UNEP-LED BALKANS TASK FORCE TO CONTINUE WORK IN YUGOSLAVIA

Press Release
HAB/161
UNEP/58

UNEP-LED BALKANS TASK FORCE TO CONTINUE WORK IN YUGOSLAVIA

GENEVA/NAIROBI, 8 February (UNEP) -- As part of the second phase of the joint United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) Balkans Task Force (BTF), a group of international scientific experts will start work next weekend on detailed environmental clean-up feasibility studies at four sites in Serbia. The team, which arrives in Belgrade on 13 February, will be conducting an analysis of the specific activities and technical requirements at the four "hot spots" identified by the BTF in its report, "The Kosovo Conflict -- Consequences for the Environment and Human Settlements".

In its assessment report released last October, the BTF concluded that pollution detected at four environmental "hot spots" (Pancevo, Kragujevac, Novi Sad and Bor) is serious and poses a threat to human health. Projects to address priority needs for humanitarian assistance at the "hot spots" will be identified during February/March, and next week's studies are required before the actual environmental clean-up can begin.

Under the leadership of the former Finnish Environment and Development Cooperation Minister, Pekka Haavisto, the Task Force continues to work from its offices in Geneva. Last month, the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe asked the BTF to contribute expertise for environmental assessments in other countries of the Balkans region. These projects will be discussed in detail later this week at the Stability Pact's meeting, "Working Table on Economic Reconstruction, Development and Cooperation", to be held from 10 to 11 February in Skopje.

Clean-up in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Last year's BTF report recommended urgent remedial action at the heavily contaminated waste-water canal which flows into the Danube River at Pancevo; the removal of significant quantities of toxic waste at the Zastava car plant in Kragujevac; detailed studies on the possible contamination of drinking water supplies near the Novi Sad oil refinery; and the prevention of further releases of sulphur dioxide gas into the atmosphere at the Bor ore smelting complex.

"The main responsibility for the environmental clean-up effort rests with the Yugoslav authorities", said BTF Chairman Haavisto. "However, it is very important that the United Nations act rapidly in the Federal Republic of

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Yugoslavia where there is need for humanitarian assistance. In this regard, UNEP and the United Nations Development Programme, working together in close cooperation, have already taken steps to highlight the urgent environmental problems as part of the overall humanitarian assistance", he said.

In November 1999, as part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs consolidated inter-agency appeal for 2000, a 17 million appeal for environmental priority emergency projects in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was launched.

The BTF was set up by Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP, in May 1999, to assess the environmental and human settlement consequences of the Balkans conflict. The BTF report, The Kosovo Conflict -- Consequences for the Environment and Human Settlements, is available on the Internet at

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