech Republic, the law dealing with access to environmental information (theEnvironmental Information Act) was passed in 1998. Political parties showed no interestin such a law before 1997. But with the need to align Czech laws with those of theEuropean Union, a necessary precondition for the eventual Czech membership in the EU,legislation has begun to move ahead. Based on the List of Basic Rights and Freedomsadded to the Constitution in 1990, everyone has a right to accurate and full informationon the state of the environment and natural resources. The 1992 Law on the Environmentalso provides for the right to have access to environmental information. However, noneof these provisions gives the public details of how access to information is to be obtainedand what the specific responsibilities are of the authorities to provide it. Before theEnvironmental Information Act was enacted, environmental data and information wereprovided only at the behest of local and central state authorities. As a result, the publicgenerally found it impossible to access certain data or information and there were noofficial procedures for complaints. The new law provides clear steps for addressing howand whom to ask about environmental information and data, how much a user is chargedfor it, and under what conditions the authorities are required to provide environmentaldata and information to the public. Approval of the law was actually obstructed by thegovernment, which disapproved of the law and wanted to prevent discussion and approvalby the lower house of the Czech Parliament. As a result, the approval process has beendelayed (Kužvart 1998:5, Št’astná 1997:7–8). In Slovakia, a similar law about the publicaccess to environmental information was also enacted in 1998.

For environmental analysis in all countries of CEE a wider range of monitoring anddata handling techniques are needed. The PHARE program is supporting theimplementation of new monitoring equipment, including the provision of mobilemonitoring vehicles. International organizations are also supporting the implementationof several geographic information systems in the country: the PHARE program is assistingMinistries of Agriculture to organize special GIS units for registering land division as landrestitution continues; Ministries of Environment are receiving assistance from the US EPA

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to implement ARC/Info based GIS to assist in the management of environmentalinformation; and some local councils have begun to implement GIS for local levelenvironmental planning and regulation.

GIS and the restructuring of national systems of datacollection: a case study of Bulgaria

It is almost axiomatic that in the field of information management there is a technologygap between East and West Europe. At the same time, political andeconomic reforms inCentral and Eastern Europe place an enormous demand on researchers and stateinstitutions to provide accurate and up-to-date information on a wide range of issuesranging from property transfers to air pollution. In the countries of Central and EasternEurope, economic and political changes have to go hand in hand with technologicalinnovations, organizational change and changes in education. In this context, thedevelopment of geographical information systems (GIS) technologies and approaches inBulgaria, while only now beginning, offers important possibilities for dealing with someof the data handling, analysis and dissemination problems we have discussed so far. It alsoposes challenges to those dealing with environmental information, and serious questionsabout the democratizing of information and changes to established practices of datacollection and use.10

The development of GIS was delayed in Bulgaria (as throughout CEE) for a variety ofreasons.11 The development of computer hardware and software industries was tightlycontrolled by the state for security reasons and by the demands of the Soviet market,which after rapid growth in the 1970s declined rapidly in the late 1980s. With the politicalchanges after 1989, COMECON markets collapsed, COCOM restrictions made furtherdevelopment difficult, and a systematic process of hollowing out of the computer industryoccurred after 1985.12 Compounding these problems was the culture of secrecysurrounding all types of geographic information. In the past, reference material was undersecurity restrictions. Topographic maps, satellite data, aerial photographs and statisticaldata were included in the list of secret information. Among the COMECON countriesBulgaria had the strictest information security regime. The effect was that the systems ofinformation exchange among institutions were highly controlled, practices and rules wereidiosyncratic and dominated by personality and position, and no standard pricingmechanisms, such as cost recovery, right of free access and so on, so typical in the West,emerged. Without such regulations governing data exchange and with enormousconstraints on types of data one could use and how it could be used, there was littlestimulus to, or public pressure for, the kind of technical and analytical experimentationthat characterized Western computer and database development in the 1980s.

Cold War restrictions on technology transfer compounded these problems andrestricted the flow of information between specialists in the East and the West, with theresult that Bulgarian specialists found it difficult to follow developments in the field. Evento subscribe to basic international journals was difficult when currency was notconvertible. Even with convertibility (and now inflation and devaluation) few can affordto subscribe to foreign journals and information sources.

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As a result, the emerging pattern of software development has important drawbacks.First, while several centers and institutions did build their own PC-based softwareincorporating limited GIS functions and digital databases, they have been mainlyconcerned with developing their capacity to display data graphically instead of developingan integrated GIS system. Second, their efforts have been mainly directed towards solvingthe immediate needs of their respective institution; few, if any, have yet been aimed atmultiuser applications, and thus they have been designed without consideration for dataexchange and access to data by other users. This form of dedicated design means that thesoftware and the information that is put into it are difficult to separate, a rigidity thatseverely limits the value of the data and circumscribes access to it. Combined with thecentralization of information within Ministries, new monopolists of information haveemerged who feel free to either offer “their” information at very high prices or, becauseno pricing mechanisms have been established, to deny access to it.

In several environmental fields, GIS needs are enormous. With land restitution andprivatization a new system of land division and patterns of ownership is being created. Theadoption of GIS seems inevitable for effective management and regulation of the emergingsystems of land parceling and registration. New industrial enterprises, ownershippatterns, enterprise links, property forms and transfers, and the new system of taxes andfines will all likely adopt electronic database handling. A new administrative division hasrecently been implemented and, with it, new categories and systems of accounting anddata collection. GIS has already begun to play an important role in developing new systemsof monitoring and analysis.

Organizations at national, regional and local levels in agriculture, environmentalmanagement and administrative management already feel the need for tools forinformation management, and these are stimulating implementation of GIS technologyacross a wide arena of applications. But financial limitations are severe, and little in theway of reliable software and trained specialists is available.

Small private firms are now proliferating, trying to take advantage of the opportunitiesemerging as land division and restitution occurs on a local scale across the entire country.This task is of high priority at present and is one of the few activities for which money isbeing allocated. But the process of digitizing land and property information is notoccurring in a coordinated fashion and, under the present conditions of inertia, slowlyreacting management structures, lack of information on the part of management and staffand the rapid emergence of new private owners, it seems likely that information will beduplicated and fragmented.

The process of surveying, mapping and registering land parcels has already costmillions of leva. The size and scope of the project was too large for any single state agency,and the government of the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) did not wish toconsolidate further the power of Ministries through the process. As a result, privatecompanies were authorized to carry out land surveys and to submit the data files to theland commissions in each region. Each had to submit data files in AUTOCAD, and alocally devised GIS-like program TELLUS has been used to transfer data. The process ofland surveying is now complete, and, despite much discussion about those companieswhich received licenses but had no expertise in geodesy or computer systems and

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subcontracted out the work in order to garner the commissions for themselves, there isgeneral agreement that the Ministry of Agriculture now has a solid land and propertydatabase. Moreover and importantly, a copy of the land survey in AUTOCAD andTELLUSremains with each obshtina. Already, several obshtini are making active use of the databasefor local management, and more are likely to turn to GIS and the database as the graceperiod for paying taxes on land begins to expire. However, as with other environmental datano national standards for management and maintenance of the database have beenestablished and most obshtini have no capacity to deal with or store the land records. As aresult, it is likely that many databases will be lost at the local level and the Ministry ofAgriculture will be expected to resupply the information when tax collection begins. Thefact that there are no agreed upon rules governing access to Ministry data files is likely tocompound the problem for these obshtini.

Recently several private Bulgarian firms have offered GIS software on the market,directed again mainly to land divisions registration. It has not been widely adopted andcertainly has not yet become operational country-wide. Potential users are suspiciousabout these developments, because most often they are only CAD-based systems, aimedat graphical representation and lacking the analytical tools necessary for real GISapplications. Moreover, prices for software packages are equivalent to world-marketprices, and thus are inaccessible to most Bulgarian researchers and businesses. Although withpirated software widely available (and at least 1/300th of the cost of licensed software) anactive black market in locally developed database management software and pirated GISprograms (often on Russian CDs) was thriving (although there are indications that this isnow being more vigorously controlled).

Some popular GIS software packages are available and making their way on the marketin Bulgaria. MapInfo is one of them. Discussions are occurring about using MapInfo morewidely in the fields of territorial planning, local administration and communications. It islikely that PC-based, low cost, relatively easy to operate GIS packages would be morewidely preferred, at least for some time.

Sectoral differentiation and trends in data acquisition anddissemination in Bulgaria

Privatization of state property began officially in 1991, although the practice ofappropriating state property had been rampant much earlier. Data has always been seen bynon-state institutions and organizations as vital to the functioning of democratic practices,whether under socialism or capitalism. In Bulgaria data have been one of the last areas ofstate property to be publicly recognized as having value as a commodity, but one of thefirst to be appropriated privately. As a result, questions of data compilation anddistribution are fundamentally questions about the relationship between public and privateproperty rights. In practice, these questions are being resolved as multiple and hybridforms of social contract are emerging in old and new public and private institutions over dataacquisition and ownership.

Three related trends seem to be particularly significant at the present time. First, thecrisis of state institutions deepened significantly in the mid-1990s as budgets declined and

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available money was poorly used or squandered. Second,the data institutions responsiblefor the compilation and dissemination of statistical and spatial information proliferatedwith the emergence of non-government and private organizations, especially as a result ofthe emphasis placed on renewal of national statistics by international fundingorganizations. The Regional Environmental Center (REC) now maintains extensivedatabases on environmental NGOs in Bulgaria, and periodically updates its assessment ofenvironmental hot spots. The blue wing of Ecoglasnost has recently been revitalized andnow possesses one of the finest libraries and databases on environmental issues andpollution in the country. Third, private sector ownership and management of databaseshave emerged in recent years and show signs of becoming more important in the next fewyears, particularly if the fiscal crisis facing state institutions continues to deepen. Fourth,responding in part to the return to secrecy of the prior BSP government, the newgovernment of Ivan Kostov has instituted new policies of data access and institutionaltransparency.

If we compare the situation in 1991–3 with the period since 1997 the picture is not atall clear. On the one hand, and as we have seen above, spatial and environmental datainstitutions have proliferated, state agencies have begun to publish more information ofhigher quality in more usable formats than previously, and professionals with experienceof new data handling systems are being assigned to research and data managementpositions. New commercial and governmental practices, such as land titling, haveemerged which have generated new demands for sound public data and information. Andinternational funding agencies have been clear about the need to revamp national statisticsif grants are to be awarded.

On the other hand, the crisis of state institutions has, in the same period, deepenedsignificantly, particularly with the 1996 currency collapse. Declining state budgets,massive inflation and currency crisis have meant that there are now fewer resources formonitoring environmental conditions and gathering data through routine data proceduresand research projects. Environmentalists and others have experienced a decline in accessto data processing technologies and information. Institutes and departments at theAcademy of Sciences, such as the Institute of Ecology, whose task was to develop suchdatabases, have been closed. As a consequence there is a deepening of the process of “datahiding” and a reduction in advanced scientific research. Both processes hinder thedevelopment of what we might think of as “public data” about the environment in whichinformation of high quality, rigorously tested by independent specialists and readilyavailable in various formats to a wide range of potential users is publicly available: aconcept of public data that seems to be guaranteed under the constitution (see Friedbergand Zaimov 1994; Pickles and the Bourgas Group 1993).

Centralizing tendencies exhibited by successive governments since 1991 have, in asurprising way, been exacerbated by international agencies who have provided financialsupport for GIS and database development primarily at the level of the central ministries,concentrating their efforts on modernizing and upgrading the central bureaucraticfunctioning of the state’s apparatuses. Efforts to construct user-friendly, open accessdatabase systems and GIS applications forenvironmental monitoring and managementwhich will be more responsive to local and regional needs, and which will overcome the

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kinds of systemic problems which emerge at the national level over intellectual property,have not been pursued by most international agencies and central ministries.

Nonetheless, in the face of the poverty of national data provision, several interestinglocal level initiatives have emerged. Experiments are being tried with new electronicdatabase and spatial data handling systems, especially where they offer the capability toprovide locally and regionally specific information (see Meurs and Pickles 1999). Thequestions remain open as to how such local systems of data collection, compilation andstorage will be implemented, what data will be collected for what purposes, and to whomit will be made accessible.

Unfortunately, the period since 1994 has not been easy for such “data democrats.”13

Deepening economic crisis, particularly with the collapse of the lev in 1995–6, re-centralization of political control by the Bulgarian Socialist Party government, and the re-criminalization of some uses of environmental data have made the extension of systematicdata collection and dissemination difficult.

Conclusions

The political and economic transformation of the countries of CEE in important ways hasaltered the ability of citizens and environmental groups to gain access to, and to make useof, information about the environment around them. The constitution of each countryenshrines these rights in law and successive governments have made repeated efforts toreassert these rights and to put them into practice. At the local level some authorities havedeveloped their own systems of environmental monitoring and policing, and some ofthese are tied to new systems of data collection and database management. In some cases,GIS is being utilized to facilitate long-term data storage and use, as well as the hoped-forcapacity for analysis of environmental conditions. In Bulgaria, the National Institute ofStatistics and the National Institute of Geological Resources are incorporating spatial datahandling and mapping programs into their work (specifically MAPInfo and ARCInfo).MAPInfo is also used at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Construction and theInstitute of Geology. GIS courses to train practitioners have begun at the University ofMining and Geology, the Technical University, the University of Architecture andConstruction, the University of Sofia, the South West University and the AmericanUniversity of Blagoevgrad. Finally, software has become increasingly accessible. Whilelicensed Western software has generally been too expensive for nearly all users, a widerange of database management software and pirated mapping and GIS programs areavailable on Russian CDs for low prices, and since 1997 researchers and policy instituteshave been able to get greater access to legal state-of-the-art software.

Particularly in slowly reforming countries, such as Bulgaria, only projects funded byinternational organizations have access to sufficient resources to carryout extensiveenvironmental research and construct comprehensive databases. CORINE has been onesuch project and Project MARS—which deals with remotely sensed data on agriculturalpotentials and changing land uses—is another. But results are slow to be reported insideBulgaria. USAID is now sponsoring Project ARD, a bio-diversity project for the StaraPlanina region, involving the building of a national environmental database and examples

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of sustainable development programs for the region. And this, like many others currentlyunderway, links international scholars and policy-makers with local NGOs primarily witha conservation or bio-diversity or eco-tourism focus. In nearly all cases, few results findtheir way back into Bulgarian debates, or where the results are reported little attentionseems to have been paid to them. Whatever the reason, such projects to date have hadimportant spin-offs in developing local expertise and international contacts, but much lessdirect impact on policy.

Indigenous environmental monitoring and data gathering efforts are limited by poormaintenance practices and, particularly at the local level, by the limited means available tostate agencies to handle computerized information processing. Particularly since 1996,there has been less money to create and maintain databases, almost no money forcomputers, and little money to carry out the necessary digitizing of existing information.If information about the developments in the information processing industry (software,hardware, new technologies, GIS, etc.) was restricted during the totalitarian period,during the period of transition barriers to use and legal restrictions on access have fallen,but there is now little money for even basic information sources, let alone expensivedigital data.

On the other hand, a lack of financial resources provides the very conditions whichmake it imperative to adopt new generation digital technologies and to ensure thatwhatever investments are made are productive. This is particularly true forcommunication technologies. From cellular telephone communication to electronic mailto personal computing the pace of adoption and use in CEE countries is astonishing. Theindirect consequences of such rapid growth in digital communication systems forenvironmental management and politics are yet to be accounted, let alone understood.

In even in the slowest of reforming countries, there are already some improvements inenvironmental conditions. Economic decline has forced many of the most pollutingenterprises out of production and many of the polluting production lines of operating plantshave also stopped. Zhan Videnov’s government did manage to develop someenvironmentally sensitive projects, the largest of which was probably the SODI-Devnjachemical plant near Varna. In the privatization agreement of this, the largest sodamanufacturing plant on the Balkan peninsula and one of the largest in the world, the newowner accepted the obligation to allocate funds for environmentally sound productiontechnology and other environmental projects. However, with only a few exceptions, thecurrency crisis of 1996–7 undermined budgets of state institutions, individuals andorganizations. Allocated budgets based on reasonable assessments of need were devaluedby 50 percent in a matter of months as costs rose precipitously.Sampling, datameasurement and database development became a luxury. Even the largest polluters suchas the Neftochim oil refinery and chemical producer, or the Kremikovcki steel plant, orthe copper processing plant of Medet, which paid for research on environmentalmonitoring and pollution in the past, can no longer do so. Kremikovcki, for example, isnow losing money and periodically is unable to make salary payments. Efforts of the newCurrency Board to stabilize the currency and re-establish fiscal confidence in the countryseem to have been very successful, but the difficult process of rebuilding basic infrastructure,let alone monitoring and environmental data services, has been slow.

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As the new societies of Central and Eastern Europe emerge out of the old, and asformer patterns of centralized power are re-inscribed in the contemporary politicallandscape, questions of democracy and freedom increasingly need to be addressed at thelevel of specific practices and possibilities. If the devil is in the details, then geographersand environmentalists working in Central and Eastern Europe must add to their questionsabout environmental practices and change two important challenges: developing a deeperunderstanding of the political economy of environmental data, and putting in place newdemocratic concepts, practices and systems of data, data management and public access.

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 237

238

10Environmental effects of post-communist

transformations

There was a chance for fundamental change in the East [in terms of theenvironment], a chance for a new beginning, but so far it has beensquandered.

(Hartwig Berger, spokesperson for the Green Party in Berlin, quoted inSimons 1994: A6)

Transition has been a boon for the environment in Central and EasternEurope.

(Simpson et al. 1996:37)

The successes of anti-communist revolutions throughout the region generated a euphoricoptimism about the ability of everyday citizens to effect change and sustain a politics ofecological and social defence against an intrusive and overbearing state, and pollutionlevels have certainly declined, especially in the most polluted regions. Indeed, theenvironmental record of post-1989 reforms is, on the whole, one of rapidly declininglevels of pollution and other improvements in environmental indicators and has often beenjudged to be a success by economists and government officials (e.g. Holman 1995:5).But to judge these declines as “successes” may be overly optimistic. An alternativeinterpretation would be that represented by many environmental NGOs in the region.These view the neo-liberal reforms of the 1990s as a missed opportunity that has failed toset the region on a pathway toward sustainable development (e.g. Altvater 1993; Gowan1995; Manser 1993). In this view, improved environmental statistics are considered to beby-products of economic collapse and not primarily the result of improved (andsustainable) environmental management practices. Environmentalists also criticize CEEgovernments for repeating Western mistakes; adopting its “end of pipe” technologies(such as filters, scrubbers, long stacks, diffusers, and desulfurization equipment) to controltoxic and hazardous emissions. According to Greenpeace (1991:3), “such investmentshave short-term horizons and by diverting capital, they jeopardise the long-termdevelopment of an advanced, non-polluting industrial sector, capable of producingcompetitive marketable products for the next century.”

In this chapter, we want to show how the truth lies somewhere in between these twopositions: that there have been concrete improvements in the qualityand management ofthe environment across the region, but at the same time serious questions remain aboutthe future sustainability of many of these improvements. The chapter aims to shift thedebate about transition and environmental futures from single path transformation modelsto one which sees transition as occurring along multiple paths, each dependent on specifichistorical circumstances, local, national and international conditions, and the responses ofa variety of actors. In this view, far from being pre-determined outcomes of nationalcultures, developmental paths, or market reforms, future pathways available forenvironmental use or abuse are always open and contested, being shaped at each momentby the broader social contexts of reform and transformation. While Chapters Seven andEight focused on the role of the environment during the revolutions that ousted statesocialist regimes across CEE and the legislative steps the new democratic governmentshave taken to improve the quality of the environment in their respective countries, thischapter looks at the effects of political and economic transformation on the quality of theenvironment in the region, at the differential nature of environmental reconstructionbetween Central and Southeastern Europe, and at the regional unevenness ofenvironmental clean-up within specific CEE countries.

Shock therapy: economic crisis and struggles overenvironmental quality

The strategy of economic transformation in CEE was largely based on neo-liberalfoundations. The policies of structural adjustment were introduced into CEE after thecollapse of state socialism with strong foreign support and tied loans. For some, the mereintroduction of free market mechanisms such as domestic price liberalization and theopening of CEE economies to the international competition (in the context of parallelpolitical reforms) would automatically lead to a transition to capitalism (see Pavlínek1997:36–41). In this view, a market economy would result in a more efficient allocationof factors of production and put CEE back on a path toward economic growth andprosperity (Sachs 1990, 1992). In this “free market mania” (Bowman and Hunter 1992:929) the mere introduction of market mechanisms was expected to alleviate severeenvironmental degradation: since the worst polluters were presumed to be the mostinefficient producers, they would become uncompetitive in this market environment andwould be forced to restructure to reduce energy, materials and labor inefficiencies (andhence become more environmentally friendly) or they would have to close (Liroff 1990:55; Economist 1990a:54, 56, 1990b:14, 1992:29; GAO 1994:25).

This reasoning, and its reliance on market mechanisms to cure economic and social ills,had become popular in the West in the late 1970s and 1980s and was characterized aswhat Lipietz (1992a:30) called liberal-productivism. In this view, the Western economiccrisis of the 1970s resulted from the excessive governmental intervention in the economywhich imposed constraints (social, environmental, etc.) on the operation of free markets,prevented entrepreneurial experimentation and actually constrained the development ofproduction systemsand practices. Deregulation, free trade and technological change

240 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

should, according to the advocates of liberal-productivism, remove these constraints andrestore economic growth (see Lipietz 1992a:30–47). The proponents of liberal transitionin CEE used the same arguments to justify their strategy of “shock therapy.”

Certainly, the introduction of market mechanisms in former centrally plannedeconomies has created new incentive structures, and by and large these encouragereductions in energy and material consumption in all branches of industry, especially ininternationally competitive sectors. However, in most Western market economies therealso exist relatively sophisticated protections against the predatory practices of capitalistindustries, and where these exist they have been hard won over many years of popularstruggle. However, despite these protections against predation, it is under advancedmarket capitalist regimes that the ecological crisis that has become the hallmark of globalenvironmental change (such as global climatic warming) has emerged. Here, evenregulated markets have not proven to be very effective regulators of environmentalproblems. The “thinness” of regulatory and legal regimes in post-communist countries andthe current weakness of popular ecological resistance in them thus seem particularlyunlikely contexts within which environmental degradations wrought by marketization,privatization and changing patterns of consumption are likely to be controlled, eventhough reductions in point source pollution may occur as managers adopt new economicefficiency criteria or as enterprises close down or scale back production.

In assessing the nature of the Anschluss wrought by German reunification, JürgenHabermas (1993) has suggested that one of the elements that most typified the democraticgains of the FGR after 1945 was in effect the exercise of democratic controls over thepredatory practices of capitalism. This gain was placed in serious jeopardy by the FederalGerman government’s refusal to hold a constitutionally mandated debate and revision ofthe Constitution of the FGR at the point of reunification, a requirement that Habermasasserts would have forced a public debate about the costs of restructuring in the West andthe East, one which might well have resulted in a different path being taken from thepolicy of plant closure that typified Treuhand policies after 1991. Instead, liberal-productivist models of development were foisted upon the new Germany with seriousconsequences for increased economic polarization, social instability and uneven regionaldevelopment. Labor productivity and efficiency gains from new technologies have beensacrificed as the social compact with workers has been undermined (by what Lipietz(1992a:30–56) calls the neo-Taylorist labor process model). In CEE in some cases theresult has been escalation of environmental problems caused by a weakening of post-1989regulations and encouraging exports at all costs.

In the 1990s, similar symptoms of neo-liberal economic and social policies can beobserved across CEE. Shock therapy was pursued to a greater or lesser extent, withvarying degrees of urgency in all CEE countries after 1989, and market mechanisms havebeen introduced with differential success (Gowan1995:17–23). Throughout the regionthe early 1990s were typified by rapid economic decline, collapsing industrial production,high inflation, increasing unemployment, rapidly increasing social polarization and overalleconomic and political instability in the region (Figures 10.1 and 10.2). By the early1990s, after intense political struggles between economists and environmentalists, somegovernments did set ambitious goals designed to reduce pollution considerably by the end

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 241

of the decade despite the economic crisis.1 In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, forexample, the governments ordered all major air polluters to cut their emissions drasticallyby 31 December 1998 (including complete desulfurization of all coal-based power plants)or face large fines. In Poland, the eighty worst polluters at the national level and 800 atthe regional level were slated for closure or restructuring by the government. And in theformer GDR, brown coal mining and use of high sulfur coal in associated powergeneration plants in the Leipzig area virtually ceased. It is to these cases that we now turn.

Failed transitions, delayed transitions or dialectics ofnature?

General economic decline and especially collapsing industrial production contributedsubstantially to the reduction of polluting emissions throughout CEE, but it is difficult toestimate how much pollution decline can be attributed to falling industrial output and howmuch was the result of governmental action and enterprise attempts to comply withnewly introduced environmental legislation. Some observers and regional NGOs attribute

Figure 10.1 Annual change in GDP (top) and unemployment rate in selected countries, 1989/90–98

Source: Data from BCE (1999)

242 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

the bulk of pollution declines recorded after 1989 to the decline in industrial productionand argue that governmental policies did not contribute very much to pollution reduction(e.g. Černá, Tošovská and Cetkovský 1995:393). By doing so they evoke the idea of the“failed transition” and “missed opportunity” where opportunities to improveenvironmental quality were lost (e.g. Manser 1993:126–7; Lehoczki and Balogh 1997:165). Hartwig Berger, a spokesperson for the Green Party in Berlin, expressed thispessimism clearly in 1994 when he argued: “There was a chance for fundamental changein the East [for the environment], a chance for a new beginning, but so far it has beensquandered” (Simons 1994: A6). On the other side, some consider the transformation tobe a success and a “boon” for the environment, although they too may be cautious aboutlong-term prospects and whether pollution levels can remain low during an economicrecovery (e.g., Simpson et al. 1996:37; Holman 1995:5).

For others, the relationship between economic change and environmental pollution ismuch more complex. In some cases, production declines were initially much larger thanthe drop in pollution levels and energy consumption, a fact that suggests that there hasbeen an increase in pollution per unit of output.2 This “transition effect” has beencompounded in some regions by specific forms of “drastic environmental devastation”from ill-advised foreign direct investments, such as that caused by increased limestonemining in the Czech KarstPreserve associated with the German and Belgian investment inthe Czech cement industry (Nika 1994:1). In this view, drops in pollution levels becauseof economic decline are only temporary, and pollution will increase once economicgrowth resumes. This seems to be the case in Bulgaria, for example, whereenvironmental indicators worsened in 1994 (largely as a result of increases in fossil fuelsupply after 1993) even though economic performance improved (Georgieva and Moore1997:68).3 In other cases, such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary,declines in pollution levels continued to occur after their economies began to reboundfrom years of collapse (MoE 1997:8; Slovak MoE 1995:14–15; Nowicki 1997:196;Lehoczki and Balogh 1997:134–5). But in these economies, the economic growth of the

Figure 10.2 Index of industrial production in selected countries, 1989–98

Source: Data from BCE (1999)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 243

mid-1990s (Figure 10.1) was driven primarily by low polluting enterprises in the service,trade and tourism sectors, while the most polluting industries remained depressed. Butwhile Bisschop (1996:43) has estimated that the scaling down of heavy industry in theVisegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic) reduced harmfulatmospheric and water emissions by 20–30 percent, other countries such as Bulgaria wereable, because of drastic devaluations of their currencies, to use the low cost of productionin their most polluting industries to maintain old (and even penetrate new) markets inWestern Europe. Currency-led economic growth (following massive declines) in heavyindustries was thus responsible for declining environmental indicators among traditionalpolluters in Bulgaria (Map 10.1).

Privatization and the break-up of large industrial enterprises into smaller independentunits may also have had ambiguous effects on the environment. Large enterprises usuallypre-treated their wastewater before discharging it into the municipal sewers. The newowners of smaller units do not always see wastewater treatment as a priority, given thehigh costs associated with industrial pre-treatment of wastewater and the typically pooreconomic situation in which newly privatized companies find themselves. As a result,discharge of industrial effluents containing various chemicals, heavy metals, and PCBsdirectly into municipal wastewater systems not equipped to treat such wastes seems to beincreasing (Stanners and Bourdeau 1995:418)

Transformation in CEE has thus had both positive and negative effects on theenvironment. It did result in the overall decline of pollution levels across the region asproduction levels declined precipitously and the new governments took steps to stop theworst cases of environmental devastation generated under state socialism. Examplesinclude the introduction of areal limits for open cast coal mining in northern Bohemia(Pavlínek 1997:224–9) and German closure of 40 percent of lignite based power plants,reduction of brown coal mining by one-third, and reduction of ash and sulfur content inremaining brown coal production by 75 percent after re-unification (Marquardt,Brüggemann and Heintzenberg 1996:215). At the same time, however, transformationpolicies introduced new environmental problems. If, as Lefebvre (1991) suggests, everysociety “secretes” its own spaces, then it is also the case that every society secretes its ownecological crises. As David Harvey argues:

There is an extraordinarily rich record of the historical geography of socio-ecological change that sheds much light on the ways in which socio-political andecological projects intertwine with and at some point become indistinguishablefrom each other…societies strive to create ecological conditions andenvironmental niches for themselves which are not only conducive to their ownsurvival but also manifestations and instanciations “in nature” of their particularsocial relations. Since no society can accomplish such a task without encounteringunintended ecological consequences, the contradiction between social andecological change can become highly problematic.

(Harvey 1996:182–3)

It is to this notion of a complex and contradictory dialectic that we now turn.

244 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

New environmental problems of transformation: theautomobile

If there is any single abiding image in the West of the pollution endemic in societies understate socialism it is probably either smokestack pollution or urban pollution resulting frominefficient automobiles. The ubiquitous Trabant (with its two stroke gasoline and oil

Map 10.1 Estimated sulfur dioxide deposition over CEE in the early 1990s

Source: Adapted from National Intelligence Unit (1997:13)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 245

engine) symbolized this legacy, and partly for that reason was quickly eradicated fromCEE, in some cases through governmental buy-backs.

In fact, one of the most visible symptoms of transformation has been the rapid growthin car traffic in the CEE cities resulting largely from imports of used cars from the West.Increased car traffic contributed to rapidly growing air pollution from carbon oxides,nitrogen oxides, lead and ozone as most cars are old and not equipped with catalyticconverters.4 In Prague, for example, the number of automobiles increased by 72 percent(passenger cars by 82 percent) and the level of car traffic more than doubled (plus 104percent) between 1990 and 1998. By 1998 the city had 513 passenger cars per 1,000inhabitants, the highest number among the European cities (Figure 10.3). At the same time,the number of passengers using public transportation declined by 19 percent (a decrease of793,000 passengers transported daily between 1990 and 1997) as these passengersswitched to cars. Moreover, the number of cars arriving daily to Prague from outside thecity increased by 160 percent between 1991 and 1997. In 1997, cars produced more thantwice as much pollution in Prague as all furnaces in the city (MF Dnes 1997b:4, ÚDI

Figure 10.3 Passenger car ownership in Prague (top) and the number of motor vehicles in the CzechRepublic (bottom), 1990–8

Source: Data from ÚDI (1996, 1998, 1999), MF Dnes (1998a:2)

246 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

1998). In the Czech Republic as a whole, the total number of cars increased by 33 percentbetween 1990 and 1998 (Figure 10.3). Passenger cars accounted for much of this growthas their number increased by 53 percent (ÚDI 1999).

Car ownership also grew rapidly in other CEE capital cities and countries after 1989(Table 10.1). In Bulgaria, the share of car emissions in air pollution doubled between1991 and 1994. In 1994, cars accounted for 46 percent of the total NOx emissions, 44percent of the hydrocarbons and 47 percent of carbon dioxide emissions (Georgieva andMoore 1997:68–9).5 In Hungary the number of cars doubled between 1985 and 1995(Bisschop 1996:45). At the same time, public transport is being scaled down asgovernment subsidies are gradually eliminated and the lack of financial resources preventsthe governments from rapid modernization of mass transit systems. In Slovakia, forexample, the number of vehicles operating in the Slovak-wide city public transit systemdeclined by 15 percent between 1990 and 1994. However, while the number of electrictrams decreased by 36 percent and the number of electric trolley buses decreased by 12percent, the number of diesel oil buses decreased by only 8 percent (ŠÚSR 1995:76).Thus, less polluting forms of public transport are phased out more quickly than the morepolluting buses. Since 1989 the Slovak government has spent billions of Slovak crowns tobuild new highways while spending much less on the modernization of railways and publictransport (Huba 1999:486). Free market competition generally favors automobiletransport over railways, and CEE governments have often failed to recognize theenvironmental benefits of railway transport (Figure 10.4).

In Poland the number of motor vehicles more than doubled between 1980 and 1995(Figure 10.5.). Not surprisingly, air pollution from motor vehicles, except lead and COemissions, has been increasing steadily in the 1990s (Figure 10.6). Countries such asPoland and the Czech Republic do not have any national long-range strategy for thedevelopment of transport systems in urban areas (Nowicki 1997:225). The CzechRepublic has been closing unprofitable railway lines and gradually decreasing the numberof train connections on less frequently traveled routes, forcing commuters to switch tomore polluting cars or buses.

The case of transport illustrates a fundamental dilemma. If the same developmentpathway is followed in CEE as was taken by Western industrialized countries,environmental degradation will increase, especially in urban areas. Certainly, CEE

Table 10.1 Growth in total motor vehicles in use in CEE, 1990–4 (1990=100)

Source: OECD (1996b:33)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 247

countries seem to be following directly the paths taken by Western countries, with largelyunregulated and often subsidized adoption of personal automobiles at the cost of effectivepublic transport systems. So far, no CEE countries have seriously considered alternatives.

New problems in foreign direct investment

Post-communist transformations have also led to increased exports of some naturalresources, such as construction materials and coal, often associated withopen cast miningand landscape devastation. In the Czech Republic, for example, while overall exploitationand production of natural resources dropped substantially after 1989, exports of coal(both lignite and hard coal), limestone, natural sand, cement, lime and clays increased(MoE 1997:59, Janda 1994:304).

Figure 10.4 Cargo and passengers transported by the Czech Railways, 1991–9

Note: 1999 data reflect the plan

Source: Data from MF Dnes (1998b:15, 1999:16)

248 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

Western-style consumerism introduced in the region after 1989 also brought its ownproblems, particularly plastic packaging and increased domestic waste. Although CEEcountries are producing less than half as much domestic waste as Western Europe, the regionis quickly catching up (Bisschop 1996:45).6 In Poland, the system for the collection of oldpaper and glass bottles collapsed after 1989 and no system for recycling, composting andincineration of waste has been established. As a result, after 1989 municipal wasteincreased by 20–30 percent and the number of illegal dumping sites grew rapidly(Nowicki 1997:200).

In some cases, environmental degradation has also been associated with new foreigninvestment and privatization. The risk that environmentally dangerous technologies andproducts might be transferred from the West was recognized by environmental activistsshortly after CEE began to open its economies to western capital and trade. However,this risk has been underestimated by CEE governments eager to attract foreign investors.Poorly enforced environmental regulations make CEE even more vulnerable to such risks.

For some Western investors CEE offers lower environmental, health and safetystandards (as it did before 1989).7 In other cases, CEE governments often ignoredenvironmental issues while approving privatization projects. Indeed, according to theformer Czech environmental minister Ivan Dejmal, the government was approving largeprivatization projects without allowing experts from the MoE to assess potentialenvironmental effects of privatization and foreign investment. In some cases, MoEofficials were never shown the proposals for privatization (Kolebaba and Petrlík 1994:22).In Slovakia, codes of environmental conduct for foreign companies were not stillprepared, much less enforced by the government in 1997 (Podoba 1998:134). InHungary, environmental concerns and liability questions were also ignored during theinitial phase of privatization (Lehoczki and Balogh 1997:132). A senior manager at theBorsodken chemical factory which formed joint ventures with several foreign companiesargued in 1994 that “foreigners come here because of cheap labor, because of lower

Figure 10.5 Growth in the number of motor vehicles in Poland, 1980–95

Source: Data from GUS (1997:188)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 249

environmental demands and the lower health and safety standards in the workplace”(Simons 1994: A6). In Poland, the 1988 Law Governing Economic Activity InvolvingParticipation of Foreign Companies provided special tax incentives for foreign investors whocontributed to environmental protection and clean-up. Permission to invest in Poland couldalso be refused. However, both measures were removed when the 1988 Law was replacedby the Joint Venture Law in 1991 (Kruszewska 1993:5–6).

Crucial for nearly all foreign direct investment is the status of environmental liability.Foreign investors are rarely willing to pay for the environmental degradation caused byenterprises in the past and they are concerned about potential costs associated withchanging environmental legislation (Klavens and Zamparutti 1995:6; Stanners andBourdeau 1995:431). Detailed environmentalaudits prepared by foreign companies priorto their investment were used to negotiate lower price for companies for sale (Verner1997:8). To avoid these problems, many foreign investors prefer greenfield investments

Figure 10.6 Trends in transportation emissions in Poland, 1991–7

Source: Data from GUS (1997:188)

250 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

and build their factories on previously unused sites (Reeves 1995:71). Foreign capital is,as a result, unlikely to underwrite clean-up efforts.8

Environmental effects of post-communist transformation inSlovakia

Of all CEE countries, Slovakia and the Czech Republic experienced the largest declines inair pollution emissions after 1989, especially of sulfur dioxide and particulate emissions.In Slovakia, sulfur dioxide emissions declined by 68.6 percent between 1989 and 1998and by 76.5 percent between 1980 and 1998. Particulate emissions dropped even moredramatically by 82.1 percent between 1989 and 1998. Nitrogen oxides emissions declinedby 43.6 percent and carbon monoxide emissions decreased by 36.3 percent (Závodskýand Zuzula 1997:6; Klinda and Lieskovská 1998:8; SHMÚ 1999) (Figure 10.7). Whatwere the reasons for such dramatic declines?

Between 1948 and 1989 the Slovak economy concentrated on the development ofheavy industry, a typical strategy of post-Second World War socialist industrialization(Table 10.2) (Pavlínek 1995:354–6; Smith 1994:409–11, 1998: 67–108). By 1990Slovakia, with 5.3 million inhabitants, was producing 4.8 million tonnes of steel, 3.7million tonnes of pig iron, 50,000 tonnes of aluminum, 4.8 million tonnes of cement and0.5 million tonnes of plastics annually (Závodský and Zuzula 1997:5). Most of the electricityneeded for such rapid development of energy-intensive heavy industries was produced incoal-based power plants burning low quality brown coal and lignite. This type ofeconomic development combined with forced collectivization and large scale agriculturehad serious consequences for the quality of the Slovak environment (Huba 1997:230–1)(Maps 10.2 and 10.3).

After 1989, pollution levels dropped rapidly. Several major factors were responsible:industrial production declined by about 30 percent between 1989 and 1994(Figure 10.7), resulting in reduced electricity consumption and production; the

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 251

Figure 10.7 Emission trends in Slovakia compared with trends in industrial production, 1989–98

Source: Data from Závodský and Zuzula (1996:6–7), Klinda and Lieskovská (1998:8), BCE (1999),SHMÚ (1999)

armaments industry collapsed (see Smith 1994:411–14, 1998: 194–8) (Figure 10.8); andseveral non-ferrous metallurgy plants (nickel and mercury, such as a nickel smelter inSered’) and iron ore preparation plants closed down (Závodský and Zuzula 1997:5).Slovakia also greatly reduced its use of coal and oil for electricity production and heating,and increased its use of natural gas.9 The 40 percent decline in sulfur dioxide emissionsbetween 1989 and 1994 thus corresponded with a 40 percent decline in the use of coal forthe production of electricity and heat. The Clean Air Act was enacted in 1991 and the additional environmental legislation that followed (see Chapter Eight) introducedemission limits that are equivalent to German levels of the 1980s, with comparablepenalties for exceeding those limits. The government established three levels of airpollution administration and control: the MoE, the district offices and municipalities. In1993, the government made it mandatory to use catalytic converters for all new and

Table 10.2 Index of gross production in industrial sectors of Slovakia, 1948–88 (1948=100)

Source: Statistická ročenka Československé socialistické republiky (1989: various pages)

Map 10.2 Environmental quality in Slovakia in the early 1990s

Source: Adapted from Slovak MoE (1996:13) and Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor proživotní prostředí (1992:11–1)

252 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

imported used passenger cars, although only 10 percent of cars had been equipped withcatalytic converters by 1997. Leaded gasoline was phased out in 1995. It is unclear how muchthese measures contributed to the decrease in emissions compared with the decline in theuse of coal for electricity and heat production.

Slovakia inherited all international air pollution control treaties signed by the formerCzechoslovakia (such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances Damaging the Ozone Layerand the Convention on Long-Range Trans-Boundary Air Pollution), and successivegovernments have re-affirmed their intention to fulfil the requirements of the treaties. As

Map 10.3 Spatial distribution of environmental hazards in Slovakia in the early 1990s

Source: Adapted from Slovak MoE (1996a:15)

Figure 10.8 Volume of armaments production in Slovakia, 1987–98 (in billions of Slovak crowns)

Source: Sáková (1997:11) and Slovak Ministry of Economy (1999)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 253

a result, the government plans to cut sulfur emissions by 72 percent from 1980 figures by2010 and carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent from 1988 figures by 2005 (Závodskýand Zuzula 1997:5).

Despite these impressive results, Slovakia still has four times higher sulfur dioxideemissions than neighboring Austria, which is approximately twice the size of Slovakia witha population 50 percent larger (Huba 1997:231). Horná Nitra, the most polluted Slovakregion, still occasionally records sulfur dioxide concentrations exceeding 1,000 µg/m3 (inDecember 1996 and January 1997). In 1995 sulfur deposition exceeded the highestrecommended values for forest soils on 23 percent of the Slovak territory (Závodský andZuzula 1997:6).

The Slovak economy is still very energy-intensive and the country consumes three toseven times more primary energy per capita than developed countries (Huba 1997:232).More importantly, energy efficiency did not improve significantly in the early 1990scompared with the late 1980s (Balajka, Judák and Peschl 1996:11) (Figure 10.9).10 Theenergy sector is the biggest air polluter. Plans to further reduce air pollution caused by theenergy sector include: greater use of natural gas for the production of electricity and heat;increased use of renewable energy resources such as hydro-energy; reconstruction of twolargest coal-based power plants, one at Nováky in western Slovakia and a second one atVojany in eastern Slovakia, to increase their efficiency and add desulfurization anddenitrification equipment; and the completion of the Mochovce nuclear power plant(Závodský and Zuzula 1997:6).

Several of these strategies for reducing air pollution are environmentally questionable,however. Slovakia forced through the controversial Gabčíkovo dam project on theDanube in an effort to increase hydroelectricity production and to regulate the Danuberiver. The Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Dam System was originally started by the state socialistgovernments of Hungary and former Czechoslovakia and was completed by Slovakiadespite strong Hungarian protests and more than fifteen years of struggle against the damby Slovak and international environmentalists (see Fitzmaurice 1996; Galambos 1993:176– 226). Similarly, Slovakia completed the Mochovce nuclear power plant in 1998

Figure 10.9 Primary energy intensity of the Slovak economy, 1989–94

Source: Data from Balajka, Judák and Peschl (1996:11)

254 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

despite strong protests from neighboring Austria and long standing opposition fromenvironmentalists who oppose construction of the power plant. The power plant is basedon Soviet technology and is located less than 100 km from Austria. These two legacies ofstate socialist planning and environmental management illustrate well the oftenoverlooked ubiquity of forms of ecological resistance to post-communist environmentalpolicies. They also point to the contradictory origins of the dramatic reductions in airpollution that have been achieved, especially where these have been made as a result ofinvestments in other environmentally problematic activities (such as those associated withnuclear energy and the Gabčíkovo Dam).

The case of Slovakia indicates that neither the sceptics nor the optimists have beencompletely right when assessing the effects of transformation on future air pollution.Particulate and sulfur dioxide emissions declined much more than did industrialproduction, and kept falling even after industrial production picked up. However, carbonmonoxide and nitrogen oxides emissions dropped less than industrial output and began torise when industrial growth was renewed. It remains to be seen whether their subsequentdrop in 1996 and 1997 is permanent (Figure 10.7). Carbon dioxide emissions followed asimilar trend, also declining more slowly than industrial production between 1989 and1994 (Balajka, Judák and Peschl 1996:10). Given Slovakia’s determination to switchpermanently to less polluting fuels for electricity and heat production—particularly tonuclear power, hydroelectricity and natural gas—it is likely that emission levels of solidparticles and sulfur dioxide will not increase dramatically from current levels even if long-term economic growth occurs.11 Increased use of automobiles could, however, increaseemissions of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and ozone in the cities. Cars have alreadybecome the largest source of carbon monoxide emissions in Slovakia. Prices for energyand fuel are currently heavily regulated by the state. The environmental effects ofexpected liberalization of energy and fuel prices are thus still to be determined.

It also remains to be seen what the opposition victory in the September 1998 electionswill mean for environmental management in Slovakia. Expected changes were slow tocome, and the new government was criticized by environmentalists in 1999 for doing toolittle to change unsustainable approaches toward the environment inherited from theprevious government of Vladimír Mečiar (Ekofórum 1999, Huba 1999). A large numberof industrial enterprises and several large power plants and heating plants were unable tocomply with the pollution limits set by the 1991 Clean Air Act that went into effect on 1January 1999. For example, in the Košice region of eastern Slovakia fifty-two enterprises,as well as the Košice heating plant and the Vojany power plant, the largest polluter inSlovakia, did not comply with air pollution limits (Dulin 1999). When the newgovernment came to power in the Fall of 1998 it revised the 1991 CleanAir Act givingpolluters up to eight additional years to comply with the air pollution limits originally setfor 1999 (Huba 1999:487). The worsening economic situation led to a lower allocation ofstate funds to the MoE and the State Environmental Fund in 1999 (as it did in the previousseveral years) and the lack of money prevented completion of the number ofenvironmental projects, such as constructions of water treatment plants (Pravda 1999a,1999b; Szilvassy 1999). The evidence from Slovakia indicates that despite some rapidlyimproving environmental indicators, environmental problems persist and the country so

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 255

far has been unable to change its development pathway toward a more environmentallysustainable future.

Environmental effects of post-communist transformation inthe Czech Republic

The Czech Republic has also experienced dramatic declines in air pollution since 1989(Figure 10.10). Between 1989 and 1998, solid emissions declined by 85 percent, sulfurdioxide emissions fell by 78 percent, nitrogen oxides emissions decreased by 54 percent,and the emissions of hydrocarbons (CxHy) declined by 21 percent. Carbon monoxideemissions declined by 8 percent after 1989, although they declined by 23 percent between1990 and 1998. As in the case of Slovakia, it is unclear to what extent industrial declineafter 1989 contributed to the drop in emissions and to what extent new governmentalenvironmental policies and legislation were responsible for the decline.

Sulfur dioxide and particulate emissions had begun to decline in the mid-1980s beforethe collapse of state socialism. These declines resulted from efforts by the government todecrease emissions of air pollutants and to meet its international commitment to cutsulfur dioxide emissions by 30 percent from 1980 levels by 1993 (Figure 10.11) (seeChapter Three).12 In this sense, the political changes of 1989 did not represent a majorturning point in pollution levels for sulfur dioxide and solid emissions, but instead were acontinuation of an earlier trend that was in turn strongly reinforced by sharp industrialdecline and increased efforts to combat air pollution after 1989. In fact, industrialproduction declined faster than emissions between 1989 and 1993 (Figure 10.10). After1993, however, emissions kept falling, even after industrial production began to increaseagain. Thus, as in Slovakia, the situation in the Czech Republic suggests that emissiondeclines are not temporary as some environmentalists have suggested and that industrialcollapse is not the primary cause of emission declines. In fact, particulate and sulfurdioxide emissions had been the target of various governmental policies since the 1980s.

256 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

Figure 10.10 Emission trends in the Czech Republic, 1989– 98

Source: Data from MoE (1998:119), CHMU (1999), BCE (1999)

Factors responsible for emission declines after 1989 are similar to those in Slovakia.The primary factor was overall economic decline and the collapse of industrial productionby 36 percent between 1991 and 1993, which led to reduced demand for electricity andhence declines in energy resource extraction and use. In practice, however, electricityproduction decreased by less than 6 percent during this period (MoE and ČSÚ 1996:60).The gradual installation and use of more effective dust scrubbers at the large coal-basedpower plants as part of the 1985–90 Clean Air Protection Program of the Czech EnergyWorks company (České energetické závody) contributed to the dramatic decline in solidemissions in the early 1990s (Černá, Tošovská and Cetkovský 1995:387).

Some industrial producers also reduced their particulate emissions substantially. Thecement industry, for example, decreased solid emissions by 97 percent after 1989 throughmodernization of production, largely financed by foreign capital (HN 1996c:6). Similarly,the chemical industry curtailed its air pollution considerably between 1993 and 1999. Thevolume of planned 1999 particulate emissions is only 7 percent of that for 1993, sulfurdioxide emissions are 30 percent, nitrogen oxides emissions 57 percent, and organicsubstances 88 percent of the 1993 levels (Maxa, Dlouhý and Reháček 1998:14).

Declines in sulfur dioxide emissions can be explained by production declines, by mildwinters in the early 1990s that contributed to lower demand for heat and electricity, by agradual switch of entire communities from low grade coal andlignite to natural gas forheating, and by the gradual desulfurization of all major power plants, a process completedin November 1998 (Pavlík 1996:62).13 Sulfur dioxide emissions also declined because ofsubstantial environmental investments in other industrial sectors, such as the chemicalindustry.14 Between 1990 and 1997 heat and energy consumption patterns changedsubstantially, also contributing to declines in particulate and sulfur dioxide emissions: theshare of solid fuels decreased while the share of liquid and gaseous fuels, electricity andheat increased (Figure 10.12). Subsidies on electricity for businesses and industry havebeen removed, and prices of electricity, heat and natural gas for the public are graduallybeing liberalized. The effect has been price increases and corresponding reductions inhousehold energy use. At the same time, the share of environmental investment as a

Figure 10.11 Emission trends in the Czech Republic, 1985–98

Source: Data from MoE (1997:8, 1999:6), ČHMÚ (1999)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 257

percentage of GDP increased from 0.7 percent in 1989 to 2.7 percent in 1996 and thendeclined to 2.3 percent in 1997 (Beneš and Héniková 1993:296, MoE 1997:75)(Table 10.3).15

By the end of 1998, the Czech Energy Works had installed desulfurization anddenitrification equipment in all its coal-based power plants (twenty-eight units with acombined production capacity of 5,930 MW) and, as a result, was in compliance with theClean Air Act emission limits that went into effect on 1 January 1999 (Čápová 1999:4;Baroch 1998b:3; ČEZ 1998). The company previously had closed several coal-basedpower plants with a combined production capacity of 1,115 MW (MoE 1999:50). TheCzech Energy Works accounts for about 77 percent of electricity production in the CzechRepublic and the company desulfurized 70.2 percent of its total electricity productioncapacity, constructed seven fluid furnaces in four power plants (in Tisová, Ledvice,Hodonín and Poříčí) with production capacity of 532 MW (5.8 percent), increased theefficiency of scrubbers, and decreased emissions of nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide.The Czech Energy Works also plans to replace 2,010 MW of its production capacity (24percent) currently in coal-based power plants with nuclear power. In some cases, lowquality brown coal and lignite with high sulfur and ash content will be replaced by higherquality hard coal for electric power plants. As a result, emissions from power plants haddecreased dramatically by 1999—sulfur dioxide emissions by 91 percent, particulateemissions by 87 percent, and NOx emissions by more than 50 percent (ČEZ 1996:4,1999, Baroch 1998b:3, Figure 10.13).

As in Slovakia and as part of its restructuring of energy policy, the Czech government hasdecided to complete construction of a nuclear power plant. This will be at Temelín insouthern Bohemia, at a site planned and started before 1989.16 As with the Mochovcenuclear power plant in Slovakia, the Temelín power plant represents an important statesocialist legacy and was originally built using Soviet technology. This is currently beingmodified by installing Western safety features. Although the original design andtechnology of the plant have been substantially modified since 1989, and only two 981MW units are being built instead of the four originally planned, opposition to constructionhas also become one of the rallying points for the environmental movement in the Czech

Figure 10.12 End consumption of fuels and energy in the Czech Republic, 1990–7

Source: Data from MoE (1999:49)

258 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

Republic (as the Mochovce plant became in Slovakia). Completion of the Temelín powerplant is also strongly opposed by neighboring Austria. The Czech government argues thatthe plant is needed to permit closure of several coal-based power plants in theenvironmentally devastated region of northern Bohemia while meeting electricity needs.The government also contends that it has already spent too much money on constructionof the plant to abandon it. However, since 1989 there has also been significant oppositionagainst the power plant from within the government, mainly from various ministers of theenvironment. The disputes within the Czech government over the Temelín plant’scompletion intensified in 1999 after an independent international committee of expertsconcluded that the Czech Republic would not need electricity from a large nuclear powerplant for the next ten to fifteen years (Lipold 1999:2, Švehla 1999).

Environmentalists argue (e.g. Beránek 1998:13; Marsh 1993:3) that the governmentshould not be spending nearly 100 billion crowns (about US$3 billion) for a controversial

Table 10.3 Share of GDP on environmental investment in the Czech Republic, 1989–97

Source: Beneš and Héniková (1993:296), MoE (1997:75, 1999:79), MoE and ČSÚ (1996:267)

Figure 10.13 Annual emissions from Czech Energy Works power plants, 1991–9

Note: Figures for 1999 reflect the plan

Source: Data from ČEZ (1998)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 259

power plant, but should instead focus on ways to increase energy efficiency and reduceconsumption by reducing high energy consumption per unit of GDP and per capita, whichis currently about two to four times higher than in Western industrial countries (the rangedepends on whether GDP is calculated on the basis of purchasing power parity or not). AsFigure 10.14 shows, the primary energy intensity of the Czech economy increasedbetween 1990–1 and remained high until 1993. Since then, however, energy intensityimproved gradually so that by 1997 it was at 85.6 percent of its 1989 value. This trendsupports those who claim that the primary energy intensity of the Czech economy (andother CEE economies) is likely to decrease permanently as reform economies move awayfrom their traditional energy-intensive heavy industries and if trends toward more serviceoriented economies continue. In 1997, the Czech Republic produced 77 percent of itsenergy from coal-based power plants, 19 percent from its nuclear power plant atDukovany, and 4 percent from hydroelectric power plants (MoE 1998:70). The share ofnuclear power in electricity production is planned to increase to about 40 percent afterthe Temelín power plant is launched.

It is unclear to what extent the citizens of the Czech Republic will benefit from thisdramatic decline in emissions from large power plants. Even officials from the MoE admitthat those living in neighboring countries will benefit more from the dramatic declines insulfur dioxide and particulate emissions than will the citizens of the Czech Republic.Bohuslav Brix from the MoE argued in 1995 that better scrubbers and desulfurization ofall power plants would have “minimal impact” on the air quality in Prague and other largecities in the Czech Republic because ground-level pollution is caused mainly byautomobiles and domestic heating using low quality coal (HN 1995b:3).17 In fact, whilesulfur dioxide concentrations have been declining as a result of the introduction ofdesulfurization technology into power and heating plants and the switching of householdheating from coal to natural gas and electricity, the concentrations of nitrogen oxides haveincreased rapidly because of growing number of cars and increased car usage (Bílý 1997:4).

Figure 10.14 Primary energy intensity of the Czech economy, 1990–7

Source: Data from MoE (1999:49), MoE and CSU (1998:39)

260 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

Despite lower emissions from industry and power plants, the destruction of forestscontinues in the Ore Mountains (Krušné hory) on the border between the Czech Republicand former East Germany. The forests in the Ore Mountains will still receive at least 100,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide annually even after desulfurization of all large pollutionsources is completed, and forest die-back will continue. Even pollution resistant sprucesbegan to die in 1995, and in 1997 the most pollution resistant trees, such as birches,began to die in their thousands. In 1998 these trees were joined by pollution resistant aldersand spruces imported from North America. Chemical analysis of the trees showed highsulfur content from the soil. The trees are also being destroyed by other chemicalsubstances released into the air such as arsenic, selenium and cobalt. Experts fear that theslopes of the Ore Mountains eventually will be completely deforested. Even if pollution wasstopped immediately, it is thought that recovery of the forests would take several decades(Holá and Baroch 1997: 1,3, ME Dnes 1998c:5, LN 1997:5).

All regions of the Czech Republic experienced considerable declines in hazardousemissions from stationary sources after 1989. Average sulfur dioxide emissions for theCzech Republic declined from 23.8 tonnes per sq. km in 1990 to 8.8 tonnes in 1997;average particulate emissions from stationary sources decreased over the same period from8.0 to 1.5 tonnes per sq. km. Regional variations in sulfur dioxide emissions in 1997varied from high levels of 19.3 and 21.3 tonnes per sq. km in northern Bohemia andPrague, respectively, to 2.3 and 2.0 tonnes per sq. km in southern Moravia and southernBohemia, respectively. A similar pattern is apparent for particulates, with the highestlevels found in Prague (7.4 tonnes per sq. km) and northern Bohemia (3.2 tonnes) and thelowest levels in southern Moravia (0.8 tonnes per sq. km) and southern Bohemia (0.6tonnes) (see MoE and ČSÚ 1996:92 and MoE 1998:106 for data).

Between 1990 and 1997, southern Moravia experienced the largest relative decline inspecific particulate emissions, northern Bohemia recorded the largest nitrogen oxidesemissions decline, and Prague the largest relative declines in sulfur dioxide, carbonmonoxide and CxHy emissions. The smallest relative declines in solid, carbon monoxideand CxHy specific emissions were recorded insouthern Bohemia, traditionally the leastpolluted region of the Czech Republic. Central Bohemia experienced the slowest declinein specific sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions (see MoE and ČSÚ 1996:92 andMoE 1998:106 for data). One result has been a persistence in the gap between the mostpolluted regions of northern Bohemia and Prague and the relatively clean regions, eventhough the bulk of environmental investments has been directed to the more pollutedregions since the 1980s (Maps 10.4 and 10.5).18

Aggregate levels of water pollution have also decreased substantially since 1989. Aswith air pollution, levels of water pollution began dropping in the mid-1980s under statesocialism, but this trend has been strongly reinforced during the post-1989 period.Overall withdrawals and use of water have declined considerably since 1989. Between1990 and 1997 agriculture cut its water use by 83 percent, the industrial sector by 36percent, the energy sector by 19 percent, and drinking water withdrawals dropped by 28percent (MoE 1999:15). The volume of wastewater released by these sectors declinedcorrespondingly. The sharp declines in water withdrawal by agriculture and industryresulted from production slumps in these sectors following market collapse and the

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 261

introduction of shock therapy measures in the early 1990s. Household water consumptiondeclined after governmental subsidies on the price of drinking water were removed andprices for water rose rapidly.

Water pollution from point sources also declined considerably between 1990 and 1997:biological oxygen demand (BOD5) dropped by 76 percent, pollution by undissolvedsubstances decreased by 61 percent, pollution by petroleum products (absorbablehydrocarbons) by 86 percent, pollution by dissolved inorganic salts by 36 percent, andacidity and alkalinity of surface waters declined by 87 percent.19 Only 9 percent ofwastewater was discharged without any treatment in 1997, compared with 27 percent in1989. The number of long-term monitored water quality sampling sites with heavily andvery heavily polluted water (the worst two water quality categories) declined fromseventy-seven to thirty-two (58 percent) for BOD5, from 191 to 112 (51 percent) forchemical oxygen demand, from 133 to 69 (52 percent) for ammonia nitrogen content,and from 168 to 78 profiles (54 percent) for phosphates content (MoE 1997:22–4, 1999:15–16).

These improvements in surface water quality were achieved because of decreases in theoverall amount of discharged wastewater, construction and operation of new effluenttreatment plants, industrial restructuring, and decreases in the use of industrial fertilizers

Map 10.4 Environmental quality in the Czech Republic in the early 1990s

Source: Adapted from Geografický ústav ČSAV and Federální výbor pro životní prostředí (1992:11–1)

262 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

and pesticides by agriculture (Figure 10.15).20 The number of effluent treatment plantsincreased from 626 in 1990 to 783 in 1995 and their overall capacity increased by 24percent. In 1996, an additional 122 water treatment facilities were completed (six timesthe number completed in 1990) (MoE 1996b:17–18, 1997:28).

New environmental legislation requires all cities with more than 15,000 inhabitants tobe equipped with basic mechanical-biological water treatment plants by the year 2000 andall settlement units with more than 2,000 inhabitants by the year 2005 (MoE 1999:20).These improvements in surface water quality have resulted in the reintroduction ofsalmon in the Elbe River (Labe) and its tributaries after thirty-eight years. The quality ofground water has also slowly improved since 1989 (MoE and ČSÚ 1996:127–9; MoE1998:155–157, 1997:27).

Overall, post-1989 transformation has resulted in significant environmentalimprovements in the Czech Republic. It is important to realize, however, that this changeis uneven, highly contested and far from complete. Struggles over the direction ofenvironmental change and over the role of the environment during the transformationhave continued in national, regional and local contexts. Václav Klaus, the prime ministerof the Czech Republic from 1992–7 (and before that the prime minister of the formerCzechoslovakia), was openly hostile toward environmental NGOs and considered theenvironment to be only the “whippedcream on the [economic] cake” (Bisschop 1996:43).

Map 10.5 Daily average concentrations of sulfur dioxide during the temperature inversion onFebruary 4 1993 (in µg/m3)

Source: Adapted from Regional Plan of Environmental Priorities (1994:3–4) and Stanners andBourdeau (1995:41)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 263

In 1995, Klaus argued that “ecology is not a science. It has nothing in common withscience. It is ideology” (MF Dnes 1996:4). In June 1997, he claimed in front of dozens ofjournalists and scientists from the Czech Academy of Sciences that the greenhouse effectwas nonsense and a “quackish theory.” He also argued that “scientists attempt to make afool out of the rest of society with their experiments in order to get more money” (Ekolist1997:8).

In successive governments, Klaus’s environmental ministers were always in a weakposition compared with ministers of economy and finance, and the MoE saw even theselimited capacities reduced and resources shifted to other ministries such as land useplanning (to the Ministry of Economy), new mining law (to the Ministry of Industry andTrade) and water management (to the Ministry of Agriculture) (Kužvart 1994:29;Sequens 1996:5–7). In 1999, parliamentary deputies from Klaus’s Civic Democratic Party

Figure 10.15 Trends in the use of industrial fertilizers (top) and pesticides (bottom) in the CzechRepublic

Source: Data from MoE (1997:70–1), 1998:196–7)

264 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

launched an initiative to take additional decision making-powers from the environmentalminister because of his refusal to approve highway construction through the Českéstředohří nature preserve in central Bohemia (Baroch and Bartoníček 1999:5). Klaus andhis governments have also been hostile toward independent environmental NGOs.František Benda, the environmental minister, refused any dialog with NGOs, and severalenvironmental NGOs (Greenpeace, Duha, Dìti Země, Animal SOS) appeared on the listof extremist organizations to be monitored by the Czech Security Information Service inJanuary 1995 (Baroch 1997b:4).

At the local level, some results of successful earlier environmental struggles have beengradually eroded during the second half of the 1990s. For example, in 1991 the Czechgovernment imposed “ecological mining limits” to protect northern Bohemiancommunities from further demolitions because of open-cast coal mining.21 “Ecologicalmining limits” are the territorial boundaries drawn around the communities endangeredby coal mining beyond which mining is prohibited. Government action followed popularresistance of citizens and local governments in several towns and villages slated fordemolition to make a way for open cast coal mining and their struggle with the mines (seePavlínek 1997: 224–9).22 However, in 1997 and 1998 coal mining companies exertedstrong pressure on the government to re-evaluate its 1991 decision and to allow them tomine beyond the ecological mining limits. If accepted, this would result in the demolitionof five additional villages in the region (Baroch 1997c:1,4, MF Dnes 1998d:5).

Although the 1991 Clean Air Act contributed to rapid decline in emissions from largepolluters such as power plants and heating plants, it did not deal with pollution fromsmall stationary sources (those with thermal output smaller than 0.2 MW).23 It also didnot consider mobile sources of air pollution, even though these have become a majorenvironmental problem in urban areas (Seják 1994: 38). Moreover, most privatizedcompanies seem not to have changed their environmental policies since 1989, and fewhave any idea how they should respond to pressures to protect the environment (LN 1995:7).

The environmental effects of post-communisttransformation in other CEE countries

Other CEE countries have experienced effects of post-communist transformation on theirenvironments similar to those of Slovakia and the Czech Republic: economic crisis,collapsing industrial production and gradual industrial restructuring away from heavyindustries, coupled with new environmental legislation and enforcement. These have allcontributed to significant declines in air and water pollution.

In Poland, the share of total industrial production in energy intensive metallurgydeclined from 11.9 to 8.8 percent between 1989 and 1993, and in coal and steelproduction decreased by about 40 percent in the early 1990s. However, the share ofproduction in energy intensive chemical production increased (from 9.9 to 10.5 percent)as did the share of mining (from 4.0 to 4.4 percent). In the same period, the share of low-energy intensive production in industries such as food processing and wood-paper

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 265

increased from 18.6 percent to 20.3 percent and from 4.9 percent to 6.1 percentrespectively, while light industry as a whole saw a decline in its share of industrialproduction (from 9.1 to 8.3 percent) (Pasierb, Niedziela and Wojtulewicz 1996: S38,Nowicki 1997:197).

In agriculture, reductions in governmental subsidies, loss of markets and theemergence of private agriculture have contributed to dramatic declines in the use offertilizers and pesticides. As a result, pollution of surface waters by agricultural runoff hasdecreased. In Poland, for example, the removal of heavy fertilizer subsidies in 1990resulted in dramatic reductions in application by Polish farmers. NPK (nitrogen,phosphorus and potassium based) fertilizer consumption per hectare dropped by 68percent between 1989 and 1992 before it began to grow again. However, 1995consumption levels were still 59 percent lower than in 1989. Similarly, pesticideconsumption declined by 64 percent in 1990 compared to 1989 and stayed at the samelower level throughout the first half of the 1990s ( ylicz 1997:445; Figure 10.16). At themoment, Polish agriculture is environmentally much less disruptive than WesternEuropean agriculture mainly because of its much lower use of chemical fertilizers andpesticides and lower degree of mechanization. However, it is not clear how long Polishand other CEE farmers can compete with cheap labor rather than high yields, and whetherthey will be able to avoid the environmental externalities associated with heavilysubsidized West European agriculture ( ylicz 1997:445). This question is especiallyimportant given the attempts of CEE countries to join the EU and the likelihood that theywill increasingly adopt EU style agricultural policies.

As in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, pollution began to decline in the mid-1980s asstate socialist governments tried to deal with the deepening environmental crisis. Thepost-1989 period thus represents a path dependent continuation of trends begun earlierunder state socialism which have been strongly reinforced since 1989. This has beenespecially true in the case of Hungary, which experienced significant declines in pollutionlevels in the 1980s, and is also true of other countries. Between 1985 and 1996, sulfur

Figure 10.16 Trends in the use of fertilizers and pesticides in Poland

Source: Data from ylicz (1997:445)

266 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

oxides pollution (sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide) declined by 53 percent in Hungary,39 percent in Bulgaria, and 45 percent in Poland (58 percent in the Czech Republic and63 percent in Slovakia) (Figure 10.17). However, despite this improvement, sulfur oxidesemissions per capita and especially per unit of GDP remain much higher in the CEEcountries compared with the Western industrial countries (Table 10.4) (OECD 1996b:23,REC 1998:7)

Particulate emissions declined even faster. Between 1990 and 1996 Bulgariaexperienced a 45 percent decline in total particle emissions, Hungary’s solid emissionsdropped by 34 percent (by 85 percent between 1980 and 1996), and Poland experienceda 36 percent decline (48 percent between 1985 and 1996) (OECD 1996b:27, REC 1998:10, Kamie ski 1999) (Figure 10.18). Similar trends can be observed with respect tonitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide emissions (OECD 1996b:21, 25).

In Poland, particulate emissions decreased by 53 percent and sulfur dioxide emissionsdeclined by 44 percent between 1989 and 1997 (Figure 10.19). The largest absolutepollution decline was recorded in the regions with highest emis sions (Katowice,Kraków, Bielsko, Warszawa, and Szczecin). However, these regions’ share of total

Figure 10.17 Trends in sulfur oxides emissions in selected CEE countries, 1980–96

Source: Data from OECD (1996b:23), REC (1998:7)

Table 10.4 Sulfur oxide emissions per capita and per unit of GDP in selected CEE countries in 1994compared with the OECD average

Source: OECD (1996b:23)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 267

emissions has actually increased, indicating an increase in the spatial concentration ofemissions (Lodkowska-Skoneczna, Pyszkowski and Szlachta 1996:19–20).

Power plants were most responsible for cutting solid emissions, which dropped by 66percent, and sulfur dioxide emissions decreased by 22 percent between 1990 and 1995.During the same period, solid emissions from industrial sources declined by 27 percentand from small stationary sources by only 6 percent. Sulfur dioxide emissions fromindustrial sources dropped by 24 percent and from small stationary sources by 33 percent(GUS 1997:183). Heavy metals emissions also dropped significantly after 1990, followinga trend that began in the 1980s (Figure 10.20).

Interestingly, the proportion of polluters using scrubbers to control their particulateemissions has not changed since the 1980s (approximately 88 percent) and the efficiency ofthose using scrubbers did not increase dramatically (the share of the enterprises removingmore than 90 percent of their solid emissions from those using scrubbers increased from21 percent in 1985 to 25 percent in 1996). In terms of gaseous emission, only 13 percentof polluters cleaned up their pollution in 1996 compared to 11 percent in 1980 and onlyten polluters (0.6 percent) were able to remove more than 90 percent of their gaseousemissions in 1996 (GUS 1997:197). These numbers suggest two important conclusionsabout environmental clean-up in Poland in the 1990s. First, only several of the largestpolluters, such as power plants, were able to further clean up their emissions in the 1990sbeyond 1980 levels while other polluters were unable to do so. Second, other factors inaddition to the installation of anti-pollution devices in the largest polluters, such asindustrial restructuring, might have been responsible for declines in air pollution in the1990s.

The Polish government has provided incentives to cut pollution levels through itsenvironmental protection fund which collects fees and fines from polluters for excessiveemissions. Polluters can avoid paying fines for up to five years if they invest in anti-pollution measures and reduce their emissions. The fund provides loans at belowcommercial interest rates to enterprises investing in environmental clean-up. If theinvestment based on the loan leads to reductions in emissions and waste within an agreedupon period, then the enterprise can write off up to 40 percent of the principal from its

Figure 10.18 Trends in total emissions of participate matter, 1990–6

Source: Data from REC (1998:10), Kamienski (1999) and OECD (1996b:27)

268 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

original loan. The Polish environmental protection fund spends about $500 millionannually on such clean-up projects (Meth Cohn et al. 1998:38–440). Overall, the share ofGDP devoted to environmental investment increased gradually in the 1990s (Table 10.5).

The total amount of untreated sewage discharged into rivers also decreased between1989 and 1994 by almost one half (Lodkowska-Skoneczna, Pyszkowski and Szlachta 1996:36), and total production of sewage declined by 25 percent as household and industrialwater consumption dropped. In the mid-1990s about 1,000 wastewater treatment plantshave been built in Poland, at the rate of about 350–400 per year. However, it is stillexpected that it will take an additional fifteen to twenty years before all sewage isproperly treated (Nowicki 1997:198, 225).24 In fact, the volume of environmentallyharmful industrial waste has actually increased (by almost 20 percent) and between 1989

Figure 10.19 Air pollution trends in Poland compared with industrial production, 1989–97

Source: Data from GUS (1997:182), Kamienski (1999), BCE (1999)

Figure 10.20 Trends in heavy metals air emissions in Poland, 1980–97

Source: Data from GUS (1997:186)

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 269

and 1994 the percentage of forests damaged by pollution increased from 13.0 to 29.2percent. In some cases the damage is greater. For example, the Wałbrzych voivodship,located in the “Black Triangle,” recorded an increase in pollution related forest damagefrom 5.1 percent of its forests in 1989 to 97.3 percent in 1994 (Lodkowska-Skoneczna,Pyszkowski and Szlachta 1996:36–7).

The dramatic decreases in emissions in Hungary in the late 1980s and especially early1990s are to be explained by similar processes to those in other CEE countries: declines inproduction, decreases in energy production, changes in the structure of fuel away fromcoal and toward oil and natural gas (see Lehoczki and Balogh 1997:138), industrial declinein the early 1990s, and the efforts of the government to improve environmental quality(MERP 1994b:30) (Figure 10.21). Lead emissions declined by 78 percent between 1987and 1994 (MERP 1996:7). Water quality, the major environmental problem in Hungary,has improved as a result of post-1989 economic problems. However, improvement hasbeen slow and major “changes in water quality were rare, only observable in a few

270 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

Table 10.5 Environmental investment in Poland, 1990–6

Source: GUS (1997:396)

Figure 10.21 Emission trends in Hungary, 1985–97

Source: Data from OECD (1996b:23, 25, 27), UN (1995:4, 6), MERP (1999)

sectors” (MERP 1994b:44; Lehoczki and Balogh 1997:138).25 Evaluating any changes inwater quality is difficult because of unreliability of data associated with changes in thestatistical classification system in 1992. In 1998, more than 75 percent of Budapest’ssewage was still discharged directly into the Danube without any treatment and half ofHungarian households were not connected to a sewerage system (Table 10.6). JánosVarga, the chair of the Danube Circle NGO argued in 1998 that “wastewater is treatedonly very roughly [in Budapest], the only thing caught during the treatment is a dead cow.Anything smaller is discharged directly in the river” (MF Dnes 1998e:8).

Hungary recorded a 29 percent decline in the production of hazardous and industrialwaste between 1990 and 1994 mainly as the result of industrial decline and economicrestructuring, and a 40–45 percent drop in output of the construction industry (MERP1996:3–5). However, solid waste from human settlements has been growing by 2–3percent annually (MERP 1998:1–2).

There is not enough data available to evaluate properly the environmental effects oftransformation in Romania. In general, processes have been similar to those in other CEE

TRANSFORMATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 271

Table 10.6 Wastewater treatment in Hungary, 1980–93 (in million cu. m)

Source: Lehoczki and Balogh (1997:141)

Figure 10.22 Total annual sulfur dioxide emissions in Romania, 1990–5

Source: Data from REC (1998:7)

countries. Collapsing industrial production and overall economic decline producedimmediate improvements in environmental quality (Figures 10.1, 10.2, 10.22): sulfurdioxide emissions declined by 29 percent between 1990 and 1996 and by 66.1 percentbetween 1989 and 1992, nitrogen oxides emissions fell by 74.7 percent, and carbonmonoxide emissions dropped 81.2 percent. But increased openness to Western goods andshort-term drawing down of the economic overhang created by an economy of shortagecreated their own environmental problems: for example, the importing of automobiles tosatisfy pent-up demand and over increases in automobile usage resulted in a 50.0 percentincrease in carbon dioxide emissions between 1989 and 1992 (UN 1995: 4, 6, 14, 16;REC 1998:7).

Environmental effects of transformation seem to be ambiguous at the local scale. AsFigure 10.23 shows, not every city benefitted from the overall decline in pollution. Wedo not see a clear trend of declining pollution levels. Instead, pollution did increasesubstantially in some cities such as the case of Bucharest, where average annual sulfur dioxideconcentrations in ambient air increased almost nine times between 1990 and 1996 (whileparticulate concentrations fell by 24 percent), and Ploiesti, where particulate

272 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

concentrations increased by 53 percent and sulfur dioxide concentrations did not changeduring the same period (REC 1998:4–5). These are disturbing trends especially given themagnitude of economic collapse in the 1990s (Figures 10.1 and 10.2).

Bulgaria: ecological change in an agricultural economy

In the case of Bulgaria we focus less on atmospheric and water pollution and more on theimpact of changing national politics and economic policy on local agricultural decision-makers and the environmental consequences of the changes.26 In evaluatingenvironmental consequences, we will focus on several major environmental problemslinked to agricultural policy in Bulgaria: soil and water contamination by agriculturalchemicals and livestock waste, and soil erosion. In each case, we examine the relationship

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of these problems to centralplanning, and the impact of changing state policy on the localcontext between 1989 and 1996.

We stress three main points. First, in the late 1980s, local efforts to instituteecologically sound regulatory frameworks emerged. These enjoyed mass support. Butsince 1989, even short delays in passing legislation have greatly complicatedimplementation, due to spreading fiscal crises, diminishing tax bases for local and centralstate governments, and declines in popular support for ecological defence. The result hasbeen a vacuum in legal and regulatory enforcement mechanisms.

Second, since 1989 the central state no longer plays a direct role in encouraging short-term growth, but the regulatory vacuum and the general uncertainty under which farmersmake their decisions have reintroduced a focus on very short-term horizons. Oneconsequence has been a general tendency to extract immediate benefit from land withoutrisking major investments in management and improvements.

Figure 10.23 Trends in average annual particulate (top) and sulfur dioxide (bottom) concentrationsin ambient air in Romanian cities, 1990–6

Source: Data from REC (1998:4–5)

274 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATION

Third, some local governments have managed to change the decision-makingcontextfor local producers through the development of local environmental regulations.27 But, atleast temporarily, these local efforts were undermined by the return of a reform socialistparty to government, the subsequent collapse of the lev, and the drift toward hyper-inflation in spring 1996. These developments contributed to even greater uncertaintyregarding tenure rights and jurisdictional rights, and to the fiscal crisis of stateadministrative bodies. At the same time, the socialist government’s increased support forcooperative farming also contributed slightly to a longer-term perspective and moresustainable practices. The reform of collective agriculture has received a great deal ofattention from policy makers and Western and local scholars since 1989. Most of thediscussion of changes in agriculture has focused on the legacy of collective farmingsystems, and the problems of de-collectivization, privatization, loss of traditional marketsand constraints on entry into new markets dominated by strong competition andestablished producers in Western Europe and the United States.

Throughout the region, however, agricultural ecology suffered from the CommunistParty’s prioritization of rapid industrialization over environmental or other goals. CEEgovernments did set environmental guidelines which limited the degree to which growthcould be pursued at the expense of the environment, but the economic context andpolitical censorship created incentives for farm managers and households to prioritizegrowth, and serious barriers to those who would resist the effects of such growth.28

Substantial degradation of agricultural and other resources resulted. Little attention hasbeen given to ecological aspects of agrarian reform, the political ecology of changing farmorganization or the emergence of new regulatory frameworks within which farmers striveto adjust to new economic and ecological imperatives. This absence is particularlyunsettling in Bulgaria because of the significant impact which continuing national politicalstruggles have on the countryside, and the high level of bioclimatic diversity in thecountryside, which make local circumstances key to understanding the impacts of reformpolicies on agricultural ecology.

In addition to permitting the development of markets, the separation of political andeconomic powers resulting from the dismantling of central planning has created newpossibilities for the flourishing of organizations of civil society. These organizations haveresponded variously to openings created by state action and imperatives arising out of thewithering away of state functions. However, the tendency to valorize civil society andmarkets over the state has resulted in almost univocal focus on new social movements andnon-governmental organizations as vehicles of social change and ecological defence. InBulgaria, the gradual incorporation of the leadership of such organizations into theprofessional structures of official departments of government, banks and non-governmentorganizations, and the general demobilization of popular action in the face of frequentchanges of government and the effects of economic dislocation, have led to a general senseof pessimism about ecological defence and environmental reconstruction. It remains to beanalyzed, however, why organizations of civil society and particularly such highlymobilized movements for ecological defence, and the mass support for environmentalreconstruction thatsustained them, should have emerged in the first place and why theyhave waned so rapidly as a political force.

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Post-1989 privatization in agriculture was expected to reduce erosion, excessivechemical applications and livestock pollution as new land owners (both individual farmersand members of new production cooperatives) sought to protect the value of theirproperty. Price adjustments toward world market levels were expected to encouragereduced applications of fertilizers and other chemicals, as well as the replacement of giantSoviet machinery with smaller, more appropriate technology. Environmental benefitswere also expected to accrue from decentralized decision-making as the inappropriate,centrally-defined cropping patterns and fertilizer and pesticide applications were replacedwith agricultural practices more attuned to local conditions and livestock managementwas decentralized.

Some observers were even more optimistic, emphasizing the potential for Bulgaria todevelop a system of low-input agriculture. One group emphasized that capital-scarce andrelatively labor-abundant Bulgaria had a comparative advantage in low-input (but labor-intensive) sustainable agriculture (Begg 1994). Although substantial amounts of Bulgariansoils are contaminated with heavy metals (an estimated 47,000 hectares are contaminatedin excess of norms) (World Bank 1991:12), Bulgaria still has quite a large portion ofarable land unaffected by ecological contamination. The availability of locally developedalternative technologies such as Integrated Pest Management and the proximity of high-end West European markets for low-input agricultural produce could support low-inputproduction. Others have emphasized prewar Bulgarian traditions of sustainable,community-controlled agriculture. Some of these traditions survived through thecollective period in the form of small-scale, mixed production on household plots andcollective grazing on village lands unused by the collective farm. These traditions, it hasbeen argued, might serve as a model for post-socialist agriculture (Bogdanova 1993).

Early environmental results

In fact, several of the benefits expected from decentralization of control and theemergence of markets have been realized. Fertilizer prices have increased to more thanten times their 1989 levels and fertilizer use dropped drastically in response, from anaverage of 170 kg/hectare from 1985–9 to an average of 108 kg/hectare from 1990–2.Pesticide and herbicide use also dropped after prices jumped by a factor of ten in 1991,from 20,485 kg per thousand hectares during the peak period from 1980–5 to 10,807 kgper thousand hectares in 1992 (Begg 1994:15, CSO various years, World Bank 1991:13).This situation parallels similarly rapid declines in fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide use inother CEE countries.

Decentralization, too, has brought some expected changes. From 1989 to 1993, partlyin response to changing relative prices, cooperative and individual farms slaughteredlivestock. The cattle population fell by 39 percent, pigs fell by35 percent, sheep by 44percent and poultry by 52 percent. Furthermore, the majority of remaining livestock isnow held by small, decentralized households (ranging from 46 percent of pigs to 84percent of sheep) (Begg and Meurs 1998: 22, 24). Naidenova (1993) has suggested thatthe result has been a reduction in the concentration of waste and an increase in the use ofnatural fertilizers on small, integrated family farms.

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But marketization also has produced its own (less discussed) environmental problems.These “market failures” include externalities resulting from individual production units,under-investment in public goods, and differences between social and individual discountrates. They have been exacerbated by a number of characteristics of the transition period.Among these is extreme uncertainty, which has clearly undermined the benefits ofprivatization (Meurs, Morissey and Begg 1998). One problem is that many owners ofagricultural land still did not have legal titles, and many individual farmers and newcooperatives have been mainly farming land under one-year leases or temporary usepermits.

Even where ownership has been established with relative certainty, conditions do notencourage owners to protect the long-run value of their “investment.” Most of thosereceiving land do not plan to cultivate it themselves, and many do not plan to own it formore than a few years. At the same time, severe price instability, declining averageincomes and the absence of land markets mean that owners have little basis for estimatingland prices over even the near future. Combined with the restitution of land in itsfragmented prewar boundaries, these conditions recreate pre-war pressures forhouseholds to deplete land in the interests of short run survival.

Partly as a result, “soil mining” has increased. Those holding one-year leases arereluctant to invest in anti-erosion tree barriers or lined irrigation canals, or to experimentwith soil-improving crop rotation. Financial constraints also contribute to this decision. Infact, many new private farmers were not using any fertilizers at all in 1993 and 1994,since they did not expect to be leasing the same land the following year.29 The reductionin nitrate applications is certainly welcome, and phosphorus applications may also betemporarily discontinued in certain areas with little reduction in yields due to already highlevels in the soil (Deets 1993:4–5), but potassium was already seriously depleted in over16 percent of arable land and phosphorous was lacking in approximately 40 percent in1992 (Nikolova 1992). Yields began to decline in the mid-1990s. Further reduction infertilizer applications will certainly result in soil degradation.

Clearly, the impact of declining yields will not be uniform. In some areas fertilizerbuildup is substantial or soils are naturally higher in needed minerals. In addition, there issome evidence that the new production cooperatives, which farm land that owners havechosen not to farm themselves, may be more likely to invest in land preservation. Unlikethe days of central planning, farm managers can no longer expect a career path up throughthe Agricultural Ministry or the BCP. The best prospects for many farm managers lie indeveloping the farm which they currently manage. Regardless of who actually owns it,much of the land will remain in the hands of cooperative management over the mediumterm.The future careers and earnings of individual managers are, therefore, as closely linkedto the condition of “their” asset.

The decentralization of livestock has also created some problems. Livestock wereprivatized to village dwellers, who live in closely clustered houses with semi-attachedbarns designed to hold a few head of livestock for household use. EC-PHARE reports thatthe concentration of privatized livestock in these dwellings has created severe wastedisposal problems. Monitoring the disposal of this waste is also complicated by the

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decentralization. Short time horizons, rising fuel prices and financial constraintsexacerbate the problem (Douglass 1994:5,9).

A second characteristic limitation on the potential gains from decentralization and priceliberalization is the context of very limited development of input markets and informationnetworks in which decision-makers operate. For price increases and decentralization to beturned to environmental advantage, new low-input farming methods would need to beavailable. In practice, those who are interested in investing in land improvement or newtechnology face serious obstacles. First, they lack credit and face a general collapse inmarket demand for food products. But even those farmers with money to invest areextremely unlikely to receive information about alternative farming methods. Inputmarkets are crowded with international chemical company representatives who encouragefarmers to choose a technology based on increased use of agricultural chemicals.

No effective network of rural extension agents exists to offer information about theless commercial technologies of low-input agriculture. Given the government’s budgetcrisis, the EC-PHARE/World Bank Joint Mission supported the use of chemical companyrepresentatives as extension agents, noting that: “In many countries, [foreign inputsuppliers] have become key agents for disseminating new technologies at no cost to thegovernment budget” (EC-PHARE/World Bank 1993:51). Low-cost, low-inputtechniques like inter-cropping are unlikely to be emphasized by such agents.

An additional problem is that some of the techniques viable for large-scale production,such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM) or need-based fertilizer application, are skill-intensive. However, the rural population is mainly elderly and poorly educated. Youngpeople have left the village with its more limited social, educational and careeropportunities. Only 11 percent of men and 5 percent of women working in agriculture in1985 had more than a junior high school education (Meurs 1994a). Further, during centralplanning with its industrial production methods on the farm this population was “de-skilled,” losing knowledge of both traditional methods of sustainable agriculture and anintegrated understanding of production processes. Small numbers of “return migrants” tothe countryside in recent years may also contribute to the supply of less skilled agriculturalproducers as urban workers with little or no agricultural experience claim title to andsettle on restituted land.

Drawing on pre-war practices of sustainable agriculture also seems an unlikely optionin this context, partly due to the de-skilling described above. But the viability oftraditional practices has also been eroded by industrialization and rural-urban migration,which reduced long-term dependence on one communityand its local narratives andsustainable regulatory practices of resource use. Economic transformation andmarketization have not so much undermined existing social networks and safety nets astransformed them into economic rather than social relationships. Taken together, thesechanges have produced an increasingly individual and short-run focus among villagers—afocus which seems incompatible with a near-term return to traditional systems of localresource use.

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The withering of the central state and local state responses

In the face of the withering of the political will and power of the central state to addressenvironmental problems, along with the virtual emptying of the environmentalmovement to national and international employment opportunities, one possible sourceof regulation lies in local responses. It is to the question of regional systems of regulationand response that we now turn our attention.

In the period since 1991 some local governments have emerged as central actors inenvironmental regulation and pollution control. Those obshtini (localities) withenvironmentally active mayors or administrators—especially those that found somepolitical advantage from working with environmental forces after 1989—began todevelop their own policies and were in some cases able to influence agricultural practices.

Provisions in the 1991 Bulgarian Constitution and the 1991 Local Self-Government andLocal Administration Act expressly empowered local governments to independentlyresolve the “common matters” of local populations, including environmental regulation,and expressly forbade the central state from imposing policies on lower levels ofgovernment except where specific exemptions are codified in law. The EnvironmentalProtection Act (1991) also charged local authorities with tasks of environmentalmanagement and empowered them to develop their own environmental programs, informcitizens about the condition of the environment, control the dumping of wastes andhazardous substances, organize and control wastewater treatment and garbage collectionand disposal, and manage municipal funds for environmental protection (Ministry ofRegional Development and Construction 1996). There continues to be substantialambiguity about the exact rights of localities to legislate environmental issues themselves,and many local elected officials face pressure to overlook environmental infringements byentrepreneurs struggling to build private enterprises. Nonetheless, some important localefforts have been made.

One example of the use of enlarged local powers is the Bourgas Obshtina Directorate ofEcology. Located in southeastern Bulgaria on the Black Sea coast, Burgas obshtina hasvigorously sought to expand its political and regulatory powers in this initial period oftransformation. The Directorate of Ecology has sought to establish fiscal andadministrative mechanisms for regulating environmental damage, a detailed and accurateenvironmental database for all enterprises within the obshtina, and coordination amongobshtini with similarproblems to share information, set standards and deal with at timesunhelpful central authorities.

The Bourgas Directorate of Ecology has instituted a “passport” system forenvironmental management which begins with the development of a detailed spatialdatabase of economic activities in the obshtina, including land uses, industrial enterprises,waste transport routes and disposal sites, agricultural activities and known environmentalhazards (Apostolov 1992). With this information system in place, the obshtina thendeveloped a detailed passport for each industrial and agricultural producer, creating aninventory of goods produced, inputs, outputs, energy profiles, technologies used andwaste generated. Completion of the passport is the legal responsibility of the manager ofthe facility. The passport system is part of a broader local framework for environmental

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regulation in which pollution norms are set, along with escalating fines for chronicpolluters and financial assistance for polluters to adopt new technologies for wastemanagement or cleaner production systems. The local government has also created an on-site testing facility to test for nitrates and phosphates on and in foodstuffs at the Bourgasmarket; food with high levels of either are not allowed to be sold in the market.

The restructuring of local government rights does raise important questions. First,according to Friedberg and Zaimov (1994) the current patchwork of environmental lawleaves unresolved critical issues of liability and enforcement between levels ofgovernment and between private citizens and the local state. As of July 1993, the obshtinacourt had not heard a single case dealing with environmental regulation, and there is somedoubt whether government lawyers are sufficiently trained in adversarial proceedings tobe effective.

Second, the passport system has been designed primarily to deal with large industrialenterprises and only secondarily with agricultural or small-scale polluters. Consequently,small producers and farmers, particularly new private farmers, may have little knowledgeof, or recourse to, legal procedures in the event of illegal environmental practices inneighboring enterprises or local state intervention. In addition, in the face of theproliferation of small agricultural and other producers, the government may find thepassport system increasing costly and difficult to enforce.

Third, it is not clear what effect the passport system will have on those farms that arealready polluting below stipulated norms. In one sense, the passport system is designed toprovide short-term subsidies to less efficient polluting farms and factories. But such publicunder-writing of environmentally beneficial investments in clean technology forinefficient enterprises potentially disadvantages those farms and factories that have alreadyinvested in new technologies.

Local initiatives such as the Bourgas passport system and on-site screening of foodstuffsare, in any case, located in a context of struggles for jurisdiction between different levelsof local government, specifically between the obshtini and oblasti (regional) governments(Plate 10.1). As obshtina powers have been extended, the powers of the centrallyappointed regional (oblast) administration have been made more tenuous. For example,the Bourgas oblast (region) lostregulatory power when the central government in Sofiadrastically cut back the oblast’s administrative staff from more than 400 in 1989 to lessthan seventy-five in 1992, but it also lost power when the larger and more powerful of itsobshtini, including Bourgas obshtina, began to ignore some of the remaining constitutionallymandated responsibilities of the regional administration and take on these responsibilitiesthemselves.

Oblast officials, in turn, sought to challenge the passport system of Bourgas obshtina,arguing that the regulation of pollution and production was outside the jurisdiction ofobshtini. Where enterprises are state-owned and their polluting impacts are regional (thedownstream effects of fertilizer runoff, for example), the oblast administration claimsjurisdiction for such matters itself. If the administrative capacities of regional governmentare seriously weakened, a regulatory and enforcement vacuum may occur around suchissues. On the other hand, strong administrative rights for oblasts may undermine theefforts of the obshtini to find local solutions to problems. The implications of such

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regulatory struggles for agricultural practices are not yet clear, especially in the wake ofrecent regional government reforms which have boosted the power of regionalgovernments.

Certainly, the severity of the problems and potential to address them varies widelyacross politically and bio-climatically diverse regions. Nonetheless, without an adequate,national-level regulatory framework, macroeconomic stability and the widespreadavailability of information on alternative production techniques, significant improvementsin environmentally sustainable agricultural practices are unlikely.

Since 1989 there have been some clear environmentally positive trends emerging inBulgarian agriculture. It would be too strong to say that the decentralization of decision-making and increases in input prices which have accompanied marketization have had nobeneficial impact. The changing economic and political conditions since 1989 haveradically altered the context in which agricultural producers make production decisions.Many of the environmentally degrading practices of centrally planned agriculture havebeen abandoned in response to changing conditions. There is little evidence, however,that these changes in practices will produce any automatic improvements in theenvironmental impact of agriculture. Instead, potentially beneficial effects have beenreduced by a number of characteristics of the transition period, and privatization andmarketization have generated their own environmental problems. Soil mining andlivestock concentration in densely settled areas are among the most serious of these,although their severity differs by region. As macroeconomic conditions deteriorated inlate 1996 and 1997, uncertainty increased and this contributed to further environmentaldegradation. These problems might be contained by the emergence of an apparentlystrong regulatory regime with the new government after 1997, but the politicalconditions necessary for such regulation are also tempered by continued economicdifficulties, not the least of which has been the war over Kosovo.

In the absence of regulation by the central state, some local governments have begun todevelop local structures of regulation. These have strong potential toaddress many of theenvironmental problems resulting from current agricultural practices, as these problems areoften mainly local in their effects. But the potential for local organizations to address evenlocal environmental problems is limited by the lack of clarity of jurisdictional andproperty rights and by the increasing fiscal crisis of the central state, which in turndemands more resources from local governments. Where activist local officials benefitfrom a strong local tax base, an electorate focused on environmental problems, and goodrelations with regional and national governments, emerging problems may successfully beregulated. Unfortunately, these conditions are unlikely to be widespread. In most places,substantial improvements in environmental practices in agriculture continue to be amongthe many unfulfilled promises of the end of state socialism.

Conclusion

The transformation has so far had profound environmental effects across CEE. Industrialcollapse associated with shock therapy of the early 1990s led to plummeting solid andsulfur dioxide emissions and gradually improving air quality across the region. It also led

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to lower consumption of water for industrial and agricultural use and correspondinglower discharges of effluents. Agricultural crises also contributed to decreased waterpollution as dramatic declines occurred in the application of industrial fertilizers andpesticides. Gradual restructuring away from energy intensive heavy industry toward lightindustries and services also contributed to declining emissions. Some CEE governmentspushed for desulfurization of major air pollution sources and the installation of betterscrubbers. Hundreds of effluent treatment plants have been built across the region since1989. These have been real successes and, as a result, we find arguments about “failedtransition” difficult to sustain. These successes have not been achieved automatically asmany liberal economists assumed but resulted from intense social struggles overenvironmental priorities. However, despite these radical improvements, hazardousemissions are still high and the health of forests in Poland and the Czech Republic hascontinued to deteriorate rapidly.

New environmental problems have also been introduced, such as rapid growth in cartraffic and higher urban pollution from nitrogen oxides, carbon oxides, lead and ozone.Weak governments pursuing liberal-productivist policies have been unable to supportenvironmentally sustainable approaches to comprehensive transport planning. Manyenvironmental challenges wait to be addressed. Western consumerism introduced plasticpackaging and increased domestic waste. Exports of natural resources have increased. Theopening of the region to foreign capital increased the danger of environmental degradationassociated with foreign direct investment attracted by low environmental standards andweak enforcement.

Above all it is clear that the 1989 revolutions and subsequent transformations have notmeant a decisive break with the environmental conditions and policies formerly pursued.Instead, we see a continuation and reinforcement ofenvironmental struggles that began inthe 1980s. State socialist legacies remain surprisingly strong across the region and aretypified not only by the continuation of earlier questionable nuclear power policies, butalso by the reassertion of central state jurisdiction over environmental issues (especiallysensitive ones), by an incoherence in attitudes to nature (in need of protection to a point,deferrable beyond that), and by a failure to develop any coordinated understanding ofsocial and environmental processes (as the case of urban transport policies illustrates).

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Part IV

Nature in post-communist societies

284

11Conclusion

How are we to account for the post-1989 environmental record in Central and EasternEurope? How can we understand both the record of dramatically improvedenvironmental statistics and the persistence of environmental and social problems? Isliberal-productivism, with its belief in the unrestrained market, a real cure for theenvironment in the region as its champions have argued? Is “transition” simply a slow butirreversible process of remaking democracies, economies, and environments? Or are wewitnessing a failure of transformation to improve the quality of the environment and to buildsustainable environmental futures in the region? Are we really living through “failedtransitions” as Manser (1993) suggested, or are we experiencing more fundamental anddeeply-rooted transformations in the ways in which society and nature are beingarticulated in post-communist societies?

Different commentators have provided contrasting interpretations of theseenvironmental outcomes of post-communist transformations. In this book we have triedto demonstrate that what J.K.Galbraith (1991:67) called “The Simplistic Ideology” (whichinterprets the events after 1989 as the reversal of Marxian predictions and the emergenceof capitalism triumphant) is inadequate for any consideration of environmentaldegradation and environmental health.

There are several reasons for this caution. First, the development of an efficient systemof environmental regulation is a complex process which in practice depends on thewholesale overhauling and reworking of entire systems of national and regional legal,economic and social regulation. Moreover, given the inherent difficulties with theenforcement of new laws under the conditions of economic and political instability,combined with the lack of financial resources and political will to enforce newenvironmental regulations across the region, it is simply too early to evaluate accuratelylong-term environmental consequences of the regulatory reforms introduced in the1990s. Thus, a decade is too short a period to give any definite conclusion about theenvironmental effects of post-communist transformation.

Second, as we have shown, the post-1989 environment has benefitted from policieslaunched under state socialism in the late 1980s. The long-term environmental effects ofthese policies and practices and their effects on pollution levels in the 1990s are stillunclear.

Third, pressures to effect rapid economic and political reforms throughout the regionhave resulted in dramatically changing views of the environment on the part of politicalelites, and these have translated into contradictory environmental policies (such aschanging opinions about the future use of nuclear energy, or the revamping ofenvironmental ministries and the subsequent watering down of their powers).

Fourth, we now know that numerous political, economic, and environmental pathwaysfrom state socialism are emerging in CEE, sharing some elements in common but in otherways they are quite different from one another. Sweeping generalizations about the regionas a whole are, as a result, difficult and dangerous.

Clearly bi-polar positions miss the complexity and ambiguities of social andenvironmental change. Instead, we believe with David Harvey (1996) that theenvironmental effects of transformation in CEE must be viewed historically,geographically, and dialectically. Transformation has had profound environmental effects.Overall environmental statistics for the region as a whole have shown a series of dramaticimprovements since the collapse of state socialism. Environmental laws have been largelyrewritten and agencies for regulating environmental protection have been revamped.Industrial collapse associated with shock therapy did improve air quality, reduce theconsumption of water for industrial and agricultural use (with corresponding declines ineffluent discharge), produce declines in the application of industrial fertilizers andpesticides, and saw widespread decline in industrial emissions. Moreover, since 1989some heavily polluting industries have been partially re-capitalized with cleanertechnologies and hundreds of de-sulfurization scrubbers and effluent treatment plants havebeen built. These alone constitute real successes. These successes have, however, beenhard won out of intense social struggles over environmental priorities and have not beenuniformly successful.

Hazardous emissions remain high and the health of forests in heavily polluted regions,such as those in Poland and the Czech Republic, has continued to deteriorate rapidly.Many problems inherited from state socialism have persisted and new environmentalproblems have been created by some of the changes since 1989: unregulated growth inindividual automobile use has increased levels of urban air pollution from nitrogen oxides,carbon oxides, lead and ozone; plastic packaging and domestic waste are now becomingeconomic problems for urban municipalities; foreign direct investment has often led todirty investments and a fear of more to come; hostility toward independent environmentalorganizations on the part of “new” political elites has persisted; and emission declines havebeen achieved more by the adoption of “end of pipe technologies” than by sustainablechanges in production or deep re-capitalization deploying cleaner technologies.

Above all it is clear that the 1989 revolutions and subsequent transformations have notmeant a decisive break with the environmental conditions and policies of the past. Instead, aswe have shown, post-1989 reforms are marked by a surprising level of continuation andreinforcement of environmental policies andpractices that began in the 1980s. Such statesocialist legacies remain surprisingly strong across the region and are typified on the onehand not only by the continuation of earlier questionable environmental policies (such asnuclear power), but also by the re-assertion of central state jurisdiction overenvironmental issues, by a continuity in underlying attitudes to nature and resources in both

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state socialism and capitalism, and by a failure to develop any coordinated understandingof social and environmental processes (as the case of urban transport policies illustrates).

The political economy of environmental risk and health

Our approach has been one which seeks to show how the environment as a political andeconomic issue is (and has been) socially produced, and how we need to understand thesevarious productions and the social struggles they represent within specific developmentmodels, with their respective balances among and between economic, political, social andcultural processes. In this view, rapid environmental degradation under state socialismwas by no means a result of ignorance or lack of concern about the environment on thepart of the state socialist planners and Communist Party elites, but was a crucial part ofthe logic of fast industrialization and was intricately related to the political-economicfortunes and misfortunes of the state socialist development model.

The environmental crisis of state socialism was thus also a political crisis of a regime ofaccumulation and social regulation. The failures of the state socialist development modelto deal adequately with these challenges, especially during the post-1973 global economicturmoil and subsequent debt crisis, had disastrous environmental consequences for themost industrialized regions of CEE. But it is important to remind ourselves that theconditions that existed in the region in the late 1980s and early 1990s before the collapseof party states, and before the beginning of capitalist transitions, were not uniformly badfor all regions and people. Central planning certainly externalized environmental andhealth costs, and incorporated environmental degradation into the logic of the party state.But this logic of externalities was one that generated enormous benefits for many urbanresidents (as rapid industrialization improved their material conditions of life), created theconditions for wealth accumulation among party cadres, and, for a while, even symbolizedthe values of progress and growth in a geopolitically hostile world.

Environmental quality generally did deteriorate rapidly under state socialism as the fastdrive to industrialization over-rode all obstacles in its path. But this account ofbureaucratic authoritarian power and its construction of a particular kind of environmentalethos must also be situated alongside a richer cultural analysis of how individual “socialistcitizens” negotiated the intricate webs of hegemonic powers in order to effect some liveableoutcomes. The “catching up and overtaking project” set in place under state socialism tolegitimate fast-growth policies resulted in a popular demand for (and a correspondinginability to provide) higher quality consumer goods, but it also produced a senseofentitlement to improved health and public health services, and a sense of alarm as actualhealth conditions began to deteriorate. The environmental policies of state socialism weredeeply contradictory, promising constitutional guarantees of clean environments whilespewing out heavy metals from massive industrial combinats, building national pridethrough extensive nature parks while encouraging over-application of fertilizers andpesticides on food crops, and exhorting citizen patriots to contribute to building a betterworld while degrading the landscape and removing villages at will to achieve rapid growth.These contradictions provided fertile ground for the very opposition movements thatgradually came to array themselves against the party-state under the rubric of a mass

CONCLUSION 287

movement for ecological defense, a kind of anti-politics (as Konrad (1984) called it).Thus, even the constitutions and official policies of the party states of CEE provided themoral justification for the very opposition movements for ecological defense thateventually rose up as the rallying points for political opposition to the communist party.

Throughout the communist period the party state sought to rework, appropriate, oreradicate the organs of civil society. Generally, central planning replaced traditionalagrarian regulatory systems, which maintained longer-term planning horizons andprotection of collective resources, with systems in which distant decision-makers plannedproduction and rewarded short-term growth over environmental sustainability. Theresulting agricultural practices yielded very specific social and environmental outcomesand distinctive new rural geographies. But we still know far too little about the ways inwhich these geographies were created and the ways in which farmers, workers,intellectuals, and others in the contemporary situation drew on specific cultural andpersonal resources, and adjusted and continue to adjust and rework their everydaypractices in ways that are transforming the environmental geographies of the region.

Similarly, the immense body of epidemiological data beginning to appear oncommunity and worker health under state socialism paints a gloomy picture of everydaylife in CEE. But precisely because of the often readily apparent environmentallydestructive practices and the extreme health risks they generated, and because of theofficial sanctioning of prophylactic medicine and an individual’s right to a healthyenvironment, we are still faced with the need to understand in much more detail howindividuals and communities responded to the crises in health care and health conditionsthey encountered. In particular, we need to consider in much more detail how“environment” and “nature” were constructed in these communities by individualsnegotiating new (hidden and transparent) hazards and risks. Conversely, we need tounderstand much more about the ways in which many of the negative health effects ofpollution have been compounded by life choices, such as smoking and alcoholconsumption. That is, we need to understand the multiple and contradictory forms ofagency under central planning and in the period of transformation in much more nuancedways than has been possible to date.

Path dependency and path-shaping environmentalstrategies

We hope we have shown how the changes in the quality of the environment in individualCEE countries since 1989 have resulted from a complex set of (at times contradictory)policies and practices set in place under state socialism, drawing on and reworkingconditions, resources, and capacities of pre-communist times, and transformed from the1980s onwards by different sets of social interests struggling over economic andenvironmental futures. These changes are both path dependent and path shaping. Theseinclude those practices and policies to improve environmental quality prepared andlaunched by state socialist governments in the 1980s (such as programs to cut emissions,construct nuclear power plants at Mochovce in Slovakia and Temelín in the Czech

288 NATURE IN POST-COMMUNIST SOCIETIES

Republic, and build hydro-electric water schemes at Gabčíkovo on the Danube inSlovakia). Designed to lower dependency on low quality coal for the production ofelectricity and thus lower emissions of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and otherpollutants, these state socialist projects ironically now benefit post-communistgovernments in their own efforts to improve environmental conditions and legitimatetheir own neo-liberal reform policies.

Moreover, those projects provided relatively safe issues around which politicalopposition to state socialism could mobilize in the 1980s. Indeed, it was their very successin 1989 that led to their political demise in the 1990s as whole levels of leadership optedto pursue political opportunities in newly founded political parties and freely electedparliaments or economic opportunities in multi-lateral agencies and banks, internationalNGOs, or private companies. The public has also turned its attention away fromenvironmental issues toward more pressing needs, such as growing economic and socialinsecurity associated with shock therapy and democratization. But this does not mean thatthe environment has ceased to be perceived as an important problem, especially in the mostenvironmentally devastated regions. Post-1989 environmental euphoria was short-livedand many commentators have suggested that the environment has quickly faded in thepolitical rhetoric and practice of reformers and is no longer among the most importantconcerns of the broader public. But the jury is still out on the question of whether theenvironmental mass mobilization of 1989 should be understood only as a “vehicle fortransition” (Baumgartl 1993) or whether it has had any long-term effects on perceptionsof the environment.

Our previous work has suggested that the fear of chronic environmental violencecontinues to dominate public perceptions of the most urgent problems in places such asthe Most District of the Czech Republic and Bourgas region of Bulgaria (see Pavlínek1997; Pickles, Pavlínek and Staddon 1998) (Plate 11.1). These fears of environmentalviolence at the local level and calls for urgent action to improve poor environmentalconditions contrast with an easy dismissal of these issues that seems to characterize theviews of politicians and policy makers. It may well be that the political ennui that typifiedpopular responses to state socialist reforms has a corresponding form in the ways in whichcurrent publics are responding to the hard-line views of neo-liberal reformers.WhenCzech Prime Minister Václav Klaus argued that the environment was not a centralissue for his new government he was signaling what many CEE policy analysts andadvisers had come to accept without question: that political and economic transformationwas to be a staged reworking of communist institutions and practices; and thatenvironmental reconstruction would either flow automatically from the adoption of moreefficient investment strategies or the environment could be dealt with later as economicsurplus and political stabilization allowed. Environmental reconstruction was in this viewnot just an expensive undertaking with a corresponding lower priority for fiscally strappedgovernments, but it was also seen to be an easy solution that ought to be deferred in favorof building “sound economic policies.” Environmental problems would, in this view, beresolved by efforts to bring about economic health and political stabilization. Those whoargued for direct environmental intervention were not only “soft thinkers,” but were a

CONCLUSION 289

threat to national revitalization in the post-1989 era: “environment” was a political tooldeployed by opponents of liberal reform.

Thinking of state socialism in CEE as some kind of minor interruption in a “normal”process of capitalist development or as a mere aberrant form of capitalist exploitation is oflittle help in understanding the concrete experiences and practices of life under the partystate. It certainly does not allow us to understand the ways in which the Soviet stylemodel of development was implanted and adapted in the same and in different ways inparticular localities.More importantly these forms of reduction deflect thought away fromthe ways in which alternative environmental projects emerge from the very real strugglesof concrete individuals under difficult circumstances. In part they do this by denying tothese people not only their own histories but also the very specific geographiesbequeathed to and reworked by them. The call for the importance of understanding suchgeographies and their responses to the state socialist development model, with itsparticular forms of structured coherence and spatial and environmental fix, is thus ananalytical claim with important practical and political consequences for how weunderstand the processes and timing involved in negotiating democratic forms ofenvironmental (and economic) justice.

Plate 11.1 The fear of environmental violence expressed by ten-year-old children through drawingsof their hometown, the city of Most, Czech Republic. The drawings were painted on a tram stopwall

290 NATURE IN POST-COMMUNIST SOCIETIES

The geopolitics, cultural politics, and class politics ofenvironmental reconstruction

Although there have been dramatic declines in air, land, and water pollution across theregion since 1989, and all countries have substantially rewritten their environmental lawsand reorganized their environmental regulatory agencies, it is premature to talk about theenvironmental success of the transformation. Despite the proliferation of the discourse ofsustainability among governmental and non-governmental agencies, the countries of CEEhave not yet made changes in their environmental practices sufficient to warrant muchconfidence that conditions for an environmentally sustainable future have been put inplace. First, as we have seen, many of the improvements in environmental quality in the1990s were achieved as a result of policies and laws enacted in the 1980s. Second, therapid decline in some pollutants in the early 1990s must be attributed to productiondeclines, not to regulatory change or internal restructuring of production processes.Third, as we have shown, many strategies actually devised and implemented to achieveemission reductions have questionable impacts on the environment. Fourth, as economiccrises have deepened environmental ministries have lost some of the importance theygained immediately after 1989.

Perhaps the single most important change in systems of environmental regulation since1989 has been geopolitical and largely external to the countries themselves.Environmental management policies and regulations across the region are now stronglyinfluenced by EU environmental requirements. All prospective new members of the EU(specifically Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary) have been required to meet theseenvironmental requirements early on in the process of application. These requirementsinclude some 300 pieces of EU environmental legislation (the environmental acquis) thatmust be included into national legislation of CEE countries. Even countries which havelittle chance of joining the EU in the near future (like Bulgaria and Romania) are stillrequired to meet EU environmental regulations if agricultural produce and foodstuffs areto be exported to Western Europe. The geopolitical and economic importance of links toEurope (and a similar story can be told for the role of the US Environmental ProtectionAgency in consort with IMF and World Bankfunding and restructuring proposals) seemsto have produced (or enhanced) a largely instrumental and strategic response to changes inenvironmental laws and regulations (which in some cases were being enacted as fast asthey could be written, and written as fast as they could be copied from EU documents).

There seems to have been no radical change in the perception of the environment bythe new political and economic elites. The environment is still considered to be asecondary issue while the economy and economic problems are regarded as primary. Statesocialist economic determinism has been replaced by neo-liberal market determinism, andthis has led to a surprisingly familiar situation for bureaucrats from the state socialistperiod. Environmental ministries are weak and under-funded and their agendas are oftenfragmented. Environmental critics and independent NGOs are marginalized and oftenviewed as extremist organizations by new political elites. Individuals and organizationscaught up in the day-to-day struggles for survival and accumulation make ad hoc decisionsabout the use of local natural resources in a context of weak regulations and enforcement.

CONCLUSION 291

Constructive dialogues between governmental institutions and independent environmentalNGOs are virtually non-existent in many CEE countries. Even attempts to restrict andregulate uncontrolled, often chaotic and environmentally detrimental development (suchas the construction of new highways through nature preserves) are often viewed asunnecessary obstacles endangering the path to high growth market capitalism, and as aresult they are fiercely resisted.

TINA (There Is No Alternative) or THEMBA (There Must BeAlternatives)?

There is, sadly, no alternative. Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are nowexperiencing one of the greatest moments in their history. That moment isalso ours.

(Galbraith 1991:74)

Galbraith’s claim that there is no alternative is, in fact, an assertion of the necessity ofalternatives to the rigid enforcement of shock therapy in post-state socialist societies,particularly where these are predicated on fixed notions of how capitalism works. Instead,Galbraith (1991:74) argues, what is needed is “the painful processes of thought” that hasenabled the system of capitalist economies to succeed through their adaptive responses tochange. Far from the Sachs (1990) and Klaus logic of the necessity of a single economicpath to reconstruction—that there is no third alternative between state socialism andliberal free market capitalism—Galbraith reminds us of the need to generate adaptiveresponses to the social and political conditions within which economic reform mustoccur. At the heart of these social and political conditions is the concern for environmentalrisk and health.By adopting Western models of market economics, managerial democracy,andenvironmental regulation, CEE countries are introducing Western environmentalproblems without seeking alternatives. Political and economic “third ways” and alternativeenvironmental futures are, in this context, thought to be unreasonable, even ideological.

It remains important, then, to be attentive to the kinds of public and environmentalpolicies that are emerging, who is supporting them, and whose interest are served bythem, especially when we see an apparent general agreement about the diminishedimportance of environmental issues. The devaluation of environmental concerns—to theextent that it is occurring—serves very specific sets of political interests and social classes.Specifically, the discourse of political normalization and economic reform has been builton the demobilizing of the politics of mass action, the domestication of the notion of civilsociety (as controlled and “organized”), and the normalizing of the mechanisms forachieving social transformation. In this context, 1989-style environmental politics hasfunctioned as the enemy to be exorcized from the body politic of democratic reform.Managerialism has been reasserted over popular defense, technical expertise has been re-institutionalized, direct political action has been de-legitimated, and the necessity ofenvironmental clean-up has been transformed into a threat to economic efficiency and

292 NATURE IN POST-COMMUNIST SOCIETIES

attractiveness in a global economy. Just as the place-politics of neo-liberalism underminednotions of locally specific development strategies in the US and Western Europe in the1970s and 1980s in favor of globalized open linkages (with attendant restrictions on labor,environmentalists, and other citizen groups), so in CEE in the 1990s the neo-liberalmantra of international competitiveness and global markets has resulted in concreteefforts to marginalize all discussions of alternative development strategies that might offerdifferent pathways to dealing with local environmental problems (and alternativeenvironmental strategies that might offer different pathways to dealing with localdevelopment problems).

Despite these efforts, however, there are signs that the indirect consequences of therole played by social movements for ecological defense in the front wave of anti-communist opposition, the anti-politics on which it was founded, and the massmobilization it engendered have still to be played out. These indirect consequences aremade more complicated by the ways in which the democratization process itself keepsopen the rhetorical and legal spaces on which social movements for ecological defense andanti-politics can thrive. As Gibson-Graham (1982) has demonstrated, just because we assertthe power of capitalism to control local conditions does not mean that it does, or that localpeople are not already at work reconfiguring in new ways their relations with Nature andthe economy. In fact, in so far as we continue to use what Gibson-Graham calls“capitalocentric” logics and discourses, we are very likely to overlook the very realalternative economic (and environmental) practices and relations in which people arealready engaged. Indeed, as we have seen in regions all over CEE, this is exactly what isoccurring, partly as a response to economic needs, but also as a real working of what oftenso blithely is affirmed as “civil society;” people in collaboration in their daily practicesreconfiguring social roles, economicrelations, environmental practices, and the nature ofpolitics through which localities embed themselves regionally, nationally, and globally.

The future of environmental politics and environmentalmanagement

As we have seen, throughout CEE the experiences of economic and politicaltransformation have been ones of bifurcation and differentiation: rapid growth and capitalaccumulation (variously called fast capitalism, cowboy capitalism, mafia capitalism, andfrontier economics) simultaneously reinforced and transformed the terrain of social andpolitical life. New forms of economic power and widespread economic distress havearisen in the interregnum. The public sphere is now one in which images of highconsumerism are juxtaposed with discourses of “bread and butter” politics. Together thesehave squeezed environmental and social justice issues out of the public arena. In somecountries, deepening economic crises have also weakened the effectiveness of NGOs andfavored a (re)assertion of a culture in which solutions are sought from the outside andfrom technical experts. In these circumstances, international agencies and foreigngovernmental bodies have been surprisingly influential in the formulation of public andenvironmental policy, and correspondingly local policy makers have been surprisingly

CONCLUSION 293

eager to accept those policy recommendations, at least on the surface or for publicconsumption.

The conjuncture of new challenges and old powers, the difficulty of putting newregulations in place, the emergence of new political forces, and the problems for theenvironmental movement arising out of economic crisis must also be situated in a broadertheoretical and geographical perspective of international restructuring and the emergenceof new forms of production, new regulatory environments, and new challenges toenvironmental politics.

The modern future that will emerge for the new democracies of Central and EasternEurope is not yet clear. Will an economy emerge which produces any social surplus at allor will countries emerge with economies and societies in perpetual crisis? If economicgrowth can occur, how will issues of environmental and social justice be addressed? Willgrowth permit the development of a Keynesian social welfare state, in which socialmarkets are protected, regulations are institutionalized to protect health and the workingday, and to provide insurance and decent wages? Or will post-communist Europe emergeinto a postmodern world of deregulated markets and fast capitalism, in which speculationin property, services (such as tourism), and finance capital has higher priority thaninvestment in production? As we have suggested throughout, these issues are alreadybeing resolved differently in each country, and among the localities and regions of thesecountries. Constructing and remaking such rich geographies of environmentaltransformation is one of the great challenges for the region in future. But thesegeographies will also be shot through with attempts to construct new hegemonies,marginalize alternative environmental and economic strategies, erase local specificities,and push further integration into broader national and international systems.

It has been clear for some time that economic crises have substantially weakenedenvironmental movements throughout the region and that the “normalization” of politicallife has effectively closed off spaces for a radical politics of civil or environmental action.But these two processes are only partial explanations for the changes taking place in CEE,and too readily ignore the role of changing social forces and the rapid shifts in politicalspace within each reforming country. While the emergence of an open civil sphere andthe appropriation of public spaces by the opposition movements of 1989 had by 1993 beenrapidly transformed into a politics of management, in this three- to four-year period (andthe decade leading up to it) new social identities emerged. The effects of these new actorson public debate have yet to be fully felt.

In these new spaces of restoration and transformation, the environmental politics of1989 seems to have become a formal element of political life and an absent issue inpractical politics. Management of the economy and cleaning up the environment nowseem to be firmly in the hands of the state, albeit with more accountability, openness, andmore firmly controlled by local governments. The environmental movement seems to bein shambles, and many environmentalists seem to be more fully embedded in state politicsthan in environmental politics. In these new circumstances the extension of the spaces ofcivil society, especially social movements supporting a clean environment, remains acomplex and ambiguous issue. A citizens’ politics of environment certainly emergedunder earlier forms of centralized and bureaucratic administration. But in the new

294 NATURE IN POST-COMMUNIST SOCIETIES

circumstances environmental quality has been ameliorated in the worst hot spots, many ofthe most visible forms of pollution have been eradicated, and for many conditions haveimproved.

Transition operates in many complex ways. In the long run it may well be the intensedesire of CEE politicians to enter into formal relations with the EU that brings about thebiggest change in environmental policies and practices in the region, as for example EUmandates on food quality and agricultural practices are met for export crops. At theopposite end of the spectrum, we simply do not yet know what will be the environmentaleffects of severe economic crises on production and land management practices in CEEcountries. Will large industrial combinats maintain or upgrade production facilities in theface of declining budgets? Will agrarian producers extend production on marginal lands,leading to increased levels of degradation, or will they switch crops or even out of farmingaltogether? Will urban workers and landless peasants desperate to supplement thehousehold table extend allotments into marginal or polluted land-holdings? What effectswill the rapid increase in resource extraction from public forest lands have on land qualityin Balkan countries such as Bulgaria, as thousands of weekend visitors scour the forest floorfor wood for burning, foodstuffs and medicines for the family, and mushrooms for exportmarkets? What will be the environmental consequences of social and economic inequality,particularly among the most marginalized sectors of the population (such as landlesspeasants and the Roma)? Finally, how will post-communists deal with the corporate liberalstate, especially if that corporatism expresses itself politically such as through theprovisionof cheap resources (food, energy, housing) for urban residents at the expense ofenvironmental quality in marginal and already under-developed rural areas? Every day, atevery level of society, issues such as these are being negotiated and resolved, withenormous consequences for the shape of the civil society that is emerging to regulate socialand environmental action, as well as for the forms of environmental management that willresult.

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296

Notes

1The political economy of environmental transitions

1 Throughout the text we use “solid emissions” and “particulates” interchangeably, preferringto use “solid emissions” where it is a direct translation of official documents.

2 For example, environmental problems associated with coal mining in northern Bohemia suchas the devastation of agricultural land and cave-ins were recorded as early as in the 1820s(see Chapter Four). See Dominick (1998:312–13) on the pre-Second World Warenvironmental degradation in Germany.

3 See also DeBardeleben (1991:185–8) on the situation in the former East Germany.4 According to a Soviet popular science journal article “some” Soviet executives believed that

“environmental measures are not only ineffective, but also reduce the rate of economicdevelopment by 10–11 percent” (quoted in DeBardeleben 1985:152).

5 Of the 604 water treatment plants that were built in the Czech Republic before 1990, 485of them provided mechanical and biological treatment (Smrčka 1995:3). In Hungary, 44percent of the existing sewage treatment plants were equipped only for mechanicaltreatment of effluents in 1986 and two-thirds of wastewater was discharged into rivers aftermechanical treatment only (see Chapter Three).

6 For example, the Skawina Aluminum plant was closed in Poland in December 1980 (see NewScientist 1981:248–50 and Rich 1981:112). In the Czech Republic, the pulp mills atHostinné and Vratimov were closed in the 1980s because they did not have any wastewatertreatment facilities and produced a lot of water pollution (Vitha et al. 1989:37).

7 Particulate matter emissions produced by ten larger pollution sources of northern Bohemiain the Czech Republic declined by 35 percent between 1973 and 1984 from 243,290 tonnesto 159,182 tonnes. (All pollution sources of northern Bohemia emitted 255,000 tonnes ofparticulate matter in 1964). During the same period the sulfur dioxide emissions increasedby 135 percent from 406,196 tonnes to 952,999 tonnes, and all pollution sources ofnorthern Bohemia emitted 260,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide in 1964. Thus, the 1964–84increase in sulfur dioxide emissions in northern Bohemia was almost fourfold while theparticulate matter emissions declined by 38 percent (Červenka 1994:17).

8 There were some exceptions. For example, British desulfurization equipment was installedas a test project into the small Rummelsburg power plant (output of only 180 MW) in East

Berlin in the mid-1980s. The project was paid for by a British loan of some £40 million(DeBardeleben 1991:178).

9 Prices the CEE countries paid for oil in 1971–5 were based on the so called Bucharest formulawhich fixed oil prices at their 1966–70 average world market level. As a result, the officialCMEA price for oil was only 20 percent of the world oil price in March 1974. Although theCMEA oil prices increased considerably in 1975 and weresubject to annual increases after1975 they consistently lagged behind the world prices: the CMEA prices were 47 percentlower in 1978 and 59 percent lower in 1984. Moreover, the CEE countries usually paid forSoviet oil with goods that were not competitive on the world market. As a result they couldnot export these goods to the West and use the revenues to buy oil on the world market(Kramer 1991:65–6).

10 While the energy consumption per unit of output declined by 30 percent in the UnitedStates and by 14 percent in Western Europe between 1970 and 1983, it increased inBulgaria, Romania, former Yugoslavia and the FSU during the same period (Ziegler 1991:92).

11 A similar situation existed in Hungary (see Szirmai 1993:150).12 Before the effects of oil shocks were felt in CEE its countries were decreasing their reliance

on coal for energy production and shifting toward exported oil and natural gas from theformer Soviet Union. The share of coal on the primary energy consumed in CEE declinedfrom 84 percent in 1960 to 57 percent in 1977 (Kramer 1991:62).

13 Soviet oil exports to Western countries increased by 32 percent in 1982 and by an additional15 percent in 1983 (Kramer 1991:65).

14 According to Kramer (1991:57) all CEE countries devoted between 40 and 45 percent oftheir total industrial investment to increased domestic production of fuels and electricity.

15 These power plants included four units in Jaslovské Bohunice in Slovakia launched between1979 and 1986; three units in Dukovany in the Czech Republic (launched 1985–7); fourunits in Lubmin in the former East Germany (launched 1974–9) and one unit in Greitswald(launched in 1966); four units in Kozloduy in Bulgaria (launched 1974–82); and four units inPaks in Hungary launched 1983–6). All units had the output of 440 MW with the exceptionof the first two units in Jaslovské Bohunice which had the output of 413 MW and theRheinsberg power plant in Greitswald which had one unit with the output of 75 MW(Mountfield 1991:131–2).

16 Romania has 80 percent of CEE’s oil reserves and 40 percent of natural gas reserves. Thecountry attempted to increase its share of coal on electricity production from 27 percent in1980 to 50 percent in 1985 (Kramer 1991:76, 62).

17 In Poland, for example, the government paid for 83 percent of the cost of natural gas sold toindustry, as well as 49 percent of the coal costs and 27 percent of the electricity costs(Marshall 1991).

18 A different source estimated two or three times larger energy consumption per unit of GDPin the CEE than in the “most efficient” West European countries and only 20–30 percent morethan the average of the EU countries (Russell 1991:5–6). The CEE countries admitted 30–50 percent larger energy consumption per unit of GDP in the 1980s compared with theWestern industrialized countries (Kramer 1991:58). In the case of Hungary, the centrallyplanned economy used 30–40 percent more energy per unit of industrial output than thedeveloped countries (Okolicsanyi 1992).

19 1992–4 field interviews.20 In the former Czechoslovakia, for example, the reports documenting the quality of the

environment in individual localities and the effects of pollution on human health were kept

298 NOTES

secret until 1988 (see Moldan et al. 1990:35–9). However, this does not mean that thegeneral public was unaware of environmental pollution. The public awareness ofenvironmental degradation began to grow in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Hungary, forexample, 80 percent of population was aware of environmental problems in 1985(Pickvance 1998:73).

21 Interview with Dr. Jan Kára, a former employee of the Federal Committee for theEnvironment, Prague, August 18, 1993. See also Moldan et al. (1990:32–3, Vaněk 1996:88–9).

22 This increase put £100 million into environmental protection. However, estimates of theannual damage caused by sulfur dioxide in Czechoslovakia ranged from £770 million to £1.9billion (Glenny 1987:44).

23 Popular petitions protesting against environmental pollution and other forms of protest wereprepared in several CEE countries in the 1970s and 1980s and were taken quite seriously bytheir respective governments (see DeBardeleben (1991: 187–8) on East Germany, Pohl(1988:49–53) on Czechoslovakia, Persányi (1991: 218–20) on Hungary, Hicks (1996:123–6) on Poland, Baugmartl (1993:162–8) on Bulgaria, and Jancar-Webster (1991:43–7) on theentire region).

2Theorizing social and environmental change

1 The predominantly extensive regime of accumulation is based on extensive ways of increasingproduction, such as the lengthening the working day, intensifying labor throughtransformation of its organization and expanding the size of the labor force. Growth ofproductivity and mass consumption are limited (Brenner and Glick 1991:49; see alsoAglietta 1979:71). The predominantly extensive regime of accumulation was typical for the“classical” state socialist system. Since the 1960s, attempts were made to adopt intensivepatterns of accumulation (see Burawoy 1985:164–5).

2 See Kornai (1992:110–30) on planning and direct bureaucratic control in the “classical” statesocialist system.

3 See Burawoy (1985:156–208) on the labor process model and the regime of bureaucraticdespotism under state socialism, and Clarke et al. (1994:180–3) on authoritarian paternalism.Kornai (1992:203–27) also provides analysis of the classical state socialist labor processmodel.

4 See Habermas (1988) on the concept of legitimation crisis and Hay (1994:83–97) onenvironmentally-induced legitimation crises.

5 As opposed to “minor crises” which are considered to be part of the normal development ofa mode of regulation. They indicate the necessity to adjust the inadequacies of the mode ofregulation to existing needs of the regime of accumulation and are resolved within theexisting development model (Lipietz 1987:34; Dunford 1990:309). Altvater (1993:49) alsodistinguishes the “crisis of civilization” as a “crisis of natural foundations of human life” whichgoes beyond both minor and major crises and threatens both the environmental system andthe “core elements of human socialization” which are not challenged by minor and majorcrises.

6 This argument was developed in Pavlínek, Pickles and Staddon (1994).7 The unemployment rate was 0.2 percent in Prague in July 1994, whereas northern Moravia

recorded 5.8 percent in the same period with the individual districts exceeding 6 percent

NOTES 299

(HN 1994a:7). In February 1997 Prague recorded 0.5 percent, while the Most District had10.7 percent unemployment (Skřivánek 1997:12). By September 1998 unemployment inthe Most District had reached 15.3 percent compared with 1.8 percent in Prague (MF Dnes1998h:14).

8 Privatization of state enterprises could be used as one measure reflecting the different stagesand pathways of transition in different CEE countries (see Stark 1992).

9 The average monthly wages in 1997 (in US $): Hungary $311, Poland $353, Czech Republic$333, Slovakia $286, Bulgaria $76 (1996), Romania $122, Russia $182, Ukraine $86,Croatia $374, Estonia $257, Latvia $229, Lithuania $202, Slovenia $901 (BCE 1998).However, foreign direct investment (FDI) has so far been relatively small. In 1995 CEE andthe FSU attracted only $12.1 billion ($6.5 billion in 1994) or 3.8 percent of the totalvolume of FDI in the world economy compared with $203 billion (64.4 percent) invested inthe industrialized countries and $100 billion (31.7 percent) invested in the less developedcountries (Economist 1996, World Bank 1996).

10 There was a significant reorientation of trade from within the former CMEA to thedeveloped capitalist countries after 1989. The exports from the former CMEA countries toother former CMEA members declined from 35 percent of total exports in 1987 to 19percent in 1993 and imports fell from 24 percent to 18 percent. The share of OECDcountries on CEE exports rose from 42 percent to 62 percent and onimports from 43percent to 67 percent between 1987 and 1993 (Rutland 1995). By 1997 the share of trade withRussia declined below 5 percent in Slovenia, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, andCroatia and below 10 percent in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Poland (Nicholls 1998:22).

11 Volkswagen’s investment in the Czech car maker Škoda is a good example of how globalcapital influences economic, social and cultural dimensions of the transition in CEE. Thistakeover resulted in the introduction of Volkswagen’s corporate policies and cultures to theŠkoda plant, transfer of Western management (150 Western managers are employed in theŠkoda plant), and changes in social relations of production and in the factory regime. Allthese changes were designed to increase efficiency of production to the Western level andimprove competitiveness of Škoda at the Western markets. Volkswagen’s policies directlyinfluence the prosperity of the Mladá Boleslav region where the Škoda plant is locatedbecause it is a major job provider (15,649 factory jobs in 1995 and additional 100,000 jobsin subcontracting companies and the service sector). The company has also influencedeconomic behavior of hundreds of its subcontractors located all over the Czech Republic byits stress on quality and timing of deliveries and threats to subcontract outside the CzechRepublic if its requirements are not met (Pavlínek 1998:80–2, Pavlínek and Smith 1998:626–8).

12 Although the economic and political ties between Russia and CEE weakened after 1989,Russia is attempting to reclaim its geopolitical influence in CEE. These efforts have recentlybeen manifested by strong Russian objections to the potential membership of the CEEcountries in NATO.

13 The CEE countries seek membership in the EU and therefore their entire post-1989legislations are largely modeled on EU standards and governmental economic policies aredirected toward the fulfillment of the EU’s Maastricht criteria in terms of inflation rate,budget deficit, government debt and exchange rate stability (see Economist 1994, Galinos1994). EU’s trade policies toward the countries of CEE have decisive economic implicationsbecause the EU is the largest trading partner of most of these countries.

300 NOTES

14 Harvey’s notion of fortuity of structured coherence resonates with Lipietz’s notion ofregimes of accumulation and modes of regulation as chance discoveries (see Lipietz 1987:15).

3Environmental quality in Central and Eastern Europe

1 For example, Dominick (1998:318) argues that “in the 1950s and 1960s, at least in somerespects, the environment suffered more in the West [Germany], under capitalism [than inthe East Germany under socialism].” He also notes (1998:315) that “as unprecedented levelsof air and water pollution accumulated [in the 1950s], the West German press printed[environmental] stories that sound very much like the recent reports on Eastern Europe thatappeared after the fall of communism.”

2 Similar examples of the politically motivated exaggeration of environmental conditionsunder state socialism were reported from East Germany (see Boehmer-Christiansen 1998:69).

3 The situation was different in Romania, where only few large factories had any filtersinstalled to control solid emissions (Enache 1994:132).

4 A similar situation existed in other CEE countries such as East Germany (Boehmer-Christiansen 1998:93) and Czechoslovakia.

5 The spatial distribution of nitrogen oxides atmospheric concentrations and heavy metals,such as lead and cadmium, is similar to that of sulfur dioxide concentrations (Rovinski 1992:77).

6 Timing and amount of precipitation influence the influx of fertilizers through the soil intothe streams and rivers. In the case of the Danube in Hungary, the highest levelsof rivercontamination occur in winter low-flow periods when the concentrations of pollutingmaterials increase, while the lowest levels are found during flood periods when theseconcentrations are diluted and the high level of suspended solids inhibits the growth oforganisms that need solar radiation for their development (Varga, Abraham and Simor 1990:113). Snowmelt and abundant rainfall in spring are associated with increased surface waterpollution by nitrates in north-eastern Slovakia (Mendel and Repa 1994:375–85).Furthermore, irregular pollution discharges from point pollution sources such as industrialenterprises result in large ranges of heavy metals concentrations in the rivers. Occasionalaccidents and spills have the same effect. For example, Hungary recorded 251 accidentaldischarges of pollutants in 1986, the Czech Republic 211 (3,386 between 1971 and 1986),and Slovakia 141 (666 between 1981 and 1986). The number of these accidents wasincreasing in all three countries in the 1970s and 1980s (Hock and Somlyódy 1990:76, Vithaet al. 1989:43).

7 Water quality standards were relatively strict under state socialism and generally morestringent than in the US and Western Europe, although they were also poorly monitored andrarely enforced. But, it is almost impossible to compare the levels of water pollution amongthe different countries of CEE because each uses a different system to grade its waterquality.

8 Rogoz (1995:269) estimated the daily discharge of saline waters from sixty-five UpperSilesian mines at 1 million cu. m. Only 1,800 m3/day is treated at the Debiensko mine. It isexpected that the amount of discharged saline waters from the mines of Upper Silesia will

NOTES 301

decline by 14 percent by 2005. The concentrations of Cl-and ions will increase by 67percent however.

9 For the situation in the Czech Republic see Ustyak and Petrikova (1996), Reiwerts andFarago (1996a, 1996b), Strnad et al. (1994).

10 The industrial region of Upper Silesia has 4 million inhabitants and its area is 6,650 sq. km.In 1991 there were fifty-five coal mines (sixty-two in the 1980s) accounting for 98 percent ofthe Polish coal production (179 million tonnes annually, 190–200 million tonnes annually inthe 1980s), four lead and zinc mines accounting for 100 percent of the national production(5.3 million tonnes annually), sixteen smelters accounting for 50 percent of the national steelproduction and 34 percent of the national coke production, and twenty-three power plantsin Upper Silesia (Rybicka 1996:3–4).

11 State policies were contested, in some cases successfully, for many years. Langazov (1984),for example, refers to one farmer who successfully resisted incorporation of his private farminto the state cooperative throughout the entire period of central planning. Such cases were,however, very rare indeed. More commonly, resistance took the form of gold-bricking,using cooperative resources for personal plots, and appropriating collective production forprivate use.

12 About 58 percent of this was nitrogen (NSI 1993:194).Measures of efficiency of nitrogen use suggest that the higher applications in Bulgaria

resulted in higher yields. While nitrogen applications in Bulgaria were plagued by a numberof problems and therefore not used optimally, their efficiency of use nonetheless exceededthat in other agricultural systems, including the US (USDA 1990, 1994a, 1994b).

4Nature, society and extensive industrialization

1 We use the term “Most region” to refer to the region located in the Most basin and itsimmediate vicinity, including the city of Litvínov, and centered on the city of Most. TheMost District in its current boundaries was not established until 1960 and it had manydifferent administrative forms before 1960 (see Švec and Kučerová 1993b).

2 Nonetheless, these different problems represent different effects of the transition and theprevious state socialist development model under different conditions. Thedepopulation ofthe mountains results not only from their economic underdevelopment and environmentaldevastation associated with state socialism, but also from the post-1989 cuts in publictransport which make it very difficult for the inhabitants of the mountains to commute towork in the Most basin on a daily basis. Deconcentration and privatization of agriculture inthe southern agriculture area of the Most District are associated with the liberal transitionstrategies from state socialism to capitalism.

3 The Most Coal Company (MCC) employed 16,366 workers and Chemopetrol 9,549workers in 1993 (LN 1994b: Koruna LN/VI).

4 It is important to mention that the area of today’s Most District has a very long and richhistory. Based on archeological investigations, we know that this region belonged to themost populated areas of central Europe from the primeval times due to its favorable climate,fertile soils and abundance of minerals. The archeological findings show that the region hassupported human communities for more than 600,000 years since the Stone Age. The oldestartefacts founded in the Czech Republic were located on the territory of the Most District

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only several kilometers away from the city of Most (the locality of Písečný vrch next to thevillage of Bečov) (Pokorná 1991; Stáhlík 1994).

5 In 1970, cancer mortalities accounted for 19.5 percent of all deaths in the Most districtcompared with 20.6 percent in the Czech Republic, and in 1990 they accounted for 24.4percent of all deaths compared with 21.9 percent in the Republic.

6 In the Most region, however, some industry existed before the Industrial Revolution. Oneof the first manufactories for the production of wool textiles in the Czech Lands was foundedin the village of Horní Litvínov in 1715.

7 In 1819, only 30,000 tonnes of brown coal was produced in Bohemia as a whole. By 1880,the production grew to 6.28 million tonnes (Štýs and Helešicová 1992). In northernBohemian coal mining region, the production of coal grew to 1.5 million tonnes around1870 (Stáhlík 1994), 5.5 million tonnes in 1880 (Jindřichovská 1991) and up to about 17million tonnes annually in 1910 (Stáhlík 1994). Coal production peaked in 1913 when 18.5million tonnes were mined. In 1880, coal mining employed 11,500 miners in northernBohemia and this number grew to 27,000 by 1913 (Jindřichovská 1991). In the Most regionalone, coal production grew to 14 million tonnes by 1913 (Štýs and Helešicová 1992) whichrepresented about 75 percent of northern Bohemian coal production.

8 The origins of the labor movement in the Most region were associated with the textileworkers. The first official labor organization was the Workers’ Education Club of TextileWorkers in Horní Litvínov, founded in 1869. This organization was banned by theauthorities in 1882. The first labor organizations of miners were founded in the town ofDuchcov in 1875 and in the town of Komořany in 1878 (today part of the city of Most). TheTrade Union Club of Most Miners and Steelworkers was founded in the city of Most in 1882and was repeatedly broken up by the authorities and reestablished by the miners. Several othertrade union and education organizations were established in the 1890s, such as the MostLabor Club (1890), the Civic Education Organization in Most (1883), the Club of Minersand Steelworkers in Souš (1892), the Májoslav Education Club in Ervěnice (1889), theOmladina Education Clubs in Most, Louka, Kopisty, Lipětín and Souš, the Pokrok WomenLabor Club in Most and so on. The town of Lom became the center of anarchic movement ofthe northern Bohemian miners which influenced class struggle in the region. After 1921,class struggle was influenced by the activities of the Communist Party (see Pokorná 1991;Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985 for details).

9 The first strike of miners aimed at wage increases took place in the Most Coal Company on18 December 1872 and involved 200 workers. The strike was suppressed by the authorities.Additional strikes took place at the Anna Coal Mine in Souš in 1879 and in the entire Mostregion in 1882. The 1882 strike was suppressedby the authorities, dozens of miners wereprosecuted and the authorities banned trade union organizations and educationalorganizations run by the workers. Periodic strikes took place throughout the entire pre-FirstWorld War period and continued after the establishment of independent Czechoslovakia in1918 (see Pokorná 1991 and Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985 for details of class strugglein the Most region in this period).

10 The Czech bourgeoisie financially supported national emancipation efforts of the Czechworking class aimed at granting equal rights to the Czech language with German. Inexchange, they expected support from the Czech miners in its struggle with German capital.The German bourgeoisie pursued Germanization of Czech immigrant labor and sought thesupport of the German working class. (Pokorná 1991, Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).

11 The most serious resistance to the Czechoslovak army in the entire Deutschböhmen wasorganized by Germans in the city of Most (Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).

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12 An explosion at the Kohinoor Mine on 17 March 1932 left eight miners dead. The explosionwas caused by the negligence of mine managers who replaced all fire guards by younginexperienced graduates from the mining school in order to lower costs. The subsequent firemade the mining operations impossible and 1,250 miners were laid off. The Most MiningCompany began to lay off miners on 17 March 1932 and on 21 March 1932, 383 minerswere fired by the North Bohemian Coal Company which planned to close unprofitable mineHumboldt II at Dolní Jiřetín in the Most basin. Several mines began to strike on March 23(Centrum, Kolumbus, Herkules, Quido I–III, Fortuna, Julius V) and in one week ninety-four northern Bohemian mines stopped mining and 25,000 miners were on strike. The Moststrike ended on 20 April 1932 (Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).

13 Between 1910 and 1950, the amount of coal mined in northern Bohemia stagnated andoscillated between 17 and 20 million tonnes annually (Stáhlík 1994). Between the WorldWars, the annual production of coal peaked in 1929 with 17.5 million tonnes which was 1million tonnes short of the 1913 maximum. Germans extracted 20 million tonnes of coal innorthern Bohemia in 1943 (Figure 4.1). Also in this year, the open cast mines producedmore coal than underground pits for the first time, when 10.5 million tonnes (51.8 percent)of coal was mined in the open cast mines and 9.8 million tonnes (48.2 percent) in theunderground pits. In 1913, only 4.3 million tonnes (23.2 percent) of coal was mined in theopen cast mines but 14.2 million tonnes (76.8 percent) in the underground pits (Novotná,Fröhlich and Musil 1985) (Figure 5.2).

14 These catastrophes took place in July, August and September 1895 and on 5 December 1896(Pokorná 1991).

15 The earlier attempts to toughen existing norms using administrative tools were not verysuccessful (see Myant 1989:37–8).

16 Initially, the shock-worker movement was not very popular among workers. Therefore, theCommunist Party and trade unions came up with a variety of incentives designed to attractworkers to the movement. These incentives included priority in recreation facilities,apartment allocation to shock-workers and access to food in short supply, such as meat,chocolate, and coffee, in special shops which provided other goods at affordable pricesotherwise unavailable in the state-run stores (Myant 1989).

17 Myant (1989:40) provides a story told by one of the members of the central committee andlater the General Secretary of the Communist Party Slánský which typifies the increasedexploitation of workers due to the shock-worker movement and socialist competition.According to this story, a Comrade Cibulková began to work on two machinessimultaneously instead of only one. In only one week, her norm was raised by 50 percentand she earned exactly the same wage as when she worked only on one machine.

18 The proportion of working time in the piece-rate system increased from 25 percent in 1946to 73 percent in 1956 (Myant 1989). In the textile industry, for example, women had toexceed the norms continuously by working on more machines and increasing work intensityin order to earn a decent wage. However, their norms were regularly cut and at the endthey had to work much more in order to earn the same wage (personal communication ondifferent occasions with Mrs. Pavlínková who worked in the same textile factory for thirty-five years) (see also Burawoy 1985:156–208).

19 Three different levels of socialist work-team titles were awarded: bronze, silver and gold. Awork-team could reach the bronze title first. Increased production and productivity wererequired for the silver title and even more for the gold one. In northern Bohemian coal mines,for example, 12,645 workers were members of work-teams which received the bronze title,

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4,865 the silver one, and only 711 workers were members of the gold socialist work-teamsin 1983 (Pokorná 1991, Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).

20 Before the Second World War, the mechanization of methods of clearing away overburdenwas much faster than that of mining of coal itself, where manual work prevailed.Mechanization of coal mining increased during the Second World War German occupationwhich included the mechanization of mining methods in several mines. The first large opencast mine (Quido) in the Czech lands was opened in the Most region in the area of HorníJiřetín in 1942. Germans introduced the first wheel excavator Lachhammer La 650, firstlarge capacity bucket machine DS 800 and the first large capacity filler ZD 1200. The trendof introduction of large capacity machinery continued after the war. The new post-warmachinery included large capacity wheel excavators K 1000, K 800, K 300 and KU 300;bucket excavators D 800, DO 400 and RK 400; and large capacity fillers, first rail fillers Z1200, Z 1650 and later conveyer-belt fillers ZP 1500, ZP 2500, and ZP 5500. Largecapacity technological units composed of wheel excavator K 300, conveyer-belt filler ZP1500 and conveyer-belt transport were introduced in 1959. The capacity of this unit was 1,500 cu. m of dumped earth per hour. The capacity of such technological units increased to10,000 cu. m of dumped earth per hour in the 1980s (Novotná, Fröhlich and Musil 1985).

21 There were sixty-nine excavators and thirty-seven fillers in operation in the northernBohemian coal basin in the early 1990s. Giant excavators TC 3 have the capacity to excavateand dump up to 10,000 cu. m of dumped overburden an hour, TC 2 up to 5,000 cu. m, andTC 1 up to 2,500 cu. m (SHD 1991).

22 In 1985, for example, productivity per worker based on gross production reached 870,000crowns in the chemical industry while only 231,000 in coal mining, 322,000 in energyproduction, 217,000 in building materials, and 214,000 in textiles (OOČSÚ 1986).

5Social and environmental regulation under state socialism

1 Interview with Mr. Trefný, the Most District Office, 23 June 1992.2 In 1980, for example, the average monthly wage in the socialist sector of the economy was 2,

637 Czechoslovak crowns (Kčs) in Czechoslovakia as a whole, 2,650 Kčs in the CzechRepublic and 2,892 Kčs in the Most District. In the industrial sector, the average monthly wagewas 3,156 Kčs in the Most District. The average wage reached 3,422 Kčs in coal mining and3,114 Kčs in Chemopetrol in the Most District (30 percent and 18 percent above theCzechoslovak average) (OOČSÚ 1986). Furthermore, after 1 January 1982 the governmentpaid the so-called stabilization allowance of about 2,000 Kčs annually to all inhabitants ofnorthern Bohemian coal basin who had lived there for more than ten years. The localpopulation refers to this allowance as “burial money.”

3 In 1980, retail turnover per capita reached 14,151 Kčs per capita in Czechoslovakia as a whole,14,451 Kčs in the Czech Republic, 14,790 Kčs in northern Bohemia and15,599 Kčs in theMost District, which is 10.3 percent more than Czechoslovakia as a whole. Thecorresponding numbers for 1985 are as follows: 16,118 Kčs for Czechoslovakia as a whole,16,453 Kčs for the Czech Republic, 16,809 Kčs for northern Bohemia, and 17,889 Kčs forthe Most District, which represents 11.0 percent more than Czechoslovakia as whole(OOČSÚ 1986).

4 The number of apartments built by the state, enterprises, collectives and individualsindicates higher collective consumption in the Most District and northern Bohemia than in

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the rest of the country. Between 1981 and 1985, there were nineteen people per one newlybuilt apartment in the Most District and northern Bohemia, but twenty-seven in the CzechRepublic (42 percent more) and twenty-five in Czechoslovakia as a whole (32 percentmore). It was generally much easier to receive an apartment from the government innorthern Bohemia than elsewhere in Czechoslovakia.

5 The basic structure of coal mining organization under state socialism was as follows: coalmining was directed by the Federal Ministry for Fuels and Energy, located in Prague, whichsupervised the entire coal mining and energy sector in the former Czechoslovakia before1989. The northern Bohemian mining district was directed from the general headquarterslocated in the city of Most. The mining district was divided into a number of nationalenterprises which were further organized into individual mines and subsidiaries.

6 Interview with Antonín Richter, the manager of Most Coal Company on 18 August 1994. Adifferent interview revealed that when coal mining enterprises could not fulfill the plannedcoal production they added earth to coal and mixed it to achieve a required target (interviewwith Mr. Hladký, former manager of the general headquarters of the North Bohemian CoalMining District, Most, 21 July 1992).

7 The importance of coal also increased because of the rising price of imported oil and itsdeclining deliveries from the Soviet Union. While the oil deliveries via the Friendshippipeline declined by 12 percent between 1980 and 1985, the value of these deliveriesincreased by 161 percent (Myant 1989:203). Other factors that prompted the governmentto increase coal production in the early 1980s included the disruption of Polish coaldeliveries and lower than expected deliveries of Romanian electricity. Also, the SlovakVojany II power plant produced less electricity than expected because of the lack of heatingoil from the Soviet Union (Vaněk 1996:61).

8 Interview with Antonín Richter, a manager of the Most Coal Company on 18 August 1994.According to the chair of the Department of the Environment in the city of Most, the stateadministration and the Communist Party dictated to coal mines what they had to do in thesphere of public life “from mowing grass to giving gifts and sponsoring various sport events.The enterprises had to spend 5–10 percent of their budgets on these things” (interview withPetr Pakosta, chair of the Department of the Environment, mayor’s office, city of Most, 28July 1993).

9 Interview with Erich Goldberger, the Most Coal Company, 18 August 1994. A different sourceof information has revealed that coal mining enterprises exerted strong pressure on citizensto sell their houses in the villages which were supposed to be torn down. If the peoplerefused to sell their houses the mining company gradually lowered “the official” estimate ofthe house value to the point that desperate house owners agreed to sell it. This procedurewas against the law but it was easier for mining companies and the state to do it this way thanask the state to expropriate the houses (LN 1993:16).

10 Interview with Dr. František Švec, the former Most District hygienist, Most, 30 July 1993.11 Interview with Mr. Doležal, mayor of the city of Litvínov,11 August 1993.12 Interview with Dr. Jan Vozáb, former chair of the Department of Environment in the

mayor’s office, city of Most, 24 June 1993.13 Interview with Mr. Doležal, mayor of the city of Litvínov, 11 August 1993.14 Information based on the interview with Mr. Krepčík, mayor of the town of Lom, 5 August

1993.15 Interview with Jiří Kicl, mayor of the village of Mariánské Radčice, 3 August 1993.16 Interview with the mayor of the village of Louka u Litvínova, 10 August 1993.

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17 The first protest against environmental pollution in northern Bohemia took place in theneighboring Chomutov District in 1987. It suggested that the formation of civil society wastaking place in the late 1980s prompted by rapidly worsening environmental quality,especially because of increasing sulfur dioxide pollution and growing areas devastated bycoal mining, and the inability of central government to deal with it. In January and February1987, about 300 people signed a letter sent to the Chairman of the District NationalCommittee and to the Czech Prime Minister and Communist Party Central Committeemember Ladislav Adamec. The people complained about the insufficient warning system toalert citizens about high levels of pollution during the temperature inversions. Although theentire letter has never been published and the protest was revealed by the media afterseveral months, the Communist Party took it very seriously (see Pohl 1988 and Vaněk 1996:89–90 for more information).

18 Most of these people moved to the concrete apartment buildings in the cities of Most andLitvínov. As a result, these cities (especially Most) were growing fast while the population ofother towns and villages was rapidly declining. Between 1970 and 1990, for example, thepopulation of the Most metropolitan area grew by 22.0 percent (from 58,800 to 70,700)and the Litvínov metropolitan area by only 3.9 percent (from 33,000 to 34,300, thepopulation of the city alone actually declined by 27.6 percent from 26,800 to 19,400). Atthe same time, the population of remaining towns and villages in the Most District declinedby 47.3 percent (from 24,300 to 12,800) (VÚVA 1991:48).

19 The idea of “mechanistic mentality” is based on an interview with David Lowrance who firstused this term, Zelený Dům, Litvínov, 10 August 1993.

20 We are thinking here of Freud’s notion of “repression.” In his understanding, repressionfunctions as a bounding of the borders between the conscious and unconscious in order toenable disciplined and normalized activity to continue (Freud 1962). We find the tensionbetween this notion of repression and that of the physical repression of local civil society bythe party state analytically helpful. Specifically, it allows us to avoid explanations of thefailure of local actors to react to state socialist hegemony which involve failures of will orsociologies of cooptation. The possibilities of this Freudian notion of repression for anunderstanding of social regulation are not further developed here (see Marcuse 1962).

21 The former district hygienist of the Most District submitted the basic analysis of the healthsituation in the district and its expected future development to the head of the DistrictCommunist Party organization and the head of the district national committee in 1965. Bothof them told him that it was interesting material but it could not be made public. No onewas really interested in this type of analysis. The district hygienist regularly submitted hisfindings and analyses to the district’s health committee and since the 1970s to the heads ofthe district and regional Communist Party organizations and national committees. Hisanalyses reached the national government only in the late 1970s when the environmental andhealth situation in the district and the entire region was becoming critical. At that time, thegovernment introduced the so called “compensation measures” directed toward children andyoung people because they feared a potential civil unrest in the region. All analyses ofenvironmental and health conditions in the Most District were made secret by the Minister ofInterior and the Minister of Health Care and the district hygienist was threatened withprosecution and jail if he made his analyses public (interview with Dr. František Švec, theformer district hygienist, Most, 30 July 1993). Similarly, the district hygienist of theneighboring Teplice District had regularly informed the district Party committee about thehealth impacts of pollution on children and pregnant women for ten years before 1989. Eachtime he had been warned that hewould be imprisoned if he made his analyses public

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(interview with René Pisinger, advisor of the Minister of Environment, Teplice, 4 August1993).

22 These steps were proposed by the hygienists of coal mining districts of northern Bohemia.According to the former Most District hygienist, these measures improved temporarily thehealth situation of children but did not stop the health damage to children by highly pollutedenvironment (interview with Dr. František Švec, the former district hygienist, Most, 30 July1993).

23 See Lefebvre (1979 and 1991) on this issue in capitalism.24 The growth of the area devastated by coal mining in northern Bohemia: about 34 sq. km in

1929, about 70 sq. km in 1952, about 120 sq. km in 1960, about 186 sq. km in 1980, and264 sq. km in 1991 (Stáhlík 1994:325, Cibulka 1993) (Figure 5.1).

25 The so-called Radovesická dump located just outside the Most District on the territory of theTeplice District covers an area of 10 sq. km. It filled up a valley and it is 200 m high. Thisdump buried four villages (Hetov, Dřínek, Radovesice and Lískovice) (Růžička 1992). It isexpected to be filled by the year of 2007 and by that time it will be 250 m high and containmore than 1 billion cu. m of overburden (1,031,541,000 cu. m) (Štýs and Helešicová 1992).

26 In the early 1960s, newly-built dumps surrounded the locality of Komořany and created aclosed basin in which the Komořany power plant and coal processing plant were located.The smoke from the power plant concentrated in this basin under certain climaticconditions, causing acute smoke poisoning of the coal processing plant workers who had tobe evacuated from the plant frequently (Švec and Kučerová 1993a:8).

27 The Ore Mountains Machine Works Komořany focused on supply of spare parts for coalmining technology, its repairs and reconstructions. The Most Mine Building Company hadfive specialized enterprises conducting all coal mining construction works, geologicalsurveys, recultivation works etc. (ONV Most n.d.).

28 UNESCO and some local residents objected to the demolition of the dean’s church built inthe late gothic style and considered to be an important historic and architectonic monument.In 1975, the church was moved 841.6 m from its original location, and it was reopened tothe public in 1988 (Pokorná 1991).

29 There were five large power plants located on the territory of the Most District in 1960(Chemopetrol T200 with the annual consumption of 1,600,000 tonnes of coal,Chemopetrol T700 1,200,000 tonnes of coal, Komořany 2,100,000 tonnes of coal, ErvěniceI 360,000 tonnes of coal and Ervěnice II with the annual consumption of 1,100,000 tonnes ofcoal). Other important sources of air pollution included the Ironworks of First May in Most(49,000 tonnes of coal), Benar Litvínov (12,500 tonnes), northern Bohemian ceramic plant(37,400 tonnes), Rico Most (12,500 tonnes), railway depots Most and Louka (119,300tonnes), apartment furnaces (37,500 tonnes) and furnaces of mining enterprises (101,800tonnes of coal consumption annually) (Švec and Kučerová 1993a:3).

30 Pollution data from the Most District for this period is available in Pavlínek (1997: 182–6,191).

31 November, December, January and February are the critical months for the development oftemperature inversions in the Most District (Švec and Kučerová 1993a:19). For example, on14 January 1982 the twenty-four-hour average concentrations of sulfur dioxide reached 2,977 µg/m3 in the city of Litvínov (Kurfürst et al. 1989:14).

32 Interview with Dr. František Švec, the former Most District hygienist, Most, 30 July 1993.However, the relationship between mortality and the quality of the environment in formerCzechoslovakia is not very clear (see the section on the Czech Republic in the next chapter).

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33 Coal mining and its ruthless destructive production methods were favored by the state partiallybecause it was one of few profitable industrial sectors crucial for the state treasury whichallowed state socialist regimes to survive (interview with René Pisinger, Teplice, 4 August1993). Coal mining enterprises in the Most region turnedbetween two and three billioncrowns annually over to the state treasury (interview with Mr. Tlapák, Most, 7 July 1993).

34 Gross migration rate (the total sum of all the people who enter and leave an area per 1,000inhabitants) culminated in the Most District in the early 1950s when it reached 179.4 in1953, 171.6 in 1952 and 167.8 in 1950 (Švec and Kučerová 1993b:19; see Figure 5.7).

6Constructing risk: environment and health

1 In 1984, 71.9 percent of Bulgarian exports went to Comecon countries and 55.7 percent ofthe total went to the USSR (Pitassio 1989:205).

2 The study included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia,Romania, Belarus, Ukraine, and the European part of Russia.

3 Interview with Dr. František Švec, the former Most District hygienist, Most, 30 July 1993.Dr. Švec conducted regular analyses of health and the quality of the environment in the MostDistrict of northern Bohemia since the 1960s. He also presented these analyses to hissuperiors several times. He was ordered by the head of the district Communist Partyorganization not to talk about his results with anybody and not to publish his results in any formunder the threat of criminal prosecution.

4 Ostro (1996:93–4) estimated that air pollution caused between 110 to 330 prematuredeaths in Prague in 1993. Ostro used similar assumptions based on the previous studies (anincrease in the concentration of particulate matter less than 10 microns in diameter by 10 µg/m3 results in 1 percent increase in mortality).

5 The Teplice district recorded 7.8–8.7 percent and the Ústí nad Labem district 7.5–9.2percent of congenital anomalies between 1982 and 1986 compared with the Jablonecdistrict, located outside the mining district of northern Bohemia, which recorded ratesvarying between 6.0–6.7 percent (Hertzman 1995:29).

6 The “Teplice Program” (officially “Consequences of environmental pollution on the health ofpopulation”) is a ten-year research project that focuses on the study of air pollution effects onthe incidence of respiratory diseases, neuropsychic diseases, pregnancy and its results,mortality, and the development of tumors. The international program is based on acomparative analysis between the highly polluted Teplice district of northern Bohemia andthe relatively unpolluted Prachatice district of southern Bohemia. It involves twentyinstitutions (mainly district and regional hygienic stations but also research institutes anduniversities) and is supported by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the PHARE 2(Šrám, Kotěšovec and Jelínek 1996:3).

7 Physicians expect the development of neurobehavioral problems at this level of leadexposure. Researchers found that children with blood levels above 25 µg/dl blood lead levelliving in the Hungarian town of Romhany had IQs on average ten points below those withblood levels below 10 µg/dl. However, similar differences were not found in Budapest andin the case of Szolnok the difference was only 3.5 points (Hertzman 1995:23).

8 This situation is not unique to CEE: air pollution in New York was also blamed for 3 percentof “premature deaths” (Bobak and Feachem 1995:84).

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9 The researchers found significant increases in carcinogen-DNA adducts (i.e. polycyclicaromatic hydrocarbons linked directly to genetic material in the blood cells) that weresignificantly correlated with chromosomal mutation in persons exposed to increased levelsof environmental pollution in Upper Silesia. A number of additional epidemiological studieshave been conducted in the most polluted areas of Poland with similar results (seeJedrychowski 1995:15–21 for their review).

10 See Klinda and Lieskovská (1998:66–84) for detailed information about the environmentalconditions in these areas.

11 Methemoglobinemia is a form of chemical asphyxiation wherein the oxygen carryingcapacityof hemoglobin molecules within the red blood cells is chemically inhibited by nitrates(OECD 1994a: Annex 1:5, World Bank 1992a:II 89). More than 2,500 cases ofmethemoglobinemia resulting in thirteen deaths were reported in Slovakia between 1971and 1990. There was a considerable decline in the number of cases in the late 1980s (WorldBank 1992a:II 89, Hertzman 1995:41). The principal sources of nitrates are soil nitrates fromover-fertilization in drinking water and breast milk.

12 Potter’s Syndrome is a condition of congenital underdevelopment or non-development ofkidneys associated with PCB exposure (Hertzman 1995:47).

13 Romania has a history of epidemiological research linking environmental problems with avariety of health problems that was undertaken under state socialism. Examples ofinstitutions engaged in this type of research include the Institutes of Public Health andMedical Research in Cluj Napoca, Iasi and Timosoara; and the Institute of Hygiene andPublic Health in Bucharest (World Bank 1992b:112–21). However, there have beenquestions raised about the quality of data collected and the lack of quality checks (WorldBank 1992b:82).

7Post-communist reform and the democratization of nature

1 Despite the apparent glee with which many commentators note the failure of observers to“predict” the events of 1989, we are now beginning to understand the ways in which thechanges of that year were prefigured by events and struggles throughout the 1980s. Theseevents ranged from the hollowing out of industry and the secreting away of the fiscalresources of the state by nomenklatura who had decided early on that the commandstructure could not be sustained, to the activities and repression of dissident groups, to thesustained underground and public pressure for cleaner environments and healthier lives.

2 Albania is one of few countries of CEE where the environment has not become a nationalpriority after the collapse of state socialism. No organized independent movements existedunder state socialism and NGOs did not start activities until 1991, and then aimed primarilyat environmental awareness and public education about the environment. New politicalparties with the environmental agendas were founded. However, both the Green Party andthe Ecological Party were small and not represented in the Albanian Parliament in themid-1990s (Selfo and Haxhimihali 1995: 19). Although economic and social concerns havedominated politics since the collapse of state socialism, by the mid-1990s the environmentincreasingly became recognized as an important issue. A number of social groups becameactive in the field of environmental protection, especially since 1993 and 1994. Parliamentenacted new environmental legislation and new national environmental administrativeinstitutions have been gradually built. But systems for environmental monitoring and

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administration are poorly developed (Selfo and Haxhimihali 1995: 19–23). Theconsequences of the NATO-Serbian war and the mass influx of Kosovars on Albanian organsof civil society, environmental movement, and environment are currently unknown.

3 Throughout CEE the leading cadres of the environmental movement and the center of theopposition were dispersed overseas on training and graduate study courses, with theimmediate effect of dismantling the major organizations of the environmental movement.

4 Interview with the mayor of the village of Louka u Litvínova, 10 August 1993.5 Interview with Jiří Kicl, mayor of the village of Mariánské Radčice, 3 August 1993.6 This issue is more complicated than we indicate here. See Pickles, Pavlínek, and Staddon

(1998) for an opposite reading of these changes. Specifically, in that chapter we argue that thisview is characteristic of planners and national level actors and their beliefs about the level ofgrassroots support for environmental issues, but that this is very different at the grassrootslevel, where citizens maintain strong support forenvironmental action at the local level in sofar as it affects their own and their children’s lives.

7 It is important to bear in mind that the emerging environmental movement was supportedand encouraged by Radio Free Europe’s broadcasting. Thus, a 1987 report (Radio FreeEurope Research 1987:13–14) begins with a report from Radio Sofia of a nationalconference, critical commentary on the Romanian polluters and their effects on the city ofRuse, and the quotation in the text. Here the research community is chastised for notstanding up—in patriotic zeal—to challenge the Bulgarian government to deal with theRomanian neighbors and friends devastating pollution. It is through the “other” of theRomanian government that popular forces are mobilized against the laxity of the Bulgarianbureaucrats. To clarify the nature of this popular versus centrist appeal to patriotism, thereport immediately continues: “RFE’s Bulgarian Service has, incidentally, received repeatedtelephone calls complaining about the pollution in Ruse caused by Romanian enterprises inand around Giurgiu” (Radio Free Europe Research 1987:13).

8 Interview with Delcho Vitchev, Ecoglasnost, 20 June 1991.9 But see Slavoj Zizek’s (1990:50–62) arguments about the “re-invention of democracy” in

Eastern Europe.10 The environmental groups established after the Chernobyl disaster included Freedom and

Peace, the Great Poland Ecological Seminar, Ecology and Peace, the Gda sk EcologicalProgram, the Silesian Ecological Movement, and the Citizens’ Committee for the theEnvironmental Protection of Jelenia Góra Valley (Hicks 1996:131–2).

11 Other ecological demonstrations organized by independent environmental groups in Pragueincluded the protests against the construction of a hotel complex in the historic Kampadistrict in Prague’s historic city center (on 31 May and 26 June 1989) and against theconstruction of a coke plant at Stonava near the Polish border in northern Moravia (on 13September and 5 October 1989). These demonstrations did not usually involve more than300 protesters who were harassed and dispersed by the police (Vaněk 1996:121–3, 128–9).

12 The Czech Ministry of Interior and the Environment had existed since 1988.13 Interview with Jan Kára, Prague, 18 August 1993.14 The importance of the environment for the public has continuously declined. In December

1997, the environment ranked ninth among the most important problems perceived by theCzech public. It ranked fourth in December 1994 (MF Dnes 1998g:4).

15 See Pickvance (1998:83–9) for a detailed history of the Danube Circle.

8

NOTES 311

Environmental legislation and policy

1 This was a case in Poland, for example (see Sleszynski 1996).2 Interview with Jan Kára, Prague, 18 August 1993.3 It is important to note that sustainable development is not considered a radical or green

concept because it accepts the primacy of economic growth and human welfare over theenvironment (Doyle and McEachern 1998:35).

4 See Slocock (1996:508–14) for a detailed analysis of Václav Klaus’ attitude toward theenvironmental protection and policy. See also Pavlínek (1997:357–8).

5 New Hungarian environmental legislation is based on the principle that the “polluter pays”and the “user pays.” The Act on the General Regulations Concerning EnvironmentalProtection introduces the system of pollution charges: environmental load charges,utilization (resource use) charges, product charges, and deposit fees (MERP 1995:35,Article 59). The charges should be set in such a way that they will encourage reduction ofemissions and pollution prevention. The Act provides the basic principles of these charges(MERP 1995:35–8) but detailed regulations will be issued in separate legislation. Thecharges will be introduced gradually (Erdey and Karcza 1996:79). Money collected onenvironmental charges will be used to providefinancial assistance for environmental projects(Pomázi and Csanády 1995b:32).

6 The Temporary Commission for the Protection of Nature was established in December 1919(Hicks 1996:58).

7 See Hicks (1996:49–75) for a detailed analysis of the development of environmentalprotection in Poland before 1989.

8 The 1996 Environment Protection Act is reviewed in Dragomirescu, Muica and Turnock(1998:173–9).

9 The laws on Mines and Quarries, Protection of Air, Water and Soil from Pollution,Protection of Nature, Waters, Regional and Urban Planning, Protection of Arable Land andPastures, Public Health and the Law on Marine Environment were all still in place in 1996,carry-overs from the old regime, but were in the process of being rewritten (OECD 1996a:20).

10 The EU has estimated that compliance with its environmental legislation in ten CEEcountries applying for the EU membership will cost around $130 billion over the next decade.This sum will have to be raised in CEE because neither the EU nor foreign capital are willingto pay for the clean-up. The ten candidates collect only about $1 billion annually in pollutionfees and fines that are used to fund environmental projects (Meth-Cohn et al. 1998:33–4).The question remains where the rest of the money will come from, given the desperate lackof environmental funds and fiscal crisis of the state in CEE.

9State, environment and information in post-communist transformations

1 TERPLAN Prague (land use and regional planning institute) had been developing anintegrated territorial information system before 1989 (Moldan 1990:29).

2 Interview with Dr. Jan Vozáb, former chair of the Department of the Environment, mayor’soffice, city of Most, 24 June 1993.

3 The most important sources of environmental information in the Czech Republic currentlyinclude the organizations supervised by the MoE such as the Czech Institute of

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8

Hydrometeorology, the Czech Environmental Inspection, the Czech Institute ofEnvironmental Protection and the Czech Institute of Ecology. Other important informationsources include the Health Ministry and its institutes, such as the State Health Institute andthe Institute of Health Information and Statistics, and the Ministry of Agriculture and itsInstitute for Economic Management of Forests. The Czech Statistical Office provides data onindividual environmental indicators developed in the 1990s. Since 1994, the Czech Republichas begun to develop a system of environmental indicators based on the OECD’s Core Set ofIndicators for Environmental Performance Reviews (ČSÚ 1997b:275). The Czech StatisticalOffice established a separate department of environmental statistics located in the city of Ústínad Labem in northern Bohemia in early 1994.

4 The PHARE Program—Pologne-Hongrie Assistance à la Reconstruction Economique (Poland-Hungary Assistance for Economic Reconstruction)—supports the upgrading ofenvironmental monitoring and data gathering facilities in Central and Eastern Europe.

5 These institutes and Ministries include: the Regional Environmental Inspectorates (RIOS),the Central Laboratory complex at the Institute of Environmental Monitoring andSustainable Development in the MoE (LIK), the National Statistical Institute (NSI), theInstitute of Hygiene (HEI), the Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology of the BulgarianAcademy of Sciences (NIMH), the Ministry of Environment (MoE), and the Ministry ofHealth (MZ).

6 Of the 105 monitoring stations the MoE maintains sixty-two sites (which are administeredby sixteen Regional Inspectorates and eight local laboratories), the Institute of Hygienemaintains thirty-six sites, and the Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology of the BulgarianAcademy of Sciences maintains seven sites. The MoE has added six mobile inspectionstations since 1991.

7 The country-wide environmental monitoring system was divided into the followingmonitoring sub-systems as of 1998: air, water, soil, forests, geological factors, radiation andother physical fields, waste, human settlements, land-use, foodstuff and animal feedcontaminants, burden of environmental factors on the population, biological factors,meteorology and climatology (SMoE 1998:92). In 1996, air quality at the local level wasmonitored at thirty-two monitoring stations run by the Slovak Institute ofHydrometeorology, seven stations monitored air quality at the regional level, four of whichwere part of the EMEP network (Chopok, Liesek, Stará Lesná, and Starina). Surface waterquality was monitored at 250 checkpoints and the underground water quality at 291checkpoints with the spring and fall measurements. There were 657 soil quality monitoringlocations and 111 forest quality monitoring areas (SMoE 1998:35–44).

8 This is not to say that the government does not publish environmental information for thepublic. As in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, the Central StatisticalOffice or the MoE publish and sell statistical environmental yearbooks which anyone canbuy. At the same time, environment ministries of these countries publish annual reports onthe environment that are given away free of charge to interested users. In Bulgaria, at least,the slow development of clear copyright and intellectual property laws combined withdifficult economic circumstances have generated a parallel “black” market in data.

9 In 1993–4 the Institute of Soils received about 5 million ECU through the PHARE programto develop an information system of soil fertility and soil monitoring. The AGROPLANProject collects agricultural data at very detailed scales.

10 For a more detailed account of the development of and problems associated with GIS inBulgaria see Mikhova and Pickles (1994b).

NOTES 313

11 See Pickles (1995c, 1997), Pickles and the Bourgas Group (1993), Curry (1995, 1996b),Goss (1995a, 1995b), Sheppard (1995), and Rundstrom (1991, 1995) for discussions ofthese issues in the context of GIS development in the US.

12 COCOM regulated the export of high technology goods, especially computer technologies,to the former socialist countries. COCOM regulations still operate, although the list of goodsincluded under the embargo has been reduced. The remaining items include advancedtechnologies, communications systems, and strategic items.

13 It has not been an easy period for “data democrats” anywhere. See Pickles (1995c) andPickles and the Bourgas Group (1993) for a series of cautionary tales of GIS usage in the1990s in the United States.

10Environmental effects of post-communist transformations

1 See Pavlínek (1997:101–2) on the struggle within the Czech government that took place inthe early 1990s over the approach toward the environment during the transformation.

2 In Slovakia, for example, the decrease in industrial production was larger than the decline inelectric power consumption, suggesting decrease in energy efficiency after 1989 (Huba1997:265). In the Czech Republic, the emissions of particulate matter declined by 26percent, sulfur dioxide by 23 percent, nitrogen oxides by 24 percent and hydrocarbons by18 percent, while the emissions of carbon monoxide increased by 10 percent between 1989and 1992 (MoE 1994:23). In the same period, however, gross industrial output fell by morethan 32 percent (by 40 percent in the enterprises employing more than twenty-five workerswhich are the largest polluters) (ČSÚ 1994:A6). The fall in production was thus much largerthan the drop in pollution levels and energy consumption, which would suggest an increasein pollution per unit of output in this period. A similar situation was observed in Hungary inthe early 1990s: while there were substantial decreases in air pollution andenergyconsumption largely resulting from declines in industrial production, the enterprisesthat remained in operation were producing more pollution per unit of industrial output thanbefore (Okolicsanyi 1992:68).

3 Bulgaria recorded a 1.4 percent GDP growth in 1994. The sulfur dioxide emissionsincreased by 4.2 percent, nitrogen oxides emissions by 36.6 percent and carbon monoxideemissions by 31.2 percent in 1994. These increases were caused by not only growing car andtruck ownership but also by ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical industry andfertilizer production (Georgieva and Moore 1997:68–9).

4 In 1996 only 18.3 percent of cars (about 600,000 cars) were equipped with catalyticconverters in the Czech Republic, up from 5 percent in 1993. The corresponding number forSlovakia was only 10 percent (MoE 1997:68, Závodský and Zuzula 1997:5).

5 In the Czech Republic, the share of mobile sources on air pollution has also been steadilyincreasing. In 1991, cars accounted for 29 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions. This shareincreased to 52 percent in 1996 (a different source put the 1996 share of nitrogen oxidesemissions from transport at 43.3 percent (ČSÚ 1997a:20). Transportation accounted for 81.2 percent of lead emissions, 40.2 percent of CxHy emissions, 28.2 percent of carbonmonoxide emissions, 7.8 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, 3.2 percent of solidemissions, and 0.7 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions in 1996 (MoE 1997:67).

6 Municipal waste per capita increased by 58.9 percent in the Czech Republic, 25.8 percent inBulgaria, and by 18.9 percent in Poland between 1985 and 1992. At the same time it

314 NOTES

decreased by 17.5 percent in Slovakia and by 8.9 percent in Hungary. The WesternEuropean OECD members recorded an average increase by 20.6 percent (OECD 1996b:41). There are several possible reasons why municipal solid waste per capita has declined inSlovakia and Hungary: households have become poorer and produce less waste; rapidlyrising prices of waste collection, previously provided free of charge, have reduced thenumber of households willing to subscribe; and there is less waste collection because of theoverall difficulties associated with transformation (Lehoczki and Balogh 1997:141).

7 Z.Bochniarz from the Polish Ecological Club has described the pre-1989 period as follows:“Many of the licences we received from the West in the 1970s caused an increase in ournational debt and in pollution. Dirty technologies were transferred here because even thenPoland was regarded as a country which would accept everything” (quoted in Kruszewska1993:3).

8 The Czech Institute of Ecopolitics conducted a survey of environmental management in 105joint ventures and foreign-owned companies in 1997. Only fifteen companies agreed toparticipate in such a survey. Out of these fifteen, only six companies prepared their ownenvironmental management policies and only one made its environmental policy public.Only two companies, both owned by multinationals, operated a complete system ofenvironmental management. None of the surveyed companies pursued a systematicenvironmental education of its employees (Verner 1997:8).

9 Between 1989 and 1994, the use of solid fuels (coal) declined by 40 percent (from 379,021tonnes in 1989 to 228,214 tonnes in 1994) and the use of liquid fuels (oil) decreased by 41percent (from 227,860 tonnes to 134,125 tonnes). The consumption of natural gas increasedby two percent (from 195,010 to 199,032 tonnes) (by 10 percent from 1988) during thesame period (Balajka, Judák and Peschl 1996:10).

10 Primary energy intensity is primary energy consumption divided by country’s GDP. Primaryenergy comprises hard coal, lignite and other solid fuels, crude oil and natural gas liquid,natural gas and nuclear hydro, geothermal and solar electricity.

11 In 1997, 38.9 percent of Slovakia’s electricity was produced in the nuclear power plant atJaslovské Bohunice in the western part of the country, 43.5 percent in coal-based powerplants, and 17.6 percent in hydroelectric power stations (ŠÚSR 1998:101).

12 Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution ontheReduction of Sulphur Emissions or their Transboundary Fluxes by at least 30 percent. Notall the pre-1989 governmental efforts have been successful, however. For example, Soviettechnology was bought to desulfurize the power plant Tušimice II in northern Bohemia inthe Czech Republic in the 1980s. The construction and equipment cost about 2 billioncrowns (today about $70 million) but the entire unit has never been initiated because ofenormous technological problems. All the invested money appears to have been wasted(interview with René Pisinger, advisor of the Minister of the Environment, Teplice, 4August 1993).

13 The 1991 Clean Air Act was designed to desulfurize not only large power plants, but alsoadditional 1,600 pollution sources with more than 5 MW of thermal output and 20,000sources with 0.2–5 MW of thermal output (Baltus 1993:12).

14 Seven largest Czech chemical firms devoted 37 percent of their 1991–5 investment (Kč 8.5billion out of Kč 23 billion) to improve their environmental record, increase safety andprotect the health of their workers. Emissions from the chemical industry continued to fallafter 1993 when production began to grow (Chemický průmysl 1997:18–19).

15 In former Czechoslovakia, public investment in environmental protection averaged about 0.5 percent of GDP between 1971 and 1975, 0.4 percent during the period of 1975–85, 0.3

NOTES 315

percent between 1980 and 1985, and 0.6 percent during the period of 1986–90 (World Bank1992a:18).

16 See Carter (1988:269–87) on the development of the Czechoslovak nuclear power programbefore 1989.

17 It has been estimated that household furnaces account for about 45 percent of total solid andcarbon monoxide emissions and more than 50 percent of emissions of hydrocarbons, heavymetals and other toxic substances in the Czech Republic (EKOjournal 1994:3).

18 Between 1991 and 1996, 31 percent of all environmental pollution control projects(invoiced work) was conducted in northern Bohemia, 21 percent in northern Moravia, and17 percent in southern Moravia. Five remaining regions received 31 percent ofenvironmental investment (Prague received only 5.6 percent). Air and climate pollutioncontrol projects received 57.5 percent of all ecological investment between 1991 and 1996followed by water pollution control projects (26.8 percent), waste management (11.1percent), projects to reduce effects of physical factors (3.7 percent), landscape protection (0.5 percent), and land and underground water protection (0.4 percent) (ČSÚ 1997a:105).

19 Biological oxygen demand is the amount of oxygen consumed for aerobic biochemicaldecomposition of organics contained in water for five days under standard conditions.

20 Gross agricultural production per one hectare declined by 27.5 percent between 1989 and1994. The 1996 production was at 76.1 percent of the 1989 level (Ládr 1997:10).Consumption of drinking water declined by 35 percent in the Czech Republic between theearly 1990s and 1997, from daily per capita consumption of 180 liters to 116 liters (MF Dnes1997c:1)

21 (1) The Resolution no. 287 passed on 2 November 1990: the set of measures to restore theenvironment in northern Bohemia; (2) the Resolution no. 166 passed on 5 May 1991: thereview report about the implementation of tasks from Resolution no. 287 and the proposalof its actualization; (3) the Resolution no. 331 passed on 11 September 1991 about thefurther development of the Chabařovice opencast mine; and (4) the Resolution no. 44passed on 10 October 1991 about the report dealing with territorial limits of coal miningand energetics in the north Bohemian brown coal basin (Pěgřímek 1992:152).

22 For example, the local government of the town of Chabařovice (located in the TepliceDistrict) elected in the 1990 free local elections was elected to save the town (Bystrov 1993:6–7). In the case of the village of Horní Jiřetín (in the Most District), the civicresistanceagainst the plans of coal mining enterprises to raze the village culminated with theorganization of a meeting in April 1991 which was attended by the Minister of Environmentand his deputy, the first deputy of the Minister for Economic Policy, officials from theMinistry of Culture, and several members of the parliament. At this meeting, the inhabitantsof the village and the local government voiced their concerns over plans to raze their villageand determination to fight such plans (interview with Miroslav Štýbr, the mayor of HorníJiřetín, 3 August 1993).

23 Research in Poland has shown that environmental damage from small stationary pollutionsources with low smokestacks such as household furnaces is about twelve times larger withrespect to particulate matter emissions and 2.5 times larger with respect to sulfur dioxideand nitrogen oxides emissions compared with larger pollution sources with high smokestacks(Seják 1994:38).

24 According to Nowicki (1997:200) the amount of municipal waste has increased by 20–30percent after 1989.

25 See MERP (1996:2–1–2–24) for a detailed description of the water quality in Hungary.

316 NOTES

26 This section is based on Meurs and Pickles (1999). Thanks are due to Mieke Meurs forpermission to use sections of the paper here

27 See Pavlínek (1997:307–13) on the situation in the Czech Republic.28 Alongside collective and state farms, household production continued in all East and Central

European countries. In some cases, as in Poland and Yugoslavia, many individual farmspersisted. In other cases, including Bulgaria, individual farming was mainly limited to smallhousehold plots issued by collective farms to villagers.

29 It is interesting to note that the new production cooperatives, which lease land from thosewith temporary use permits or from the state, may have slightly longer time horizons thanindividual farmers. In many cases, the current manager is also the past manager, and many ofthese individuals expect to continue managing much of the cooperative’s land over themedium term, regardless of who actually owns it. They thus see their future earnings asclosely linked with the condition of “their” asset.

NOTES 317

318

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350

Index

272 Committee 172acid rain 40, 43Acumulatorul Factory 149Adriatic sea 59aerial photography 229, 231;

access to 229Africa 27Aglietta, M. 21Agnew, J. 159agriculture 40, 59, 65–9, 70, 275–9;

in Bulgaria 71–81;collectivisation of 67–9, 76–9;pest infestations 80, 81;soil mining 276;see also fertilizer

Ajka 139, 181air:

quality 39;pollution see pollution

AISA (Czech Polling Agency) 137Albania 8, 16, 41, 47, 48, 52, 68, 158, 168,

207;stats 15, 47

Alcamo, J. 39, 41, 44, 50alternatives (TINA and THEMBA) 291Altvater, E. 8, 13, 24–6, 26, 28, 30, 34, 125,

239Andrews, R.N.L. 192, 194anti-politics of transformation 6Arato, A. 157armament production stats 252arsenic 146, 151ash deposition 117–1, 167;

stats 118Association of Friends of Nature 17Athens 42

Austria 67, 90, 254, 258

Baia Mare 39, 47, 68, 130Baikal-Amur railway 12Balkan States 157Baltic sea 59, 175Baltus, J. 11, 194Baroch, P. 196, 257, 263Basov Method 95Baumgartl, B. 173, 288Bavaria 61BCP77Beck, U. 22Before The Rain (film) 3–3, 9Begg, B. 79–3, 275, 276Bekes county 139Belene 173Bell, J.D. 172Benda, F. 197, 263Beneš, J. 41, 257–2Benešov 138Benko, G. 24Berlin 98Bernhard, M. 157Białistok 62Bielsko 266Bi ak, V. 106Bílina River 10, 113Biodiversity, loss of 40Birkás, M. 68birth defects 139Bistri a 186Bízek, V. 196“black triangle”, the 46, 48 (map), 58, 217,

268

351

Blanchard, O. 26Bleahu, M. 186Boatin Forest 225–30Bobak, M. 41, 128–5, 147Bogdanova, S. 275Bohemia 10, 14, 16, 17, 34, 39, 41, 45, 47,

54, 56, 58, 59, 83–103, 118, 226, 260;health stats 135–9;maps 83, 84

Borrell, J. 40Borsod County 39, 67, 130, 139Bosnia-Herzegovina 48Bova, R. 27Bowles, S. 159Bowman, M. 168, 182, 194–9, 200–10, 240Braila 149Bratislava 144, 167, 183–9Brenner, R. 25Britannia Coal Co 90Brontosaurus Movement 17Bucharest 10, 42, 272Buck-Morrss 3Budaj, J. 183Budapest 10, 67, 68, 141, 167, 180, 271Bukowno 71Bulgaria 4, 8, 14, 16, 19, 39, 40, 41–3, 45, 47,

48, 48, 52, 59, 60, 68, 71–81, 125–9, 151,157, 158, 160, 167–5, 175, 187, 208, 213,217, 219, 226, 233, 266, 272, 275–8, 278,288, 290, 294;

agriculture in 71–81, 125;stats 15, 16, 40, 44, 47, 60, 68, 126(unreliability of 40);economic growth of 125;see also Burgas

Bulgarian Agricultural Bank 75Bulgarian Agricultural National Union (BANU)

75Bulgarian Central Cooperative Bank 75Bulgarian Green Party 173Burawoy, M. 21, 24, 27, 95, 103Burgas Bay 45, 46, 47, 48, 60, 61, 149, 151,

279, 288Byrne, C. 48Bytom 71

Canada 43, 79

cancer 119, 148;see also health, mortality

capitalism:hybrid forms of 6;influence of international 7

car:ownership 245, 254;pollution by 48–3;stats 245–50

carbon dioxide emissions 54Carolina 116Carter, F. 8, 39, 62, 80, 133, 141–5, 149–3,

192case studies, general 8Castells, M. 214catalytic converters 48, 252Ceausescu, N. 186–1Čech, P. 196Central and Eastern Europe:

3, 26, 121;decline of statistical recording 223;differences within region 25, 39–40;economies of 7, 25, 200–9;emergence of civil societies 163;environmental degradation/health issues130, 157;environmental quality in 42–52, 191;environmental record of governments vsWest 14, 16, 22–4, 42–4;GDP stats 241;growth of technology 235;independent policy arena within 19;maps 4;patterns of transition in 26–31, 191, 196–8;policies of govts in 10, 25, 30, 54;spending of govts in 17;stats 39, 40–2, 44, 241–6

centralization/centrally planned economies:impact of 4, 9, 12, 15, 39, 96;of agriculture 76–9, 80;of mining 96, 103;decentralization 31

Černá, A. 256Chánov 116Charta 76, 183, 220chemical industry:

inCop a Mic 40–1;

352 INDEX

development of 13;in Most 84, 96, 98–4;pollution caused by 10, 40–1, 48, 68;see also petrochemical, industry

Chemopetrol 84, 87, 98–3, 107, 108, 112–16,116, 118, 167

Cherni Osam dam 173Chernobyl 15, 176Chile 26China 27, 67Chinoin pharmaceutical 181Chomutov district 87, 89, 113, 179;

hospital 135Chorváthová, A. 179, 183Chorzów 71citizen participation 170civil liberties 157civil societies, new 161;

struggle with political societies 166Clark, T.N. 31Clarke, S. 8, 24, 94climate, effects of mining on 112;

stats 118CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic

Assistance) 12, 30, 96, 125, 179coal:

brown 14, 16, 43–7, 48, 56, 69–1, 83, 97,243(characteristics of 16, 43);as fuel for power stations 11–12, 14, 43–9,54, 243;effects of open-cast mining 10, 14, 16, 67–9, 88, 103–16;pollution caused by burning 10, 42, 45, 54;production(North Bohemia 83–96, 97, 97, 103–6,112, 114;stats 86, 98)(Upper Silesia 65,stats 14, 65)

Cockburn, C. 31Coffin, I.C. 12, 13Colby, M. 126collectivization 3, 67, 76–9, 81Comecon 167, 231communism:

fall of regimes 4, 157–2;inefficiencies under 4;

organizations opposing 6Communist Party 11, 17, 19, 23, 24, 25, 94,

103–7, 121, 159;continuing support for 19;in Most 94–7, 103, 121

conflict, class/workers 90–6, 103conservation areas 41, 180, 242Cop a Mic 39, 40–1, 48, 68, 130, 148Cottbus region (GDR) 15Crampton, R.J. 76Creed, G.W. 20, 170Crha, R. 130Croatia 168ČSAV 84CURS (Changing Urban and Regional Systems)

program 31Czech Communist Party 94–7, 109–14Czech Energy Works 256–1Czech Environmental Fund 196Czech Green Party 179–3Czechomoravian cement 180Czechoslovakia xiv, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 25, 26,

41, 44, 47, 48–3, 52, 60, 61, 68, 168–2,175, 177, 184;

break-up of 178;“legislative revolution” 194;stats 11, 15, 16, 17, 27, 42–4, 44, 47, 48,54, 62

Czech Railways 247Czech Republic 6, 8, 10, 14, 17, 19, 20, 27,

30, 31, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48,52, 54, 59, 60, 61, 68, 83–123, 129, 158,184–9, 191, 192, 213, 226, 257–2, 262–7,266, 281, 285, 288, 290;

air pollution in 52–59, 135–42;maps 58, 59, 59;stats 47 54, 54, 58, 59, 61, 87, 139, 255,256

Czech Union for Nature Protection 17

Danube river 13, 43, 65, 67, 170, 181, 185,187, 198, 253, 226, 271, 288

DeBardeleben, J. 9, 14, 15, 218debt, government 13Deets, S.G. 80–2, 276defoliation 10, 40–1, 43, 52deforestation 67, 68;

INDEX 353

see also forestsDejmal, I. 10, 248Dejmek, J. 130, 138Deléage, J-P. 24–6Deleuze, G. 22democratization 4, 7, 8, 19–19, 21, 163–8,

191demographic issues 7;

in Most 88, 90, 93demonopolization 19–19deregulation 240Derrida, J. 21development, uneven 7, 26–34Devnya 150Dimitrovgrad 130, 150Disarmament, European convention 19Dnes, M.F. 84, 196, 260, 263, 271Doma ski, B. 107Dominick, R. 42Dorog 139, 181Douglass, P. 80, 277Dřínov reservoir 113Duchcov 89, 92–5Dudka, S. 69–2Duha 263Dukovany 54, 259Duncan, S. 31, 32, 33Dunford, M. 24, 25

Ecoglasnost 160, 170, 217ecological disaster under capitalism 240Ecological Democratic Party 186economic issues 4–6, 12–13, 19;

forms of power 19;impact of crises 4–6, 12–13, 19;loans from West 12–13;statistics 13(trade 13)

eco-tourism 235Ekiert, G. 157Ekolist 263Ekono 62Ekotoxa 226Elander, I. 31Elsom, D. 43, 45Elster, J. 8

EMEP (European Monitoring and EvaluationProgram) 44

Emmott, N. 201Enache, L. 40, 69, 148energy:

consumption stats 15;demand for 96;efficiency/inefficiency 15–16

Enyedi, G. 181environmental activism 168, 187environmental issues:

as anti-communist platform 183;attitudes to crises 17, 41, 109, 118, 125;causes of crisis 10, 105;clash with nationalism 185;clean-up 42, 193, 239, 250;clean-up by default 6;conflict with state “end of pipe” solutions239;enterprise 191, 217;control of information 214, 217, 223;databases 213, 217, 218, 223–8, 228, 234;environments of concern 7;“environmental dollars” 42;environmental futures 157, 293;hot spots 40–2, 173, 214;health links 132;low standards attracting Westerninvestment 248;origins of crisis 9–17;political rights to environmental protection194;political priority of 179, 181, 290;politics of reconstruction 290;speed of dealing with crisis 4–6;state socialism impact on 125, 149;taxation as control instrument 197;see also nature, pollution

environmental legislation see lawsenvironmental NGOs 172, 221, 235environmental ministries/national agencies 16–

17, 25, 169, 176, 178, 185, 201, 209, 221,224, 319–2

environmental monitoring 12, 41, 80, 218,221–6, 225;

cost of 226, 236, 279;“passport system” 279;weakness of 223;

354 INDEX

see also pollutionenvironmental movements 6–7, 17, 41, 136,

150, 157, 160, 167–1, 170, 179, 180, 183,186;

communist-controlled 17environmental policy 7, 10, 12, 19, 54, 157,

168, 188, 191, 198, 200–5;future 293;short-term view of 175

environmental protection:constitutional duty of 208;by economic instrument 205;program of 12, 17, 195, 209;citizen’s duty of 195

Erdey, G. 182, 200–7erosion 67–9, 80–2ethnicity/ethnic issues 3–3, 91, 93;

see also nationalismÈTK 97European Union (EU) 20, 30, 147, 221, 228,

230, 235, 266, 277, 290exports:

higher quality coal 46;increase 248;link to pollution increase 240

factories, closure of 11, 60;see also industry

fertilizer:application levels 76–80, 151, 275;pollution by 59, 65, 79–1, 151;prices 77–9

Fesus, I. 67Federal German Republic (FGR) 22, 240Field, M.G. 126–30Fincher, R. 31Fischer, S. 27Fisher, D. 186Fitzmaurice, J. 254Fleron, F.J. Jr. 26, 27Fordism 23Foucault, M. 7France 16, 83;

stats 16French, H.F. 4, 11, 20, 157, 168Friends of the Earth 180

forest damage 10, 40–1, 43, 52–5, 54, 59–2,285;

reforestation 68;see also deforestation

Frankland, E.G. 173, 175, 181, 186Friedberg, J. 80, 175, 279Fukuyama, F. 158

Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros 181, 185, 198, 253,254

Gaitanikovo 73Galbraith, J.K. 285, 291Ganev, S. 79, 81Gdansk 19, 59gender issues 3, 7geographic scale, impact of 28–31geopolitics 21–4Gergov, G. 80–2German Saxony 90Germany:

Nazi 92, 98, 101, 109;reunification of 23;unified 30;see also Federal German Republic, GermanDemocratic Republic

Georgieva, K. 173, 208–14, 243–50German Democratic Republic (GDR) 9, 10,

11, 13–16, 22, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 47,48, 52, 54, 69–1, 168, 214, 217; 219, 241;

destruction of villages in 14–15;stats 15, 16, 47

Giant mountains 52Gibson-Graham, J.K. 22, 292Giurgiu 149Glasnost 19Gliwice 144globalization 7, 21, 30–2Goodwin, M. 32, 33Gorbachev, M. 26Gotse Delchev 73Grabber, G. 29Gramsci, A. 7, 158–3, 166grass-roots movements 162, 174, 177–4Graziani, G. 30Green, E. 125–9Guattari, F. 22Guliš, G. 130

INDEX 355

GUS 70, 248, 267–3

Habermas, J. 240Hadač, E. 68Hajba, E. 181–6Hájek, M. 26Hajn, J. 105Halford, S. 32–4Hall, D.R. 68Hamilton, I.F.E. 12Hammond, A. 79Harvey, D. 7, 22, 23, 32–4, 34, 83, 243–8,

285Häufler, V. 86health issues 6, 17, 25, 59, 70, 79, 88–1, 105,

118, 130, 287;cancer of children, Czech Republic 40, 79,139–4;in Hungary 141;and environmental degradation 130, 132,133–9;impact of air pollution on 40, 139;impact offiscal crisis on 125;in Bulgaria 149–5;in North Bohemia 109, 119, 135–9;in Poland 141, 145;in Romania 150;in Slovakia 144;risk assessment 215;“prophylaxis” 127, 130, 152;smoking and obesity stats 129;Soviet system of care 126;statistics, control of 132

hegemony, crisis of 26, 166Hertzman, C. 129–8, 139–54Hicks, B. 176, 218Hock, B. 43, 65, 67Hodonín 257Holá, E. 260Horná Nitra 39, 144, 253Hostinné 60housing reconstruction 114–9Hrbáček, J. 192Huba, M. 183, 185, 194, 198–3Hughes, G. 16, 42, 43Hungarian Green Party 181

Hungary 6, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 26, 30,39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 48, 52, 59,61, 65, 67, 68, 141, 168–2, 175, 177, 180,199–5, 266–4, 290;

health and pollution problems 141;stats 15, 16, 44, 47, 47, 61, 68, 139, 141;water pollution in 62–8;

Hunnius, G. 22, 23Husák, G. 106Huta Katowice steelworks 13

Illner, M. 30, 31, 107–12IMF 30, 221, 290Industrial Revolution 54, 89industrialization, forced 7, 77, 96industry:

heavy 4, 13, 25, 42, 45–8, 59;manufacturing 13(see also chemical, petrochemical, steel);metal 40–1, 48;transition from heavy to light 4, 25;water use by 65

information, environmental:access to 17, 218, 221, 228, 230, 234;control of 43–5, 78, 218–3, 231;data acquisition trends 233;democratization of 234;leaking of 220;loss of 228

investment:environmental 17;industrial 12

Iron Curtain 157Iron Gates power station 13

Jablonec nad Nisou 139Jackson 130Janeček, A. 86–9, 113Jancar-Webster, B. 17Japan 78Jaslovské Bohunice nuclear power station 54Jedrychowski, W. 130, 139, 144, 148Jehlička, P. 168, 179–3Jensen, H.T. 31, 40, 176Jindřichovská, I. 103, 113Jizerské hory 59Job, A. 105

356 INDEX

Jordan, P. 186, 207, 226Juhasz, F. 42, 181

Kabala, S.J. 40, 71, 141–6, 176, 181–6, 202Kapos river 65Katowice 39, 42–4, 45, 71–4, 141, 266Keane, J. 108Kilényi, G. 200–5Klarer, J. 9Klaus, V. 196, 289Klavens, J. 248Kliemt, J. 22, 23Klinda, J. 41, 50, 68, 147, 192, 198–3, 250Knight, G. 61, 151Kolev, B. 209Komořany village 108, 118–3Kopf, J. 168, 219Košice 145–9Kosovo 280Kostov, I. 234Kotěšovec, F. 130, 138Kouzhouharova, V. 73Kraków 141–5, 175, 266Kralupy nad Vltavou 138Kramer, J.M. 13, 16, 17, 59, 65Krupka 113Krušné hory 54, 59Kruszewska, I 248Krzyžanowski, M. 144Kubik, J. 157Kubricht, V. 114Kucharski, R. 71–4Kudzhaly 151Kvasničková, R. 180

labor groupings 160labor:

patterns in Most 90, 98;worker conflict 90–6, 103;process model 24–6

Laborec river 146Lac 48Lampe, J.R. 75land degradation 67–81

(map 70);in Poland 69–4;restoration 232;

stats 68, 69, 70;see also pollution

Land, T. 60, 62landscape devastation 111, 114;

stats 112Lang, W. 50Lash, S. 215laws, environmental 6, 10–11, 80, 191–7,195,

200, 203, 210, 278Lazarcik, G. 76–80lead:

emissions 50, 148;in children’s teeth 138;levels in blood 141, 143, 148;in soil 69, 71, 71

League for the Preservation of Nature (Poland)17

Lefebvre, H. 34, 35, 83–5, 111, 243Lehoczki, Z. 268–4Leipzig 15, 69–1, 167, 241Leitn, V.I. 7Leitner, H. 31Lesnic, M. 186Levy, B.S. 127–4Libkovice 88Light, A. 43Lipietz, A. 21, 24, 24–6, 27–9, 34, 83–5, 240–

4Liroff, R.A. 240Listy 220Litvínov 88, 98, 107, 113, 117Livernash, R. 15, 17, 40, 41, 47, 62Łód 62Lom 88;

Lom Coal Co 90Louka 167Louny district 105Lubmin 45Lučenec 146

Macedonia 3, 48, 59, 168Mainland, E. 187Makinia, J. 59, 61, 62, 65Manchevski, M. 3Manser, R. 9, 177, 205, 239–6, 285Marer, P. 13Mariánské Radčice 167

INDEX 357

Maritsa-Istok 39market, impact of 8, 20–2, 26–8, 30;

urban-regional 32, 34;see also capitalism

marketization 191Markus, F. 67Marquardt, W. 47, 243Marshall, P.G. 46, 62, 65, 67Marxism 21;

Marxism-Leninism 27Marx, K. 7, 21Massey, D. 30Matuszewska, E. 176Mečiar, V. 184, 254Medea 148Medias 130Medrow, R. 136Melucci, A. 163Metallokémia Co 180metal:

heavy, pollution by 40–1, 50, 59, 68, 69–3, 79(map 70)(stats 71);industry 40–1, 48

Meth-Cohn, D. 147Meurs, M. 68, 276–80Meziboří90, 107, 114Michalovce 146Mikhova, D. 78, 130Miklós, L. 147Mindjov, K. 173Mineralöl-Baugesellschaft 98mining:

environmental effects of 10, 14–15, 43,65–69, 69, 69, 71, 103–24;in Most 84, 96–98;103, 119;69–1, 98;see also coal

Mochovce power plant 15, 185, 254, 258, 288modernization 9, 21, 25;

see also transitionsMoE Slovakia 68Moldan, B. 50, 52, 54, 59, 68, 118, 168, 192–

8, 217–5Moravia 10, 41, 54, 56, 59, 217, 226, 260Morawski, W. 107

morbidity 133, 144mortality:

air pollution and 130, 144;CEE countries generally 130;Czech Republic 88–1, 118, 133;environmental degradation 133;Hungary 139, 141;infant 40, 79, 118, 128, 133, 141, 143;Poland 141;Romania 40;trends 132

Most, old city of 114–9Most District (Bohemia) 14, 35, 43, 83–103,

105, 114, 167, 179, 222, 288–4;chemical industry in 98–4,communist party in 103;destruction of settlements 86, 88, 104,108, 109, 113, 114, 121;environmental problems 93;health of population 88–1, 118–4, 135–41;housing in 114–19;industrial stats 86, 87, 100;labor patterns 90, 98, 108;maps 83, 84, 97;local government 109;mining in 83–96, 97, 97, 98, 103, 112,113;Most Coal Co. 43, 90, 103;Most Duchcov Chomutov Coal Co. 90;Most-Kopisty mine 84;Most Strike 92;Nazi occupation of 109;population(density 88;migration 93, 121;of settlements 90, 114);Roma people in 116;social pathologies 88, 123;structured coherence in 121

motor vehicles:pollution by 48–3

Moufe, C. 188Mounfield, P.J. 14, 45Munich Agreement 92Musil, J. 158Myant, M. 94–8, 103

358 INDEX

Nachev, D. 75Nagytétény 180nationalism 19, 91, 92National Ecological Party, Romania 186nationalization 94NATO 7, 20, 30natural gas 253naturalizations 3nature:

Cartesian myth of 22;specific concepts of 83;ethos of 41;symbolic importance of 3

Navodari 147Neftochim refinery 45, 60, 149, 217, 235Neratovice 138Neumann, J. 192Nikolova, M. 79–1, 276Nitra 144nitrates, in drinking water 139nitrogen oxide pollution 40, 46, 47 (map), 48

(stats), 50–6, 56, 59 (map), 87, 118North Bohemian Coal Co. 90, 113Nováky 147Novotná, H. 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, 103Novotny, V. 59, 60Nowicki, M. 47, 50, 52, 59, 62, 67, 68, 203,

243, 248, 265nuclear industry, pollution 15

Obrenovac-Belgrade-Pančevo 40O’Connor, J. 25Odra river 65OECD (Organisation for Economic

Cooperation and Development) 20, 43, 46,48, 59, 65, 119, 129–4, 139–53, 173, 266–4

Ofalu 181Ognean, T. 60, 68, 69oil industry 13, 14, 68, 100;

prices 14Okolicsanyi, K. 181Oldson, W.O. 148Olkusz 71, 143OMRI 29Ore Mountains 10, 59, 59, 89Orlické hory 59

Osaka 43Ost, D. 157Ostrava 42, 54, 133Osuch-Jaczewska, R. 141–6

Paden, M. 67Paks power station 46Pápa 139paternalism, industrial 106Pawlowski, L. 69Pavlík, Z. 257Pavlínek, P. 27, 28, 32, 87, 157, 175, 179–3,

184–9, 196–1, 240, 243, 250, 263, 288Pazardzhik 151PCBs 139, 146, 147Peck, J.A. 33Pehe, J. 186perestroika 11, 19, 26pesticides 151;

see also fertilizerspest infestations 80, 81Peters, A. 130petrochemical industry 13, 46, 60Phenix plant 149Pickles, J. 6, 107, 136, 150, 157, 160, 168,

170, 175, 217, 234–9, 288Pickvance, K. 181Piekary Sl skie 71Piotrowska, M. 69Pirin 77Pitassio, A. 167, 170Pithart, P. 168Plamínková, J. 10Pleven 150Ploiesti 272–6Podkrepa 160, 170Podoba, J. 183–9, 199, 248Pohl, F. 111Pokorná 90, 92–7, 98, 103, 114Poland 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 30,

39, 41–3, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52, 60,61, 62, 65, 67, 68, 69–2, 125, 141–7, 158,160, 175, 202, 218, 265, 266, 268–3, 281,285, 290;

map 70;soil contamination in 69–4;water pollution in 62–8

INDEX 359

policies, environmental 10–12, 19;enforcement of 10–11

political:crises 20;ecology 83;economy 3–17;see also economic issues

“polluter pays” principle 193, 197, 205, 208;“polluters pay” in Poland 205–10

pollution:air 10, 11, 13–14, 40–3, 44–59, 87, 106,111, 112, 118, 137(and mortality 130;and respiratory illness 138);annual pattern of 42, 87;in Czech Republic 52–59, 87;gases 11–12, 40–2, 45, 87(maps 47, 47, 48, stats 40–1, 47–48, 54,118);deadlines relaxed 255;general maps 48, 48;in Slovakia 199, 252;monitoring of 41;particulates 6, 11, 40, 42–4, 45, 54–7, 59,87, 105, 117, 148, 217, 254(stats 11, 40–1, 42);attempts to reduce 4, 9, 11, 45(invest ment in control technology 13, 45,239);land 40–1, 67–81, 225(in Poland69–4, 141;stats 70, 71, 71);legal limits 10–11, 25(breaches/exemptions 11);not admitted under state socialism 9, 103–9;point sources 48;public attitudes to 4, 17, 186;research into 12, 114;stats general 44, 54, 250, 255;transboundary 50–5, 65, 67(map 52);water 13, 40–1, 43, 59–8, 79–1, 138(attempts to reduce 13;in Poland and Hungary 62–8;stats 43, 62)

Pomazi, I. 200–5population:

control of movement 125;density of 88, 121;migration of 121

post-Communist:societies 21, 83;studies 27

Potter’s syndrome 146Povdidv Varna 150power generation industry 11–12, 44–8, 54–8,

68;fuel use stats 14, 15, 44;hydroelectric 13, 46, 253;switch from coal to nuclear 12, 14 15, 56,254;switch from coal to other fuels 14, 46–9,54;pollution caused by 11–12, 14, 45, 48, 52–7(nuclear 15)

Prachatice district 137Prague 42, 56, 61, 105–9, 133, 177, 179, 217,

260Prague Mothers 177–4Pravda 255Prešov 146Příbram 138Privatization Agency, Bulgaria 222Privatization Project 43production:

modes of 34;stats 251

protected areas 41Prunéřov power station 47Przeworski, A. 26, 27public transport use stats 247

Radom 62Rakowski 176Reeves, A. 202, 250regulation theory 21–7, 33, 83Remington, T.F. 27Rhine river 43Rhodopi 77Richter, J. 125, 130–138Rila river 173Rimavská Sobota 146Rimnicu Sarat 149

360 INDEX

Rio Conference 42risk, concept of 22–4, 215Roma people 116, 294;

forced resettlement of 116Roman, M. 62Romania 13, 14, 15, 16, 26, 40, 40, 41, 44,

47, 48, 48, 52, 59, 60, 62, 67, 68–69, 125,147, 158, 170, 186, 206, 226, 271–6, 290;

see also Cop a MicRosenbladt, S. 65Rovinski, F.Y. 42, 46Rousse 167Rousseva, S. 80Ruse 149, 170Russe 4Russia 30Russell, J. 44, 46, 52Rybicka, E.H. 65, 70Rychtaříková, J. 130–7

Sachs, J. 4, 176, 240, 291Sadovski, A.N. 60Salay, J. 59, 65, 67, 181Samuels, R. 121, 290Sanders, I. 73Saratov Movement 95Saro-Wiwa, K. 3Saxony 10, 45Schreiber, P. 50, 97, 97Scott, A.J. 34Searle, D. 170secrecy 17;

see also informationSedlec power plant 104Selfo, L. 207–12Sejm, Poland 203–8Selucký, R. 96Serbia 40, 48service sector 4settlements, destruction of 14–15, 86, 88sewage 62–8;

see also waterSHD 90, 97, 98Siberia 12Silesia 10, 17, 41, 45, 46;

Upper 65, 69–3Šilhavý, J. 98, 109

Simpson, P. 239, 242Skalický, J. 196–1Slatina 68Slawkow 143Sleszinski, J. 205Sliven 151Slocock, B. 176, 177, 200–7Slovak Green Party 183Slovakia 6, 8, 15, 27, 30, 39, 41–3, 47, 54, 59,

61, 67, 68, 144, 182, 184, 192, 195, 198–3,225, 266, 288;

Ministry of the Environment 144–50, 192,198–3, 226, 243, 251–6;stats 47, 61

Slovenia 168Smetana, S.A. 194Smith, A. 26, 28Smith, N. 34Smith, P. 80smoking stats 129social movements 161socialism, state 17, 24, 41, 103, 105, 117, 125,

149, 201;environmental policies 10, 149, 168, 191;growth of economy under 125;socialist competition 94–7;structured coherence under 121

Socialist Competition 94Sofia 150, 167–6Sofia-Pernik 39Sofia, University 234soil:

contamination in Poland 69–4;degradation 67–69, 70, 71, 225;treatment of 80;see also land, pollution

Solidarity, Polish (Solidarnosc) 19, 160, 176,204, 218

Sometra metallurgical plant 207Sommer, J. 204Somogyi, L. 4Sosnowiec 71Soviet Union (former) 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17,

19, 20, 31, 50, 54, 95–8, 125, 157, 167,219, 289;

model of development 20;stats 11, 16

space/spatial practices 34–6, 83;

INDEX 361

production of space 83Špaček, J. 196Spunzar, C.B. 69Šrám, R. 129, 132, 138Staddon, C. 174Stáhlík, Z. 89, 93, 96–9Stakhanovites 95Stambolüski, Alexander 75–7Staneva, M. 61Stanners, D. 39, 42, 243, 248, 262Stara Planina region 235Stara Zagora 150Stark, D. 4, 28, 29Stasi 168, 214state:

diminishing power of 19;institutions of 6, 16;theories of local 31

state socialism 3, 6, 83–5, 89, 103, 105, 117;collapse of 25–7;constant reorganization under 103;development model of 24–7, 101, 111;in relation to environment 9, 17 25, 39,41, 83–5, 89, 117, 286;in Most area 93–8, 101;societies 213;see also communism

Stec, S. 173, 176, 182, 194–9, 207steel industry 13, 48Stillman, E. 76Stokes, R. 157Stoyanova, R. 73–7Straškraba, M. 48Stredná Spiš 145Strednogemerská 145Stredný Pohronic 144Stredný Zemplín 145structured coherence concept 32–5, 83Štýs, S. 90, 93Suceava 186Sudetenlädische Treibstoffwerke 98Sudeten mountains 52sulfur dioxide emissions 11, 14, 16, 40, 40, 42,

46–9, 48, 48, 50, 56–9, 87, 104, 111, 117–1, 135, 148, 205, 217, 225, 253, 266, 272;

maps of 47, 58, 244;stats 40, 54, 58, 117–1, 244;variations in 42;

desulfurization 11, 14, 45, 54, 104;sulfur deposits 52

sustainable development, political resistance to196, 217

Švec, F. 43, 86, 87–93, 112, 114, 117–5Svidník 146Swain, A. 28Sweden 16, 43Szacki, J. 176, 177Szczecin 267Szebényi, I. 200–7Szilvassy, J. 255Szklarski, B. 157Szlachta 267–3

Tagebau 69Tarnaveni 148Tarnowski Góry 70,Tatár, P. 183Taylor, P.J. 29, 30technology, access to (Western) 11–12;

impact of new 13Tejo river 43Teplice 87, 92, 105, 113, 137–1, 167Thames river 43THEMBA 291Third Reich 92Thompson, E.P. 19Tickle, A. 11TINA 291Tîrnava Mare river 40Tismaneanu, V. 157Tisová 257Tisza river 43, 65, 67Titov Veles 48Tma 179–4Toboulchin 151Tončík, M. 68Trabant car 50, 245Transdanubian basin 46transitions:

communist to post-communist 3, 4, 7, 19–21, 25–31, 83–5, 157–1, 239;environmental pollution/industrial growth242;grass-roots activism to technocratic NGOs174, 181;

362 INDEX

on local/regional scale 29–2;in Most area 92–5;multiple forms of 6, 19–7, 158;regional political economy of 8, 83;theories of 8, 19–7, 83;to democratic society 165;unpredictability of 3

transitology 21transport 48–3;

see also motor vehiclesTrebišov 146Trifanova, M. 76Trnava-Galanta 144TsDIA 76Tulcea 148Turda 148Turgoviste 151Turkey 77Turnock, D. 8, 10, 186Tušimice power station 12, 45, 47Tzvetkova, K. 208

Ukraine 30, 67UN (United Nations) 40, 41, 47, 272Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) 173, 175United Kingdom 16, 31, 43, 71;

stats 16United States 16, 42, 43, 68, 79, 80, 219, 292,

275;Environmental Protection Agency 42, 147,290;stats 16, 68

urbanization 90Ústí nad Lebem 10, 89, 139

Vác 181Vaněk, M. 105–9, 217–4Várallyay, G. 67Varga, J. 271Várkonyi, T. 46, 139Varna-Devnya 48Vavroušek, J. 193Veliko Turnovo 150Videnova, E. 81Vienna 61Vigh, G. 65Visegrad 30, 41, 158, 243

Vistula 62, 65Vitha, O. 60, 61Volga basin 12Vondra, V. 130Vranov nad Topl’ou 146Vratimov 60Vratsa 150Všestudy power station 104Vukovich, G. 46, 139–3

wage levels, miners 103Walesa, L. 204Wallich, P. 43Walzer, M. 163–8Warsaw (Warszawa) 62, 267waste:

energy 15, treatment of 13–14water:

pollution 40–1, 43, 59–8, 79–1, 139, 196,202, 225(bacterial 59);coastal 59, 79;main contaminants of 62;groundwater 59;61;lake 62;river 59–5, 62–7;management 196;number of sources 59–4;quality of 39, 59, 62–8, 146, 202(drinking 59, 67, 79, 80, 139, 146, 151);shortages 59, 65(inefficient use 65);treatment plants 11; 60, 62–7;wastewater 60, 62, 65, 80, 208, 243

Wedmore, L.D. 119, 133Weidlich, J. 89Wenceslav Square 19Western governments, attitudes of 7Wierzbicka, M. 52Williams, R. 22Wojtyniak, B. 130, 141, 144Wolf, J.M. 78–80Woodard, C. 182working conditions, miners 149

INDEX 363

World Bank 4, 17, 30, 40, 42, 45, 89, 119,130–8, 138–2, 145–52, 192, 197, 206–11,221, 224, 275, 277, 290

World Health Organisation (WHO) 143, 208World Development Report 133

Yambol 151Young, I. 158, 161, 165–9Yugoslavia (former) 3, 13, 15, 19, 20, 40, 41,

44, 47, 48, 52, 60, 62, 67, 158;model of development 20

Zala river 65Záluží 84, 98, 117Zagreb 42Zagyva river 65Zaniewski, K.J. 128Zejda, J.E. 130, 144Zeman, J. 68Zenica 48Zhivkov, T. 4, 149, 172–7Žiar nad Hronom 144, 185Ziegler, C. 12, 13Žilina 147Zlatna 68, 148, 186, 207Zloch-Christy, I. 13Zpravodaj, M.P. 10ylicz, T. 203–10

364 INDEX