Part III
Poland
Fundacja Ecobaltic - Ecobaltic Foundation
Gdansk, 20 November 1995
- Wyspianskiego 5
- 80-434 Gdansk
- Poland
- Phone: 48 58 410082
- Fax: 48 58 410081
The persons and their function in the NGO
- Mr. Mariusz Witonski - Responsible for cooperation and project leader ecological education
- Mr. Bogusz Piliczewski - Organization international summercamps and responsible for environmental courses for local authority members
- Mr. Maliej Bartmanski - Renewable energy office manager
The NGO itself
The Fundacja 'Ecobaltic', in English, the Ecobaltic
Foundation was established in 1988. The main reason for establishment
was to improve the environmental situation of the Baltic Bay.
Founders of the foundation were several organizations, individuals,
and businesses concerned about the Baltic Sea, environmental
issues and spatial planning and/or landscaping.
Structure
The Ecobaltic Foundation is half an NGO and half
a regular business. The income from the business part has to
be given to the NGO part. There is a council of the foundation,
but this is not very important for policymaking. The board of
the Ecobaltic Foundation consists of 20 people, made up of local
authorities, state institutions, environmental actions and universities,
these are the real policymakers. The foundation has three departments:
sustainable development, renewable energy and 'others'. In the
department of 'others' the NGO activities are sheltered. The activities
of the Ecobaltic Foundation are on an international, national,
county and community level.
Objective(s) / Goal(s)
The environmental mission of Ecobaltic Foundation
is to improve the Baltic Sea region's environment through public
awareness, education, scientific studies, applied research, and
cooperation with other environmental groups and organizations,
both local and international.
Main areas of activity of the Ecobaltic Foundation
Priority activities for the Ecobaltic Foundation
are collection and dissemination of information, education and
training and environmental monitoring, especially in the field
of water quality. This is their 'waterwatch' activity. Occasionally
participation takes place in nature protection activities and
demonstration projects. Protest actions are not in the scope of
activities of the Ecobaltic Foundation. In the near future they
plan to begin permanent social and political activities like
lobbying.
Resources
- Human
- There are three full-time and an average of seven
part-time employees working for the Ecobaltic Foundation. The
amount of active volunteers depends on the kind and amount of
projects running at that moment. Presently, one Peace Corps volunteer
from the USA is part of the office staff and is helping to strengthen
the NGO part of the Ecobaltic Foundation. There is no membership
system.
- Money
- The 1995 budget of the Ecobaltic Foundation was 180,000
USD. The main sources for this money are grants from several parts
of the society. The most significant grants for the Ecobaltic
Foundation come from governmental bodies and funding organizations.
They also receive smaller grants from other NGOs and the business
community. And of course they have the regular company part of
their own foundation to earn money.
- Expertise
- Spoken languages in the foundation are Polish, English
and Russian. The expertise on environmental issues and on the
organizational level is considered high, while the expertise on
strategical level is told to be medium.
- Access to information
- Available tools in the office are phone, fax and
computer(s), e-mail will be available in the near future. The
contacts with especially local authorities and scientist from
the Gdansk Universities are very good.
External Relations and intensity of the contact
The external contacts of the Ecobaltic Foundation
are based on cooperation, except for the antagonistic relationship
with the local authorities during certain campaigns. Environmental
education and cooperation with educational authorities is good,
but at a low intensity. The intensity of the cooperation with
the environmental businesses depends on the kind of the project(s)
and is high when for example a renewable energy project is running.
The relationships with other environmental NGOs in Poland is
now based on cooperation with medium intensity, while formerly
competition or no relation at all was more the case. The Ecobaltic
Foundation takes part in national environmental NGO meetings,
and is one of the partners in trying to establish a national environmental
NGO network. There is a high level of cooperation between Baltic
NGOs and Scandinavian NGOs. Besides the Ecobaltic Foundation
membership of the Coalition Clean Baltic, a network of cooperation
now exists between 26 NGO members from all countries around the
Baltic Sea. East-East cooperation, with environmental NGOs from
the Baltics, is of medium intensity, mostly within the network
of Coalition Clean Baltic, but sometimes also bilateral.
East-East Cooperation
The Ecobaltic Foundation cooperates mostly within
the network of Coalition Clean Baltic (CCB), but also bilaterally
with the Estonian Green Movement, Neva River Clearwater in St.
Petersburg (Russia) and Keep Baltic Tidy. The historical reason
for cooperation with these Eastern partners is that they were
dealing with similar projects, namely waterwatch activities. Bilateral
cooperation was established in 1992; the Coalition Clean Baltic
(CCB) was formally established in Helsinki in February 1990.
Advantages / Motivation
The motivation for cooperation with the CCB network
was at first the better access to information and information
exchange on the environmental issues where the Ecobaltic Foundation
was dealing with. NGOs that cooperate are stronger and it is easier
to get bigger grants and with bigger grants fulfill bigger projects.
The growing power of the NGO because of these bigger projects
is good for the self-confidence of the organization and also gives
it more power when negotiating with governments. This is also
true for a group of cooperating NGOs, together they can put more
pressure on the governments, in this case, on the Baltic States
level. Besides the search for cooperation partners in the North
and East, Ecobaltic Foundation is getting more and more involved
in national NGO cooperation with Central and South Poland, because
of the process of establishing a national environmental NGO network.
Problems / Obstacles
The biggest problems with bilateral cooperation between
the Baltic countries and former Russian republics is the lack
of information about the NGOs and their projects there. In addition,
practical problems are mentioned like the lack of e-mail to contact
somebody immediately and the lack of personal contacts because
of insufficient funds. In the future, more money for more permanent
bilateral East-East cooperation may be available, but now there
is only enough for one meeting or one small project. Historical
problems and examples of nationalistic obstacles do not exist
between Poland and the Baltics. But they exist between the Baltics
and Russia. Political problems existed in the Kaliningrad region,
because until the fall of communism this area was a closed district,
a military area under the former Soviet Union.
Surplus Value / Results of East-East cooperation
As expected, the exchange of information is much
better between the NGOs which are members of the CCB network,
than with other NGOs. After they got to know each other better,
they could identify NGOs with similar projects and the waterwatch
activities and cooperation started between the organizations.
This brought better sampling and the Ecobaltic Foundation shared
their experiences with the Estonian Green Movement so that they
became scientifically stronger. Unexpected results were that Ecobaltic
Foundation members were really impressed by the good ideas of
the partner(s) and that they were able to improve their own projects
because of learning from projects in the country of the Eastern
partner. During East-East cooperation, both sides discovered plenty
of possibilities to run joint projects in the future. Ecobaltic
Foundation didn't expect to find similar projects problems and
the similar way of thinking of their neighbors. By cooperating
they found a broader scope of possible projects and they reached
a new level of understanding.
Necessary features of a NGO for East-East cooperation
NGOs which want to cooperate need to have information
about each other's existence and the ecological problems with
which they are dealing with. The hot topics in other countries
should be known, so that East-East cooperation on the topic is
possible. Important are the financial sources for meeting each
other and the exchange of information. More money is needed when
cooperation between countries is involved.
Possible reasons for others not to start East-East cooperation
It is possible, other NGOs have no need for cooperation,
because their goals are on a local level. Cooperation is natural
for a wide scale projects and with countries that have similar
ecological problems, and when they have the same goals. Furthermore,
the lack of information about other NGOs in neighboring countries
and especially financial resources is a probable reason for lack
of communication.
Future of East-East cooperative behavior of the NGO
In the future, the Ecobaltic Foundation wants to
have more intensive cooperation with the CCB network and also
their bilateral cooperation partners. Currently, East-East cooperation
with the Kaliningrad district is beginning, the initial contacts
have been established and contacts with Russia are becoming closer.
For national cooperation, the developing network of environmental
NGOs is very important. The Ecobaltic Foundation wants to improve
internal cooperation as well.
REC and East-East cooperation
The Ecobaltic Foundation has several projects with
the RECs Earmarked Grants team, so the REC and the REC procedures
are well known. It is the opinion of the Ecobaltic Foundation
that the REC should promote East-East cooperation, because the
REC has the money to do this and has their own structures for
collecting and disseminating of the necessary information. East-East
cooperation cannot be forced, but by supplying the NGOs with more
focused information about possible and valuable partnerships that
can grow between the NGOs they can help the willing NGOs start
East-East cooperation. Eventually a new grants path, only for
East-East cooperation projects will help to develop existing contacts
consequently expanding cooperation between NGOs . Experiences
from NGOs with certain project should be given to NGOs working
with similar projects in other countries.
REC * PUBLICATIONS * BEYOND BORDERS - SIDE REPORT * POLAND
