The subject does not really make the headlines in the country, yet the effects of climate change are already being felt in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In recent years, Bosnians have already seen the dramatic effects of the phenomenon: drought, heat waves, bad weather. Since 2012, these events have multiplied.
With its mountainous terrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina is particularly vulnerable to floods and landslides. According to a 2020 scientific study, the country would thus rank third in the world among the countries most vulnerable to flooding. Specialists have warned that these destructive events will become more frequent and are expected to particularly affect the forests that cover more than half of the state.
>> European Green Pact: four questions on the “climate package” over which MEPs heated up in the Strasbourg Parliament
While some of the country’s big cities are among the most polluted in Europe, ornithologist Drasko Adamovic is trying to make city dwellers aware of the services provided by these forests: “The forest is an ecosystem that hides enormous ecological potential. All the greenery around us functions as a filter zone for air pollutants and as a carbon sink, it is thanks to it that we live because the air we breathe in the city comes from here. It’s extremely important.”
However, this awareness of environmental issues is still lacking: the issue of climate change is not the priority of political leaders. 27 years after the end of the war that ravaged the country, Bosnia and Herzegovina is still suffering from political tensions and institutional blockages, and the climate emergency is struggling to impose itself.
While forest management is at the heart of responses to climate change, in Bosnia, forests are not managed by the federal state but by the cantons. And in a country riddled with corruption, this absence of a global forestry strategy encourages urbanization and illegal logging. A situation deplored by Maja Bajic, project manager with the NGO Center for the Environment (CZZS): “In Bosnia and Herzegovina, only 2 to 3% of our territory is effectively protected. This is mainly due to the fact that the authorities do not understand the importance of protecting these habitats, but also because the wood from the forests is a source of income for our leaders. More protection would prevent them from making money from this nature.”
Another consequence of climate change linked to rising temperatures: fires are becoming more frequent in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The country lost more than 100,000 hectares of forest last year.