Since the beginning of 2011 the organizations: Front 21/42, Macedonian Green Centre, Macedonian Ecological Society, Eco-sense, Ekoskop, CELOR, Go Green, Krste Jon and Florozon organized into working groups for public participation and monitoring,  work closely together on more cases that may reflect the state of ecological democracy in Macedonia, and also contribute to positive steps in its development.

 One of the fundamental principles of ecological democracy is giving information to the public and allowing it directly to affect the decisions that are made and affect the environment.  Whether and how it operates and in which direction is this democracy developed here can be seen from several stories from real life that happened in the past year.

The Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning is committed to the European Commission to review all environmental permits issued to industrial facilities. If this activity is carried out as promised, will be a real positive example of how civil society in the environment may encourage the administration of positive changes in law enforcement and environmental protection.

The implementation of the planned energy projects in the National Park Mavrovo: Boskov Most, Lukovo Pole and several small hydropower plants, pose a serious threat to biodiversity and landscape diversity of the park, with special emphasis on protecting the national symbol - the lynx. The associations of citizens expressed their views related to the issues regarding the national park and the energy projects as well as in front of the domestic institutions and the international financial institutions involved in the projects Boskov Most and Lukovo Pole. The new zoning of the park and the efforts of the associations of citizens to preserve the zones of strict protection and the zones that represent important habitat for certain species is not yet finalized. As a positive step obtained by the associations is the promise to include them in biomonitoring associated with the project Boskov Most. It is still too early to predict the final results from the inclusion of the public and the environmental organizations in the procedures and the projects related with the National Park Mavrovo.  However, in the interest of protecting the natural resources we expect the ecological democracy to be respected by the institutions and the implications of the environmental organizations to be taken into consideration.

The Associations of citizens with their comments are also included in the process of public consultation on the Strategy for Water in the Republic of Macedonia and the Report on Strategic Environmental Assessment on the Strategy for Water. Both documents were withdrawn for modification after the alerted drawbacks by the Associations of citizens and the experts.

The common approach from the environmental organizations to more topics related to environmental and ecological democracy in the past year contributed to a positive step in the briefing and in the real public involvement in decision making related to the environment. However, many steps should be taken by institutions, as well as by the Associations of citizens in order to , the voice of citizens to be really part of the decisions that are made, which affect the environment in which we all live.

The activities were carried out under the project: "Activism in action", funded by the European Commission and implemented by the Front 21/42 and Macedonian Green Center.

For more information: www.ekostav.mk