From today, citizens of Montenegro will be able to report environmental problems and cases of illegal exploitation of natural resources through the new digital platform Čuvaj.me, which is one of the first results of the national environmental campaign "Protect so that it protects you".
The platform, developed by the coalition of NGOs "Let's Green Montenegro", in partnership with the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development and the Environmental Protection Agency, with the support of the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Montenegro, was presented today in Podgorica.
Citizens will be able to report environmental problems through the platform, but also to monitor the progress of their reports, be informed about which institutions and inspectors are acting on them, as well as the outcome - including whether the responsible persons have been prosecuted and in what manner.
The Head of the EU Delegation to Montenegro, Johan Sattler, said at a press conference that the platform is easy to use, that citizens can anonymously report problems they notice in the environment and, most importantly, they can track what is happening with their report.
"Whenever you notice an environmental problem, some form of pollution, report it!" urged Satler.
He said that police and law enforcement are key to this type of action, but he also called on citizens and activists to join in to create a broad coalition that could create change.
Deputy Prime Minister Aleksa Bečić said that the platform is a major step forward and a basis for strengthening trust and partnership with citizens, as well as strengthening transparency, which is very important in the fight against environmental crime.
He emphasized that, in this way, citizens are given the opportunity to be active participants in the process and thus spread the spirit of what true patriotism is.
"Because this is a measure of patriotism - that as a citizen you recognize, when you see something you process it, have faith in institutions and receive feedback. And that in that process the steps of every individual and every institution are clearly and transparently monitored, because this is not a one-man fight, but a team challenge and task," said Bečić.
He said that the long-term future of the country, as well as the lives of future generations, depends on the attitude towards natural resources, which represent the treasure of Montenegro.
"This is our call to citizens to help us together protect and defend our rivers, lakes, forests and coasts, our ecosystem," said Bečić.
The Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Milan Gazdić, said that the platform will enable better coordination between all institutions and that they will be able to monitor in a more efficient way everything that the Agency has been doing so far, but in a much more difficult way.
He asked the Ministry of Finance to support this action, but also to support the strengthening of the human resources capacities of institutions involved in the fight against environmental crime, primarily environmental and mining inspections.
"We have six inspectors in the environmental inspection, and only one mining inspector for the whole of Montenegro. We have a lot of organized crime and illegal quarries. We cannot manage to cover the whole country with these capacities, and there must be understanding from the Ministry of Finance," said Gazdić.
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