The Danube: We Drink In The Delta
Tourism Could Save - or Shatter - Europe's Ecological Crown Jewel
What follows is a brief trip report on an extraordinary 3-day exploration of the Danube Delta, following the SUSTENLANDIA conference in Bucharest, organised by the Sustainability Embassy in Romania. It spotlights how communist versions of development and the market damaged the Delta ecosystem—and raises the question whether capitalist markets will be any kinder over time?
My main goal in visiting the Delta was to see sites where regeneration has taken—or is taking—place. WWF-UK played a key role both in introducing us to the WWF team on the ground in Romania and in tracking down—and hauling out of retirement for the occasion—our extraordinary guide, Eugen Petrescu. But more on that in a moment.
My debt to deltas
First, though, I have long been fascinated by deltas—ever since I worked on a range of issues across the Nile Delta in both Cairo and Ismailia back in 1975. That experience led to my first published article in New Scientist, an early exercise in whistleblowing.
Entitled “The Wrath of Osiris,” the article spotlighted a range of ecological challenges our team had identified—and which the Egyptian government was dead set on ignoring—during work we had carried out for the UN and various government ministries in the country.
That article, in turn, led to New Scientist commissioning many more over the next few years which, in turn, led to my role in co-founding Environmental Data Services (ENDS) with Max Nicholson and David Layton in 1978. So, at least here, whistleblowing paid off.
More recently, via our Green Swans Observatory and the digital pages of TOPIA, as well as in my latest book, Tickling Sharks (pages 240-245), I have explored the work done by the amazing Azzam Awash in restoring the fabled Iraqi Marshes—which the tyrant Saddam Hussein had worked so hard to wipe off the map.
If history teaches us anything in this space, it is that tyrannies, whether built around personality cults or variants of communism, or both, tend to be bad news for ecosystems with the misfortune to be within their reach.
As we planned our trip, one question I wanted answered was just how big the Delta is? Answer: its approximate surface area is 4,152 square kilometres, or 1,603 square miles, of which 3,446 square kilometres, or 1,331 square miles, is in Romania. The rest of the ecosystem is in Ukraine—indeed, at one point we got quite close to the border, before turning tail and slipping away southwards.
The Delta, effectively, is where the waters of the Danube enter the Black Sea. The result is the second largest—and still the best preserved—of Europe’s deltas, with over 330 species of birds and 45 species of freshwater fish. The area has been listed as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance since 1991—and the protected area, or Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, covers around 580,000 hectares or ~5,800 square kilometres, because it also embraces some surrounding areas.
Ecocidal crimes
While in Bucharest, both before and after our Delta adventure, we stayed in a hotel on the other side of the square where the dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, had attempted—and signally failed—to deliver his last major speech as the Romanian Revolution gathered pace all around. The result was the only violent overthrow of a communist regime during the revolutions of 1989.
Ceaușescu—alongside his equally malign wife, Elena—fled in a helicopter, but were intercepted and captured by the military after losing control of the armed forces. Tried and convicted by a drumhead court of “economic sabotage and genocide,” they were sentenced to death and immediately hauled in front of a firing squad.
Was it a fair trial? No, not at all. But was it a necessary outcome? At least in retrospect, almost certainly. A bit like lancing a particularly unpleasant political boil. Indeed, as we visited sites where the Communist regime had played fast and loose with the Delta ecosystem, it was hard to escape the conclusion that a range of “ecocide” crimes could also have been added to the Ceaușescus’ charge sheet.
So what shape is the Delta itself now in? One thing that struck us fairly forcefully, and I say “we” because I was travelling with my wife Elaine, was the relative absence of plastic pollution—though there were certainly hot spots. Much of the most obvious debris came in the form of empty water and soda bottles. We also hauled one block of expanded polystyrene out of a lagoon to dispose of elsewhere.
The policing also seems to be patchy. At one point we saw a group of poachers speeding into a prohibited area. Time and again, too, we were struck by the number of speed boats, whose wakes undercut and erode the banks of river channels. Perhaps worse, the noise created and the sheer force of their passage disturbs birds, so that they then spook even when quieter boats come into view.
We passed by a vast area of poldering within the Delta, reclaimed for agriculture—and were told that the Dutch were paid to build the things some time ago, and are now being paid to rewild some stretches. In effect, they are being paid both on the way down and on the way back.
During the 1980s, we were told, the Delta was heavily damaged by a series of economically and environmentally disastrous agricultural and fish farming developments, heavily promoted by the regime. This caused the degradation and loss of key wetlands, alongside extensive soil salinization—plus the virtual extinction of the region’s wild carp.
“Correcting” meanders
To be fair, large-scale works had begun in the Delta as early as the second half of the nineteenth century. For example, the length of the Sulina branch of the Danube (one of three main branches of the Danube running through the Delta) was reduced from 92 to 64 kilometres, with its flow more than doubled in the process, making it suitable for large vessels.
Then engineering works designed to “correct” six great meanders (one of my favourite words, incidentally) shrank the length of the Sfântu Gheorghe (Saint George) branch from 108 to 70 kilometres. Such changes adversely also impacted the third, or Chilia, branch, which remains the most unspoiled arm of the three.
Overall these works, alongside the digging of secondary channels throughout the Delta, have had a profound ecological impact. In particular, the breeding pattern of fish was disrupted. In parallel, water flows in the main branches of the river increased, impacting sedimentation and further driving the erosion of banks.
The Delta reedbeds which are such a key feature of the landscape were intensively harvested during the communist era. Indeed, the regime had plans to transform much of the Delta into a vast agro-industrial zone. The first modern agricultural exploitation dates from 1939, but only from 1960 on (Ceaușescu took power in 1965) were large areas drained and converted, further hammering regional wetlands.
By 1991, as a result, agricultural land in the Delta exceeded 100,000 hectares, with more than a third of its surface area impacted by crop cultivation, forest plantation, or fish farming.
Shifting baseline syndrome
As we travelled around the Delta, we saw kingfishers, egrets, pelicans, various forms of eagle, and many other species of bird, though neither of us is any sense a “birder” or “twitcher.” As for mammals, we saw Delta horses, bats, and cattle, while at night we heard dogs and jackals howling at each other. Among mammals we didn’t see, this time, were European beavers and mink, red deer and wild cats, though they’re all to be found there.
It struck me repeatedly that an untutored eye (or ear) moving through this landscape would detect little evidence of the ecological problems outlined above. Another example of what scientists dub the “shifting baseline syndrome,” where our sense of what is natural changes (and, typically, erodes) over time.
Anyone visiting the Delta for the first time would be thrilled by the richness of the wildlife. For the first time in my life, I watched as a white-tailed eagle plunged from the skies to grab a fish in its talons. This happened as we were having a coffee in a riverfront restaurant alongside the Saint George channel, with members of the local WWF team.
We also saw evidence of vibrant populations of cornerstone species like frogs, signalling both the health of local ecosystems and an abundant food supply for a wide range of predators, both above and below the water.
Still, as a direct result of growing pollution and eutrophication (artificial enrichment) across the Danube ecosystem, coupled with decades of weak fishing regulations and weaker enforcement, we discovered that fish populations have been markedly reduced. And when the fish go, so do many of the birds.
On the upside, over 15,000 hectares of wetlands have now been restored, a useful beginning. But before I switch to the subject of ecosystem restoration—and regeneration—I will drop in a few of the images I took around the Delta to give some sense of what it is like to meander through this magical space in the company of someone who knows it like the back of his hand, maybe even better.
Our guide, Eugen, is now 78 and retired. Formerly a teacher, he moved to the Delta in the 1990s and worked for many years with groups of young people—encouraging their interest in wildlife and ecology. Strikingly, he says, a number of them went on to gain doctorates in related subjects.
But, throughout, he made it abundantly clear that he still loathes the “communist crimes” inflicted on the Delta during the Ceaușescu years.
Over three days, where time seemed to become completely elastic, he took us to places we would never have seen in bigger boats. At times, in fact, he seemed even more excited than we were by what we were seeing, as when we watched a fly-past by the season’s first (at least for him) greater spotted eagle.
At times, as we pushed into the dense reedbeds, and then through floating mats of water lilies, it was hard to escape the sense that we were involved in a modern, if lower budget, remake of The African Queen—one of my top five films, starring one of my all-time favorite actresses. Happily, too, and unlike the Ceaușescus (spoiler alert), Humphrey and Kate ultimately escape their would-be executioners.
A Delta kaleidoscope
Ultimately the only way to appreciate the Delta is to go there. But here are a few things we were lucky enough to see as we puttered around the rivers, channels, lakes and lagoons.
Moments of regeneration
Every five or six years, I seem to go through a metamorphosis, where my perspective on the work we do—and its likely impact—morphs. This year, I have been going through one of those periods of personal regeneration, at least I hope that this is what it is.
The publication of my twenty-first book, Tickling Sharks, has left me wanting to aim higher and be more effective in helping to reframe the agenda, both for the wider sustainability movement and for business leaders.
As I argued in my previous book, Green Swans, we must expand our agendas from responsibility (where much of my work has focused) to resilience, as our world becomes ever more volatile and turbulent. Then the next logical step is to boost our understanding of—and investment in—the regeneration of our economies, societies, biosphere and, as is becoming increasingly apparent, our troubled political systems.
Visiting regeneration sites has been one of the things that has helped keep my spirits up—and my momentum building. Indeed, the theme was central to the postgraduate thesis I wrote while at UCL in the early 1970s. But the need for regeneration—across the triple bottom line—has become increasingly urgent.
The largest regeneration project we visited, after a bone-rattling journey at speed along the main channels, was the Mahmudia project, near Turcea. Its recent history is well summed up here. The politics are, shall we say, complicated.
The breaching of a key dike last year, during a period of high water, ignited a fairly intense political controversy—but also doubled the size of the site under regeneration. That said, it remains to be seen whether the farmers who lost the use of grazing land will accept that their tractors stay immersed, taking any compensation in lieu, or whether they will decide to fight to get the land back.
When we later visited the Zaghen ecosystem restoration site on the outskirts of Tulcea, we were struck both by its relative size in a semi-urban setting and by how few birds there seemed to be, even though it is very close to the river. Eugen, who worked for many years in the area, was highly critical of the way that the process had been handled—stressing that any regeneration project must tackle a range of political, economic and ecological succession challenges if it is to endure.
It seems certain that inward tourism can be attracted both by intact, healthy ecosystems and by projects designed to return damaged environments to robust good health. But, as our new WWF friends noted, tough decisions must soon be made about whether this is to be “fast” or “slow” tourism.
The first may have short-term appeal, particularly for those wanting to charge about in supercharged boats, but the only long-term solution will be viable forms of slower tourism.
In that context, one striking fact we learned in talking to Adi and Camelia of WWF was that since the Mahmudia project began, bookings in nearby hotels and beds and breakfasts have tripled. This is exactly the sort of ripple (or “multiplier”) effect that could help build local support for regeneration, which we were told, stands at an astonishingly high 97 percent.
As I joked with Adi, this result sounds very much like the result of an old-fashioned communist election—but it was genuinely one of the most cheering bits of information that surfaced during our Danube Delta adventure. The critical question now is whether capitalism simply repeats the mistakes of communism, or whether properly designed twenty-first century market approaches can ensure outcomes that work for all species.
What an amazing trip (and beautiful pictures). I really appreciated the insights beyond the tourist view. Definitely added to my must see list