Public monitoring of the transboundary Neman and Pregolya rivers Kaliningrad regional branch of interregional August 2016 January 2017 environmental NGO “Green Front” – Neman and Pregolya river basins Source: http://isepei.org/case-studies/gwp-cee/gis-based-communication-platform (sampling points) Project’s geography https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?page=explore&hl=ru&mid=15FV1wpBJW8 Zh1MoUk2Kn_5BdmkY&ll=54.786366142413975%2C21.333380626754888&z Project objectives and tasks: Objective: Establishment of a sustainable system for water quality monitoring in the transboundary Neman and Pregolya river basins in the Kaliningrad Region. Tasks: - Public quality control over waste water treatment plants. - Identification of sources of negative anthropogenic impact on ecosystems of the Neman and Pregolya transboundary river basins. - Creation of a new trend of international cooperation between the Baltic Sea countries based on the initiative and state funding support provided to a Russian NGO. Project activities: • Over 100 visits to 8 municipalities Project activities: • Over 120 violations of nature protection legislation were spotted in protection zones and coastal bands of water bodies and courses Project activities: • Over 150 queries about protection of water bodies were sent to state and local authorities. • Every query was followed by verification activities and response measures. Project activities: • 48 surface water samples were taken Project activities: • 2 seminars on public participation in water quality monitoring of the Neman and Pregolya river basins were conducted Project activities: • Over 40 articles about the project were published in mass media and on the Internet Prospects for establishing a sustainable system of public monitoring: The model proposed by the project can be used as a basis for building up a network of transboundary river basin public monitoring (together with NGOs from Poland, Lithuania and Belarus). Resources and tools for creating such a sustainable model are as follows: 1. International cooperation programmes, including Russia Poland and Russia Lithuania cross-border cooperation programmes. – 2. NGO state support tools– at the federal, regional and municipal levels. 3. Cooperation with research institutions. 4. Own recourses of environmental NGOs of the Kaliningrad region. Thank you for listening!.