HUNGARY

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White Stork nests upon a telephone pole in Tokaj, Hungary.
For more information about efforts to protect the habitat of these storks, please visit the White Stork Protect Project.

The fruits and frustrations of ample farmland

Puszta, gulyas, paprika, palinka and Tokaj wine – the words foreigners know about Hungary refer to "flatland,” good food and drinks.

Although Hungary is surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains, more than half of the country is flatland – excellent for farming – and the hills within the country don’t get much higher than 1,000 meters. The one disadvantage of this kind of terrain is that it facilitates and encourages wide-spread human activity, which can have a negative impact on the environment.

More than 80 percent of the total land in Hungary is designated agricultural, and 18 percent is covered by forest. This means that the soil and the water are the most precious natural treasures in the country. It also means that there are very few natural habitats left in Hungary. Most of the forests and meadows have been utilised and cultivated for centuries.

As a result of clearing the forests, ploughing the meadows and use of pesticides and insecticides, there has been a reduction of natural habitats, which is the main factor putting pressure on most of the endangered and extinct species in the country. The population of animal and plant species are more and more fragmented and isolated from each other. The pressure on natural habitats is still not as high as in some West European countries, and Hungary enjoys good biodiversity. But the list of endangered species grows as time passes.

Almost one third of the country is protected land, and there are nine large national parks. Like in most other Central and East European countries, for many years there was the attitude that "collective property is nobody's property." But democracy and the free market has changed this attitude, and there is increasing pressure to develop more of the land or put it to new uses.

The free market brought rapid changes, and the country adjusted well to the democratic and market economic transition that began in the late '80s. Hungary is now one of the most advanced and West-leaning countries in Central and Eastern Europe – it has become a NATO member state, and European Union accession is expected within two-to-five years.

The country has gained some benefits from this desire to integrate into Western Europe: Efforts to comply with EU standards have brought about improvements in environmental protection, waste management, environmental laws and public participation in environmental decision-making. Hungary is already taking a leading role in the environmental approximation process and has some of the more advanced environmental policy and legislation of the EU accession countries.

But the rapid changes in Hungary have also had some bad effects: Eagerness to develop the economy quickly and the ready acceptance of Western consumer attitudes have pushed environmental concerns into the background. There is a need for environmental education to help citizens learn again to love and protect their natural treasures. And there is no denying that those treasures are under pressure.

There are nearly 57 thousand waste water discharges in Hungary that pollute the surface water; more than 45 percent of this discharge comes from urban settlements. Almost 110 million tons of waste is produced each year, as well as 15 million cubic meters of liquid manure. Within areas covering 15 percent of the country, the air quality is reduced by pollution, and more than half of the population lives in these areas. Approximately 30 percent of the citizens live in conditions of constant noise disturbance.

Most of the natural areas in Hungary are already considerably influenced by human activity – industry, traffic, urban- and rural-development, agricultural use, landfill, mining, waste deposits etc. Only a concerted effort to make environmental progress as important as economic progress will help preserve the country's natural heritage.