Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Establishing a single monitoring group is important for resolving the environmental problems of the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijani experts said at a Moscow-Astana-Baku video conference on the topic "Sea: to protect and increase the wealth" on September 20.

"Each country annually issues a report [on the work done for the protection of the Caspian Sea environment]. Everybody is doing fine. However, if there is no joint monitoring group for control over the ecology, this problem will not be resolved," head of the "Caspian" scientific research center, Chingiz Ismayilov, said.

The expert believes that currently the unresolved status of the Caspian Sea hinders the establishment of a joint monitoring group.

"However, if such a group is established among the three countries which conducted the delimitation of the sea borders in the Caspian Sea (Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan), it will help to resolve several issues," he said.

Ismayilov also urged the Caspian littoral countries to develop a joint program on the protection of coastal areas.

The expert also reminded that the establishment of tourism centers on the coast leads to the emergence of new derivations for waste water. Furthermore, a large amount of waste water enters the rivers, in particular, Volga, along which numerous industrial facilities of Russia are located.

President of National Ecological Forecasting Center Telman Zeynalov believes that currently the Caspian Sea is polluted with waste water and technological facilities rather than with oil.

He also supported the idea of setting up a single monitoring group and proposed to have experts from non-governmental organizations included in it.

According to Zeynalov, another factor which impacts the environment of the Caspian Sea is that the coastal countries keep a large fleet in the sea and naval ships regularly dump their ballast water to the basin.

Furthermore, the Azerbaijani experts suggested conducting joint measures to combat poaching in the Caspian Sea.

Vasiliy Spiridonov, an expert at the Russian Institute of Oceanology, said during the video link that both active public organizations which follow the situation in the Caspian and public mechanisms for decision-making are very important in all the coastal countries.

According to Spiridonov, no public mechanisms are in place to deal with the results of the monitoring of pollution of the Caspian Sea's ecosystem.

"There are public organizations in the West which have access to the results of the monitoring. When there are tools for public discussions on the situation that has emerged, this has an efficient influence over the people who made the decision," he said.

He said all the littoral countries need public organizations which will monitor the Caspian Sea.

Spiridonov also said another problem is that in Russia it is difficult for public organizations to access the details of the monitoring of the sea conducted by the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring.

During the video link Kazakh Ministry of Environmental Protection official Zhomart Aliyev said currently experts of the ministry are initiating the issue of renewal of the work related to the elimination and conservation of submerged oil fields in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian shelf.

"Currently a feasibility study for financing the work on elimination of the submerged oil fields in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea is being developed. A budget proposal for continuation of this work is also being prepared," he said.

"The second problem is related to expanding large-scale production of hydrocarbon materials. This is the second week after the start of production at the Kashagan field. Each production activity bears a load on the ecosystem of the sea," the ministry official said.

He said that the rivers polluting the Caspian Sea also have a negative impact.

Representative of the Kazakh National Hydrometeorological Service Zauresh Abdiyeva said Kazakhstan intends to expand the network of stations monitoring the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea and the Aktau seaport area.

"We intend to expand our network of stations. This is about six more new stations of hydrometeorology and environmental monitoring of the Caspian Sea. For the time being it is just plans, however, we have submitted a budget request," she said.

Abdiyeva reminded that Kazakhstan has developed a state program to conduct hydrometeorological and environmental monitoring of its sector of the Caspian, which began in 2005.