Environmental Advocacy Efforts Successful in Lilo District
Inhabitants of Lilo district in Tbilisi are on their way to solving the environmental problem through community mobilization and partnering with the national civil society organization. However, the municipal authorities are slow to implement the court ruling on what became first successful campaign to address the waste management issues.
The dump located in Lilo district is one of the biggest dumps of the city gathering the waste of the whole capital. Open, 7,5 hectares dump of food and utility wastes is located between the airport and Lilo district, in close proximity to the apartment blocks. Contamination and different types of rodents endanger the local inhabitants. According to the decision of city municipality the dump had to be closed in 1998, but it continued to function well beyond this date.
In 2001-2002 local community union “Lilo” appealed the Ministry of Environment and the Committee on Environmental issues of city municipality demanding to stop the operation of the dump. However, no results were achieved.
Community union approached the Center for Strategic Research and Development of Georgia, (CSRDG) one of the leading expert CSOs of Georgia for assistance. Currently, CSRDG implements a project “Environmental Advocacy”, aiming to ensure compatibility of the Georgian legislation with Aarhus Environmental Convention and assist citizens to protect their right of living in healthy environment.
In 2002 CSRDG and the community union “Lilo” appealed a district court demanding to close down the dump. On February 21, 2002 the court ruled in favor of Lilo inhabitants and obliged Tbilisi Municipality and the city council to allocate funds in 2002 Tbilisi budget for closing down the Lilo dump. The court also ruled to create a commission based on representatives of city municipality, city council and the CSOs to monitor usage of these funds.
After a year since the ruling, the decision is still not carried out. CSRDG sent several letters to Tbilisi mayor and the head of the city council, asking for action to be taken. Only after number of applications CSRDG got response expressing willingness of cooperation on the matter from the side of Municipality as well as Sakrebulo.
The organization was asked to be involved in work of the special commission on Lilo dump set up according to the Court decision. “We plan to conduct monitoring for carrying out the court decision and finish first environmental advocacy campaign successfully,” Eka Badridze, of CSRDG, told Advocacy.ge.
By Julie Giorgadze, CAP Information Officer