The strategy for soil protection hasn’t been adopted

By Рада Исовска-Маневска On Oct 18, 2018 0

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PROMISE: We shall adopt soil protection strategy. We shall map the contaminated soils in the country. We shall complete the legislation in order to protect them.

[Source: SDSM’s program – “Plan for Life in Macedonia”, (page 227), December 2016]

EXPLANATION:

For the general elections in 2016, SDSM promised to draft a soil protection strategy, map the contaminated and complete the soil protection legislation. But, the promise is still unfulfilled. According to SDSM’s projections, this promise was supposed to be fulfilled in the first six months after the Government is elected, therefore it was included in the chapter Plan 180 – Urgent reform priorities of the new government in the first six months of the program “Plan for Life”. However, despite the plans of the social-democrats, these documents haven’t been passed yet, even though it’s been a year and a half since the election of the Government led by SDSM.

SDSM incorporated this promise in its electoral program with the intention to finalize the ongoing process of passing a special soil protection regulation through establishing integrated soil protection and management system, which will improve the state of soil in terms of sustainable usage by lowering the degradation processes.

Additional incentive for dealing with this issue was the failed attempt to pass a law on soil protection. Namely, the Ministry of Environment drafted a proposal to pass a law on soil protection, covering the period until 2019, but it wasn’t adopted.

Concerning this, the section Environmental indicators, Progress in management of contaminated sites – Policy relevance of the indicator of the Ministry of Environment says:

Soil protection is regulated by several laws, including those concerning environment, nature protection, agricultural land, etc., but there is no soil specific law, with clearly defined institutional responsibilities.

In the meantime, a feasibility study on industrial polluters has been drafted and 16 contaminated sites have been identified, preliminarily researched and labeled as “hot spots”. Major research has been conducted on eight sites. Remedial measures have been implemented on three sites, but not a single site has seen any completed measure.

Still, the strategy for soil protection hasn’t been adopted yet i.e. it’s not featured in Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning’s website. There isn’t any soil protection strategy in this website’s strategies category. Also, a map of contaminated soils in the Republic of Macedonia hasn’t been uploaded to this Ministry’s website and there isn’t any information on drafting new laws and bylaws on soil protection.

Additionally, media outlets haven’t reported that soil protection strategy of the Republic of Macedonia has been discussed, therefore we deem SDSM’s promise that it shall draft a soil protection strategy and map the contaminated soils, with intended fulfillment within six months after the Government has been elected, unfulfilled.

SOURCES:

Program of SDSM (2016): „План за живот во Македонија“ (page 227) [Accessed on 17 October 2018]
Ministry of Environment – Стратегии [Accessed on 17 October 2018]
Ministry of Environment – физибилити студии [Accessed on 17 October 2018]
Ministry of Environment – почва [Accessed on 17 October 2018]
Ministry of Environment – индикатори [Accessed on 17 October 2018]
ENER: Предлог закон за заштита на почвата од 2014 година [Accessed on 17 October 2018]

Assesed by: Rada Isovska – Manevska

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