Jaraslau Bekish: We are trying to “green” our economy and politics

The Forum of Environmental Organizations aimed at strengthening ecologic activism in Belarus will be held in Minsk.

The Forum is to take place in Minsk on October 18-20 and it will be dedicated to the problems of public ecological control.

“The Forum should have been organized as far back as June, but we had to postpone it due to a supposedly sewage breach in one of the Polatsk accommodation facilities. However, the problems had nothing to do with the sewer system, but rather were connected with fears. In Minsk we have more such events, that is why Minsk has fewer fears”, - shared his opinion in the interview with the EuroBelarus Information Service Jaraslau Bekish, the member of the Forum Organization Committee and the coordinator of the ecological association “Green network”.

The Forum has invited more than 100 specialists, including the representatives of ecological organizations, state nature conservation structures and educational institutes. According to Jaraslau Bekish, for now it is hard to say how many representatives of the state structures will visit the Forum: “Unfortunately, usually we fail to involve, for instance, the Minister; however, this time we expect the participation of the head of the public relations department of the Ministry for Environment in the forthcoming Forum. And we are going to discuss the new format of work for the public coordination committee under the Ministry for Environment”.

The organizers of the Forum define four components of the main goal: “First is to promote eco-friendly lifestyle among Belarusans, - emphasized Jaraslau Bekish. – The second one is connected with the development of such civil society that should be able to perceive and consider ecological values in their activity. The third direction is connected with our efforts to introduce reasonable policies and reasonable ecologic legislation and would decide procedural matters. And finally, the fourth direction is reasonable law enforcement practice in the country, including that of the ecologic policies”.

Primary expectations of the organizers are connected with the above mentioned guidelines: “Today “green” movement is associated only with a number of public organizations, the charter of which mentions such words as “ecology” and “nature conservation”. However, we believe that our movement should be much broader and not be limited to the public organizations. Registered organizations within ourlegal framework are mostly the organizations of expert and service nature and have to do with reporting and, occasionally, with sometechnical projects. And this is not enough for us. We believe that our movement should cover more spheres than only public organizations, separate projects and those who work as ecologists. As if we speak about eco-friendly lifestyle, it applies to absolutely all and each. Thus, we wantto “green” our economy and politics; and this is what the discussion at the Forum is going to be about”.

The organizers highlight that the Forum is an open space for discussing topical ecologic problems, developing strategies for the ecologic organizations for the next two years, harmonizing their views on different issues.