Campaign to protect Kur, Araz in Baku

A campaign "Three banks of a river" organized by NGOs Ecores and Society of Nature Preservation was held in Baku Sunday as part of the Day of Protection of the rivers Kur and Araz.

According to Ecores representative Rajab Mammadov, the Day was proclaimed on the initiative of the South NGO Coalition Kur-Araz four years ago.

The campaign aimed to issue and distribute 45,000 small calendars through volunteers in the streets and parks of Baku. A similar campaign was held in Tbilisi, Georgia, where volunteers were dressed in T-shirts with pictures of the Kur-Araz pool and logos "Pure rivers are a healthy environment".

The Kur and Araz are the biggest rivers in the South Caucasus, surviving the most anthropogenic loads. Physical, chemical, biological, radiation and other types of pollution have changed the sanitary and hygienic conditions of water in these rivers, and a major cause for the troubles is poor ecological knowledge of the population living in the region.

The coalition was set up in Tbilisi in 1999 and incorporates 70 NGOs from the South Caucasus.*