The Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism has presented the map of environmental hotspots in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It covers 48 locations evenly split with 24 sites each in the Federation of BiH and the Republic of Srpska, the country’s two entities.
Out of 48 identified locations, 35 exceed remediation threshold values, indicating contamination levels that require environmental remediation, while 13 exceed legal threshold limits or pollution levels that surpass set standards.
“A total of 117 locations were analyzed, from which 48 were prioritized for further assessment. These include landfills, industrial and mining sites, former military facilities, and other areas posing potential environmental impacts,” according to the Institute for Protection and Ecology of the Republic of Srpska, Nezavisne novine reported.
Pozder: Environmental hotspots map is not just a list of sites and problems
Federal Minister of Environment and Tourism Nasiha Pozder pointed out that the environmental hotspots map goes beyond an inventory of locations and problems.
“It is a practical toolkit that enables us to set priorities, assess ground conditions, and plan concrete measures. Our goal is to move from identifying environmental hotspots to actively remediating them,” she explained.
In cooperation with the UNDP in BiH, the ministry selected the Veovača flotation tailings pond-lake in the municipality of Vareš and the Ada landfill in Čapljina as priority locations for drafting remediation and land reclamation plans.
“We are starting with specific sites to build solid technical foundations, assess conditions and risks, and define targeted measures. The experience gained from this process will be used to address other environmental hotspots,” Pozder said.
Preparations underway for the remediation of two locations
A total of BAM 300,000 (EUR 153,530) has been secured for the remediation and closure of the Ada landfill in Čapljina. Meanwhile, approximately BAM 76,000 (EUR 39,000) has been allocated for the Vareš site to support a multidisciplinary team conducting comprehensive analyses, including soil and food testing, to determine baseline environmental conditions and potential hazards.
The Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism provided BAM 100,000 (EUR 51,180) to fund the creation of the environmental hotspots map of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was officially presented at the UN House in Sarajevo.
Minister Pozder expressed gratitude to the governments of Sweden and Switzerland for their financial backing, to UNDP in BiH for its operational partnership, and to the institutions, local communities, and experts who contributed to developing the map.
The presentation was attended by Mirza Hujić, Assistant Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH; Renaud Meyer, UNDP Resident Representative in BiH; and Duško Solomun, Assistant Minister for Environmental Protection at the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology of the Republic of Srpska.
