7. Ensure environmental sustainability
Millennium Development Goal 7 is about ensuring environmental sustainability. Bulgaria is one of the richest European countries in terms of biodiversity and well preserved natural habitats. Forests in Bulgaria span 4,076 million hectares making up 33.3% of its total territory. Bulgaria has 257,000 hectares of old forests, ranking third in Europe after Switzerland and Finland. The key environmental issues facing the world in 2002-2007 were challenges for Bulgaria, too – climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and shortage of natural resources, including drinking water.
In accordance with international recommendations, Bulgaria adds to the new MDG Report one new target – Reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2010. nother modification is connected with the Natura 2000 network. The target proportion of protected territories by 2015 is revised from 12% to 34%. At the end of 2007, protected areas covered 28% of Bulgaria’s territory. To track and adequately assess progress on Target 1 for integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policy and programs, a new indicator has been introduced to assess the use of renewable energy sources (RES) in the national energy sector. The indicator will trace the proportion of electricity from renewable energy sources. One of the major opportunities for significantly increasing the share of RES-based energy in the coming 10 years without cutting down domestic consumption is through the large-scale use of biomass in all its forms and varieties.
Bulgaria is meeting its obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the 1988 baseline. Greenhouse gas emissions were 70,718 Gg CO2 equivalent in 2006 – a 50.14% reduction from the 1988 baseline compared to the obligation for 8% reduction under the Kyoto Protocol and way above the EU average (-11% for EU-25).
The indicators under Target 3 for reducing the number of people without access to drinking water and proper sewerage infrastructure are revised to trace population numbers instead of settlements. Urban and rural water supply systems already cover 98.9% of the population.
In comparison, in neighboring Romania that indicator is only 54%. The national water supply system, however, reports an extremely high loss of water – over 60%, caused by excessively degraded water supply infrastructure.
The proportion of the population covered by organized waste collection and disposal systems has grown from 80.2% in 2001 to 90.3% in 2006. Progress in the establishment of waste water treatment plants is relatively slower. The share of people served has marginally increased to 41.1% in 2006 from 40% in 2001. The capabilities of available waste water treatment facilities are often poorly coordinated, both in terms of overload and unused capacity.
Population numbers connected to sewerage networks (67%) and served by WWTS (41%) are still low. Nearly 80% of EU citizens have access to waste water treatment plants, and in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and the UK that indicator is over 90%.
Differences within regions are no less significant. The main challenge is access to quality services that guarantee safe disposal and treatment of household waste water and sewerage both for the environment and human health. Sewerage networks cover 277 settlements – 167 towns and cities and 110 villages. Roughly 70.5% of towns and cities have proper sewerage against only 2.1% in villages.
Goal 7 is especially challenging for good governance. The environment is the battlefield for some of the most severe clashes between non-governmental organization and business. Environmental policies are therefore particularly vulnerable to corruption practices locally and at the central level.
