Abstract
Last year, the fires of the Amazon rainforest have globally re-opened the discussion on Climate Change with closely related issues of Biodiversity conservation and global warming problem, thanks to several demonstrations around the world organized by nongovernmental environmental organizations and civil groups, led by a girl by name Greta Thunberg. Therefore, this article will present the main problems which the modern world and humankind have faced (negatively affecting Climate Change and Biodiversity conservation), but with special emphasis on the situation in Montenegro, as a good example of the first ecological country in the world. Hence, Montenegro needs to fulfill all necessary standards in the field of environmental protection and preservation, to become a full member of the European Union. In that context, in this article will be briefly presented the main projects that Montenegro has implemented, in order to preserve nature and the environment, supported by statistics and concrete facts from this area of activities. Thus, at the end of this paper, the main obstacles and the prospects for further progress and improvement of the preservation and protection of the living environment at the global level will be highlighted.
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Notes
- 1.
Montenegro is rich with floristic diversity. It is among the highest in the Western Balkans region (3250 plant species, while 223 endemic plant species and subspecies have been registered). Thus, the territory of Montenegro represents one of the 153 important floristic Biodiversity centers at global level (Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism 2014).
- 2.
Greta Thunberg is the Swedish teenager girl who skipped school classes every Friday and protested because of Climate Change issues, outside the Swedish Parliament building. In that way, she inspired millions of people all around the world and shared her concerns about Climate Changes. She calls attention to individual action, sending a clear message about global warming and the global Climate crisis. Because of that, Greta soon became a heroine who fights for reducing the harmful impact on the Biodiversity and global Environment.
- 3.
It operated and owned by offshore-oil-drilling company Transocean and leased by BP oil company—located in the Macondo oil prospect in the Mississippi Canyon (Pallardy 2020).
- 4.
Five national parks in Montenegro encompasses approximately 80% of the total nationally protected areas, while the rest of it—the remaining 20% refers to the more than 45 sites created as areas of special natural characteristics, monuments of Nature and (specific and general) nature reserves. In addition, several sites hold important international designations: National Park Durmitor and Tara River. Thus, National Park Durmitor has been on UNESCO's World Natural List since 1980, while Tara River canyon is a part of the UNESCO’s network of Man and Biosphere reserves since 1977. Also, it is important to mention that Kotorsko-risanski Bay is on the World’s Natural and Cultural Heritage site, while National Park Skadar Lake and Tivat Saltpans are recognised as Ramsar sites (Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism 2014).
- 5.
The Skadar Lake and the Bojana River represents a wider wetland complex, which lies along the border between Montenegro and Albania. At the same time, it is an important wintering and resting site for migratory waterbirds. “In winter the Skadar Lake regulary harbours 40,000 – 80,000 waterbirds, with Common Coot Fulica atra, Great Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo, Pygmy Cormorant and Common Pochard Aythya ferina as dominant species. The respective numbers of waterbird populations in the Ulcinj Salina fluctuate between 9,000 – 19,000 birds in winter and from fewer than 2000 up to more than 32,000 waterbirds during autumn and spring migration " (Schneider-Jacoby et al. 2006, Stumberger et al. 2008 in Rubinić et al. 2019: 306).
- 6.
To make this kind of tourism real, there was developed an online carbon footprint calculator (You may find it on: www.izračunajCO2). During 2017, it was established in many hotels along the Montenegrin coastline and local tourism organizations as great project support with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions, providing on that way active and interesting vacation for tourists (Šorović 2019).
- 7.
The Dark Snow represents an organization, a group of scientists, led by Spanish polar explorer R. Larramendi. This project for its aim has “the collection of black carbon snow samples to investigate spatial variability and its relationship to snow melt and to assess the WindSled capacity for future green science” (Edwards 2017). Their idea was gathering measurements from the surface of ice in Greenland, in advancing the understanding of the melting of the Arctic which has a crucial importance for further investigations and in the same time to inform the global public what is happening with the Earth (Ibidem).
- 8.
It represents an international team which aims to conserve marine and coastal ecosystems and addresses Climate Change through natural solutions (WILDCOAST 2020).
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Šorović, M. (2022). Montenegro and World: Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation. In: Leal Filho, W., Manolas, E. (eds) Climate Change in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Region. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78566-6_7
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