OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Banja Luka Field Office awards winners of students’ essay competition on addressing environmental challenges
The winners of the essay competition for students on the topic of “Ecological incidents in Bosnia and Herzegovina and their possible solutions”, which was organized by the Banja Luka Field Office of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), were awarded on 17 December 2020.
The OSCE Mission’s organizing partners in this competition were the Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics at the University of Banja Luka; the Faculty for Ecology at the Independent University Banja Luka; and the Faculty for Ecology at the University for Business Studies.
The essays covered a variety of issues, such as the current issue of the disposal of COVID-19 medical waste, reducing the environmental footprint, and the pyralene chemical leak in Banja Luka a few years ago.
Dr. Maja Manojlović, Assistant Professor and Head of the Symposium for Ecology and Environment Protection at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics University in Banja Luka stated how daily environmental incidents at the local and global levels, require us to adapt our living habits in terms of sustainability, taking care of our legacy and the legacy of future generations.
Competition winner, Andrijana Martinov, a student of the second cycle at the Faculty of Ecology at the Independent University of Banja Luka wrote about the attitude toward COVID-19-related waste materials outside health and stationary institutions. “Most of us do not know why the professionals in ecological area of expertise fail to fight and offer a systemic solution to this and similar problems,” she said.
Dmitry Iordanidi, Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission to BiH, added: “As we all see in our daily lives, Bosnia and Herzegovina faces serious environmental challenges, including toxic air pollution, illegal dumping, poor waste management, uncontrolled construction and other problems which threaten people’s health, living standards, and security whilst endangering this country’s natural resources and rich biodiversity.”
Recognizing that a clean and safe environment is in the interests of all citizens, the OSCE Mission works to raise awareness and promote collective responses to the manifold environmental challenges that BiH faces.
The perspectives of young people presented through the essays aim at enriching the debate on how to address environmental challenges from a different angle. Considering that environmental problems are huge, stands of future ecologists are important in promoting principles of good environmental governance.