The question of how to combine future waterway transport with river ecology was presented interactively with an experience on a reconstructed historic ship in the Austrian national park Danube floodplains.

On December 2007, the ICPDR’s ordinary Meeting endorsed a guidance paper on future Danube navigation that is seen as a major step forward on this disputed issue. This success is strongly linked to a similar adoption of this key document by two other relevant organisations, the Danube commission on Navigation in budapest and the International commission for the sava River basin in Zagreb.

The ‘Joint Statement on Guiding Principles for the Development of Inland Navigation and Environmental Protection in the Danube River Basin’ was created following a seven-month process, involving 50 stakeholders (including 12 basin governments and 22 industry and environmental interest groups), and three expert workshops in 2007 (in April in Orth, Austria, in June in Calarasi and Bucharest, Romania, and in October in Zagreb, Croatia).

Preventing new development conflicts. The idea of this interdisciplinary process came from the growing concern that the implementation of many waterway construction projects planned and under way along the Danube and its tributaries may lead to conflicts with the EU Water Framework Directive (such as the deterioration of water bodies). When the ICPDR Secretariat discussed this in 2006 with the European Conference of Transport Ministries (now InternationalTransport Forum) in Paris and the European Commission, it was found that only a joint dialogue of experts and interest groups can lead to a solution.

Starting the dialogue. The ICPDR Secretariat therefore worked out a concept for a process that also involved two other relevant organisations, the Danube Commission and the Sava Commission. The process brought together experts from the navigation and ecology sector as well as transport and environment ministries from Danube Basin countries. In the first two workshops, expert presentations and two field visits at the upper and the lower Danube stimulated dynamic discussions. The second step was the joint drafting of the statement that summarised the agreed findings about inland waterway transport and pressures on Danube ecology, and provided guidance on how to prepare and implement new waterway projects.

accepting other views. Through the expert discussions, many
participants gained more insights and understanding about the
functioning of ecology and navigation. “This dialogue had some
educational aspects and reduced various misunderstandings”, says Philip Weller, Executive Secretary of the ICPDR, “but the actual success was the good involvement of the diverse interest groups and their joint formulation work on this guidance paper.”

For Milovan Bozinovic, President of the Danube Commission, “this
process had inspiring discussions and the Joint Statement is a good synthesis of our ideas. We have also agreed upon concrete follow-up steps for the next years.”

The full statement with all annexes can be downloaded from www.icpdr.org

Alexander Zinke is an environment consultant based in Vienna. He supported the ICPDR Secretariat in the navigation statement process.