The Society for Sustainable Living, Krkonošská 1, 120 00 Prague 2,
Czech Republic,
Tel./fax.00422- 627477
Official Statement of The Society for
Sustainable Living
No.72
| on the candidacy of the Czech Republic for hosting the World Ski Championships in the year 2003 - SKI 2003 - in the "Jizerské hory" mountains |
with a call addressed to
The Government of the Czech Republic and the
participants of the FIS Congress.
We have been following the preparations for the Czech Republic's bid to hold the World Ski Championships in "Jizerské hory and Ještěd NF" in 2003 with great concern. A more problematic locality for this purpose could hardly have been found in our country. Mountain forest ecosystems within the Protected Natural Area of the "Jizerské hory" mountains, where a number of the activities of the championships would take place, have been extensively damaged due to an extremely heavy burden of emissions of pollutants from coal-fired power stations and as a result of environmentally unsound forestry practices. The forest has died out completely on mountain plateaus where it has been replaced by "clearings" related to emission damage. Other types of vegetation have been damaged to varying degrees. As yet the area has not ceased to be burdened with emissions, only their amounts have decreased. Efforts by nature protection workers and foresters to revitalise the forest have thus been hampered and in the longer term are dependent on the demanding transition to more environmentally-friendly forms of energy in all the states that together form this border region. It is thus all the more imperative that other factors that could have an adverse influence on the area should be eliminated.
For this reason, the Government of the Czech Republic, in its Decree No. 274 of the 30th of April 1997, made its support of the candidacy as presented by the Czech Skiing Federation conditional on the strict observance of several environmental criteria, in particular concerning the routing and parameters of cross-country skiing tracks. These criteria were established by the Ministry of the Environment on the basis of many years' experience of foresters and landscape ecologists, expert assessments of forest management departments at universities in Prague and Brno and an Environmental Impact Assessment of the plan to organize SKI 2003, carried out in accordance with Act of Parliament No. 244/ 92, in the Collection of Acts of the Czech Republic. The main aim of the conditions imposed by the Government is to limit the additional fragmentation of forest complexes, to restrain the creation of new partitions in vegetation which would open it up to increased deposition of emissions, and would provide access for insect pests, and to restrict soil erosion and damage to the root systems of trees. Non-observance of these conditions would necessarily lead to increased instability of forest vegetation and the deterioration of the conditions for the renewal of forests in the "Jizerské hory" mountains. One of the impacts of the continuing disintegration of forest vegetation would in the end also be that the use of cross-country skiing routes set up at great expense would not be sustainable in the longer term.
However, the Czech SKI 2003 Association ("Sdružení SKI 2003") - the potential organizer of the championships - has in all its project documentation so far absolutely ignored the conditions stipulated by the Government. It is quite clear that the organisers are unwilling, or unable, to meet the stipulated conditions and assume that, if their candidacy is successful, they will will be able to circumvent them by pointing to the threat of international disrepute if the games would not go ahead.
This approach is quite unacceptable, however. And not only from the viewpoint of the interests of nature protection. We are also dismayed at the elementary disregard for observing the conditions of a government decree and by the attempts to circumvent generally binding legal regulations. We perceive this to be an attack on legal safeguards in our society. All the greater is our disappointment with the course of action taken by the Government which, on the 22nd of April 1998 on World Environmen t Day, failed to back the proposal of the Environment Minister Martin Bursík and did not withdraw its support for the "Jizerské hory and Ještěd" candidacy for organizing the World Ski Championships in 2003 (SKI 2003), even though the conditions stipulated have not been met.
The final decision as to the location where the World Championships will take place is
to be made at the FIS Congress in Prague on the 22nd of May. We cannot allow that the
Congress should make a decision without having greater knowledge of our domestic
situation. That is why we turn to:
Prague, the 5th of May 1998.
On behalf of the Society for Sustainable Living,
Pavel Šremer
Chairman
(formerly Deputy Chairmanof the Czechoslovak Federal Environment Committee)
Martin Říha
Vice-Chairman
(formerly Czech Deputy Minister of the Environment)
Ivan Dejmal
Vice-Chairman
(formerly Czech Minister of the Environment)