The Environmental Platform for Bucharest has recently announced its support for three projects started last year and also the funding of another four new ones, aimed at increasing the quality of the citys green spaces. The initiators describe Bucharest as a city suffocated by the lack of greenery, disconnected from nature, and that increases pollution, stress, temperatures, and limits the space for recreation and sports. That is why urban green spaces available to the community are a priority for next year and also the main theme for the second round of funding.
One of the projects focuses on air quality in the capital of Romania. Alexandru Oprița, the coordinator of the Environmental Platform for Bucharest explains the reasons for the platform’s involvement in such projects:
“Regarding air quality, before we started working on the platform, we launched a research on the state of the environment in Bucharest, a report that showed us what we already knew: the air quality in the city is not good, and the sources of pollution, most of them are related to human activity – whether were talking about traffic, waste management, or the poor quality of green spaces. First of all, we have to ask ourselves what kind of city we want to live in, because somehow we have reached a point, universally valid, not only for Bucharest, where economic well-being is no longer enough. We need to live in a better environment, and our impact on the environment is a very big one. The 21st century came with two big changes in mentality that we must make, if we want to have a better standard of living. The first is the way we relate to nature. We must learn not to work against nature but to work with it. And a the second is related to the way we do things. We must learn to think about things not only from an individual point of view, but especially what happens to the community, so we need to start working together, prioritizing the common good, because no matter how good it is for us individually, at home, when we go out on the street we all breathe the same air, we have to deal with the same traffic issues or the improper quality of the public spaces.”
Alexandru Oprita also talked about the development of this project:
“Regarding the project on air quality that we are financing, it is called aerlive.ro and it is a project implemented by an association called Ecopolis. What we realized, or rather what they realized , is that before we can develop public policies to improve air quality, we need transparent data to see which components of our behavior affect air quality the most. As a result, they started an independent air quality monitoring network, precisely because the public network is not transparent enough and the data can somehow be questioned. And through the project funded by us, this network has been expanded with 20 more sensors. And the expansion will continue. Moreover, part of the communities from Bucharest and around Bucharest, three communities, together with the Ecopolis association, have written a series of public policies to improve air quality”.
The Environmental Platform for Bucharest brings together non-profit organizations, civic initiative groups, public authorities and companies to create the collective impact needed to transform Romanias capital into a city where residents lead healthy lives and feel good. The development of the civic spirit is therefore a particularly important component.
Here is what Alexandru Opriţa told us:
“Through the environmental platform we decided to change the approach a bit, to start working, to create an environmental community that includes both civil society, public administration and companies, so that we can change this culture of collaboration. In fact, most of the time, there is a lack of trust. We, civil society, have learned how to advocate, how to oppose actions undertaken by the public administration. The public administration has learned how to defend itself, what we lack is to learn how to build together, because Bucharests environmental problems are extremely complex and what we see is that a strategic approach is needed, to which all parties contribute equally. We need to learn to stop sabotaging each other, learn how to base our public policies on dialogue and find that recipe for joint responsibility, so that at the end of the day we no longer put down the walls built by others. Lets not always start from scratch, lets somehow learn to build on the foundation laid by the other. It is clear that if we talk about air quality, there are things that the public administration can do, but there are also things that citizens can do. The decision to stop using one’s car is a personal decision that citizens can make, but for that we need data, we need awareness, we need alternatives. We can have the same approach with regard to the green spaces in the capital. We often see that these are either missing in some areas – people from certain neighborhoods do not have access to a green space – and in other areas, where there are green spaces, they are very, very poorly maintained”.
In its 11 years of existence, the Bucharest Community Foundation has financed more than 700 projects and grants totaling nearly 4 million euros. It is part of a national network, along with 18 other similar organizations in Romania. (MI)