State of Environment Report of Bosnia and Herzegovina

State of Environment Report of Bosnia and Herzegovina

October 9, 2013

Environment is a complex natural and social term for the area of the Earth, which was shaped by complex and substantially fulfilled by complex natural and social processes. The environment constitutes of natural environment, soil, air, water, biosphere and built (artificial) environment that has emerged as a result of human activities.

Laws on Environmental Protection of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Brčko District2 (BD) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Laws on Waters3 , are the founding legal acts that define and set out goals, principles, measures, responsibilities, documents, financing and supervision of environmental protection in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and that also regulate the obligation of the competent Ministries to establish a system of providing information on the environment and enable monitoring of the state of the environment.

The State of the Environment Report of BiH 2012 (Report) is the first report on the state of the environment of the country of BiH and it presents one of the founding documents on environmental protection in BiH. Having in mind that, as BiH gets closer to the European Union and to accessing to it, the environment will become one of its priority areas, the Report will certainly be a significant foundation for the assessment of the state of the environment in future negotiations of BiH for access to the EU membership.