Comment

Does it really all wake up despite being spring?

Another spring has come, and traditionally, 21 March was marked in most parts of the country with the act of planting trees, cleaning up the green areas, exhibiting children’s drawings, giving awards for environmental projects, delivering lectures at schools, etc. For years, these days have been marked with stereotype and expected activities whose focus is the young population, and the teacher, mayors, some ministers and of course, the president of the country among the adult population.

The spring rises again, but the country is not facing any major activities, projects of the environmental associations or the “green” civil society associations directed towards animating the public and the authorities in charge on the current events and the climate changes on the planet Earth, as well as the chances for alleviating their consequences.

Macedonia has not had any mass action, protest, gathering or whatsoever regarding the environment for a long time now. Has the focus of our interest become the daily politics so much that we do not see the global environmental issues that raise concern in the world our worries?

I remember when ten years ago, people were protesting wearing gas-masks on the street of Skopje to express their attitude against the air-pollution. The environmental organizations organized themselves and attracted the citizens’ attention that were eager to express their dissatisfaction concerning the air-pollution caused by the traffic in the city. That was the time when the civil awareness was waking up, the time when people became aware of the pollution caused by the Veles smeltery, when we were against polluting the waters, etc. What has happened to us in the meantime? Instead of increasing, the topics for protesting reduced. Today, even though the condition regarding the environment is far from satisfactory, there are no protests at all.

Let us not forget that we, too, are part of the globally warmed Earth, and whether we wanted it or not, lately we have all started to feel that.

 

Katerina Bogoeva