Energy equals power. The idea of energy, and oil and gas resources, as bound with the international balance of power is common currency these days.

In South America, there is a resurgence of “resource nationalism”, with oil-rich countries such as Chavez’s Venezuela tightening their grip on their precious commodities to up the stakes and their bargaining muscle with the West. While in UN talks with Iran over its uranium enrichment programme, the concept of “oil as a weapon” crops up repeatedly in connection with fears that Iran may raise oil prices should the UN impose sanctions on it.

The concept of what it is to be rich in something, or of something having value are played out in terms of dollars and bargaining power. There is no place for the intrinsic value of being rich in other things, such as biodiversity. Doesn’t this have a value deeper than its mere potential for exploitation?

Bulgaria is one of nine countries through which the River Danube flows. The Danube is Europe’s second largest river after the Volga. It is one of Europe’s largest wetlands and home to over 100 species of fish and 300 species of birds. As such, it is indeed rich in biodiversity. It is also valued as a natural resource by Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine, and, therefore, inevitably of significant economic importance to these countries, which use it for freight transport, hydroelectricity, water supplies, irrigation, and fishing. However, the value placed on it as a resource to be exploited by those who benefit from it, outweighs the value placed on its preservation or respect for its role in supporting habitats other than those of humans – to disastrous ends.

The Danube made headlines in the Bulgarian and foreign media recently when it burst its banks in many places, causing flooding in Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Hungary and Austria. Serious floods in the Danube Basin, which comprises 18 countries, also occurred in 2002 and as recently as last year.

Flooding, to some extent, cannot be prevented. In 1998-2000 parts of Europe were subject to about 100 serious floods, causing about 700 fatalities, the displacement of about half a million people and at least 25 billion euro in insured economic losses; about 1.5 per cent of the European population were directly affected by flooding in this period, according to the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube, (ICPD). However, the effects of flooding are worsened due to deforestation, destruction of floodplains and climate change. Things can and should be done to address these factors.

One of the major problems for The Danube is the way in which the river has been manipulated for humans’ convenience without thought for the wider consequences. In an article released at the end of April, the WWF argues that human intervention in The Danube’s flood plains is to blame for the extent of the recent floods. Compared to 150 years ago, less than a fifth of The Danube’s natural flood plains are still preserved. This is due to the alteration of the river’s course for hydropower stations and to accommodate large vessels.

The WWF says that one of the most dramatic recent threats to the future of the Danube is the Bystroye canal project, started two years ago in Ukraine. “Without public notice and in violation of national and international environmental law the Ukrainian government, then under the regime of President Leonid Kuchma, began dredging a canal through the delta to allow large vessels to travel directly between the Danube River and the Black Sea.” Thanks to campaigning and a new government, the project is now put on hold, but how it will develop is unclear.

Flooding is not the only problem facing the Danube. Pollution comes mainly in the form of excessive volumes of nutrients entering the river, mainly from agricultural fertilisers and inadequately treated sewage. The chemical, food, and pulp and paper industries are among the main industrial polluters in the Danube River Basin. Discharges from such plants significantly raise the levels of heavy metals and organic micro-pollutants in the river network. The immediate environmental impacts include water pollution, groundwater and soil contamination, the reduced availability of clean water. A study by the ICDP found heavy metal pollution hot spots to be the Rusenski Lom, the Iskar and the Timok tributaries in Bulgaria.

This pollution in turn effects the Black Sea, into which the Danube flows. The ICDP says that the Black Sea eco-systems have been radically changed by pollution since the 1960s.

Then, of course there is the damage to wildlife. Some of the species living on the Danube have decreased so drastically in numbers that they are now classified as endangered. These include the white-tailed eagle, the black stork, the dalmatian pelican and the sturgeon.

The uncontrolled development of tourism is another example of profits being put before preservation. “Residential and other infrastructure, much of it illegal, is also fragmenting and encroaching on the river’s exceptional natural areas. Poorly planned mass tourism developments are gradually destroying the very features that are the area’s greatest attraction,” says the WWF.

This exemplifies the forces at work in a world where values are distorted by dollars, where to be rich means only to be surrounded by material wealth, and to be valuable means only to make profits. “If Central and Eastern Europe is richer than the West in one thing, it is natural capital,” writes Ors Marczin in Green Horizon, (March 2006). That may be so, but in order that it remain this way, this richness in natural capital needs to be recognised as such, and investments made in the interests of its preservation, not just the interests of capitalism.