11-14 May 2010 Tirana International Hotel Tirana, Albania
The city of Tirana in Albania is the third capital in the Mediterranean region hosting one of the workshops organised by the EU-funded Programme on Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Natural and Man-made Disasters from 11 to 14 May 2010 dealing with “Technological Disasters and Wildfires”.
Lulzim Basha, the Albanian Minister of the Interior together with Helmuth Lohan, Head of the EU Delegation to Albania, and Saba D’Elia, Italian Ambassador in Tirana will welcome the 50 participants from the Civil Protection Authorities of the 14 Mediterranean and Balkan countries participating in the Programme. Among them Mr. Željko DUGONJIC and Mr. Amir FEJZIC representing Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the four-day workshop technological disasters and wildfires will be at the centre of presentations and discussions.
Industrial pollution, toxic wastes, transport accidents, factory explosions, and chemical spills are all technological hazards that according to the EMDAT international disaster database represent an 8% of the total number of accidents occurred in the Mediterranean and Balkan region in the past 20 years causing 650 million euro of economic losses and 870 casualties. Moreover, it is estimated that on average from 600,000 to 800,000 hectares are lost due to 50,000 fires according to the WWF. An area comparable to the islands of Crete or of Corsica, in practice, 1,3%-1,7% of the total Mediterranean forests.
The workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to learn and compare approaches, tools and methods for properly managing the risk of technological disasters and wildfires that are causing more and more losses and damage like the tremendous 2008 Tirana explosion when hundreds of tons of ammunitions blasted causing 26 deaths, 300 injured, 2,300 buildings destroyed and 4,000 displaced.
Fire hazards are increasing because of the raise and severity of dry periods due to the climate change. The need to develop prevention actions and boost land and air-borne combat capacity, particularly through cooperation between countries, becomes more and more evident.
At the end of the workshop, the participants will have developed a common understanding and a shared language for dealing with those hazards. They will be aware of the existing good practices and instruments for managing those risks in the European Union and in the Mediterranean and Balkan countries and will be able to identifying challenges and priorities for action, as well as to better take advantage of the regional cooperation opportunities among Mediterranean countries and the European Union.
One of the main objectives of PPRD South is to take stock of the recent experiences developed by the European, Mediterranean and Balkan countries in disaster risk management and to share information on the available disasters prevention and preparedness methodologies, tools and practices among the civil protection players of the region. To this end the three-year Programme – which is managed by a consortium led by the Italian Civil Protection Department together with the French, Algerian, Egyptian Civil Protection Authorities and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) – is also organising a series of training workshops dealing with the different risks that affect the countries of the region.
Contact: Alessandro Candeloro, +39 349 0850931, info@euromedcp.eu
