Environmental Risks in a Society in Transition: Perceptions and Reactions

Abstract

It was the environmentalist movement which signaled the coming changes in Bulgaria at the end of the eighties. Concern was provoked by the government’s inability to handle the problems with the transboundary pollution of the town of Ruse on the Danube River. The nervous reaction of the authorities, who dissolved the citizens’ national committee that had been established for protection of the town, was symptomatic of the fragility of the regime. Another overreaction was the police crackdown on a modest rally against hydrological projects held during the European Conference on Environment, which took place in Sofia in October 1989. Thus, the environmentalists turned out to be the only more-or-less organized collective actor that dared to challenge the regime before the beginning of the fundamental changes, only a fortnight later.