Joseph B. Treaster: Water and The World

BELGRADE, Serbia – This is a place where tourists are told it is safe to drink water from the tap. And that seems to be true.

I’ve just spent nearly a week in Belgrade in June with several hundred editors and publishers from around the world, members of the influential International Press Institute. Many of them were drinking the tap water and there was no run on medical facilities, as far as I could tell.

But there are plenty of environmental concerns in Serbia and the five other countries that make up the former Yugoslavia, still recovering from a decade of war in the 1990s.

Belgrade sits majestically at the confluence of the Danube and Sava Rivers, on a site so attractive and strategic, that it has been fought over and ruined many times, the acting mayor, Zoran Alimpic, reminded me and the visiting editors in a meeting at City Hall.

Natural beauty, yes. But both the Danube and the Sava are heavily polluted from years of heavy manufacturing, agricultural runoff and chemicals that came with the warfare.

Belgrade, with an estimated population of 2 million, is the fourth largest city in southeastern Europe after Istanbul, Athens and Bucharest.

The economy of the region has been picking up. But Belgrade and the rest of former Yugoslavia have still got plenty of problems. Unemployment in Serbia is running at 19 percent, down from 40 percent not long ago. And the ethnic hostility that led to 10 years of war and neighbor-to-neighbor killing in the 1990s seems undiminished. You can see it in the simplest settings.

I came across three young women chatting together in a glitzy, incredibly expensive shopping center – made even worse for Americans because of the weakness of the dollar. A pair of fashionista sneakers would have cost me $340.

I asked the young women if they were Serbians. They answered in a chorus: “Pure Serbian.” No self-consciousness. Being pure Serbian in Serbia works fine in Serbia - unless you’re not a Serbian.

I had gone to Belgrade as a new member of the International Press Institute, an organization of editors and publishers from around the world with headquarters in Vienna. Its main focus is press freedom. It works against governments and other powers that try to limit freedom of expression and helps journalists and the families of journalists who’ve been beaten, arrested, jailed and sometimes killed.

It is a group with considerable clout. It was not just the mayor who took time out for the editors and publishers. The president of Serbia, Boris Tadic, spoke to them in the House of the National Assembly, and Crown Prince Alexander II and Crown Princess Katherine gave a reception for the group at one of the royal palaces.

After “the dreadful decade of the ‘90s,” Mr. Tadic said, “You can count on us in terms of freedom of the media and peaceful practices.”

The crown prince has a sense of humor. Mosquitoes can be a problem in Belgrade. The government combats them with insecticides. While the Crown Prince stood on the palace steps talking to editors, publishers and their wives mingling in the palace’s well cared-for gardens, a lumbering, antique biplane flew low over the grounds, trailing wisps of mosquito spray. “That’s our air force,” the Crown Prince said.

The environment was not formally on the agenda for the International Press Institute’s conference in Belgrade. But climate change and water and other environmental issues worked their way into conversations over several days. Next year the International Press Institute will be meeting in Helsinki and it is purposefully carving out time for the environment.

I’ve begun discussions with David Dadge, the director of the International Press Institute, and Michael Kudlak, the deputy director, about experts from the University of Miami taking part in the conference in Helsinki. They are considering a presentation in Helsinki of the one-hour documentary on water, One Water, directed by Sanjeev Chatterjee, the executive director of the University of Miami’s Knight Center for International Media.

Oliver Vujovic, the secretary general of the South East Europe Media Organization, which is affiliated with the International Press Institute, said he was considering showing One Water at a conference he is holding in Sofia in the fall.

According to the United Nations Environmental Program, Serbia is the only country in former Yugoslavia that has not updated its laws on water management in keeping with new science and technology. But that may change. For economic reasons, among others, Serbia wants to become a member of the European Union. Serbia and its neighbors face a string of barriers. But one way they can impress the European Union is to improve the way they deal with water and the rest of the environment.

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