Wetland Europe
CULTURES
Danube Delta
In Romania’s isolated Danube Delta, traditional communities are struggling to survive
in the face of reduced fishing, tighter regulations and economic migration. Kit Gillet
explores the challenges that exist in one of Europe’s most bio-diverse regions
P h o t o g r a p h s by A n d r e i P u n g ov s c h i
36 | April 2016
April 2016 | 37
CULTURES
Danube Delta
young people have abandoned the villages to find
work elsewhere and efforts made by the authorities
to regulate fishing and the cutting of reed beds – in
order to preserve the natural habitat before it’s too
late – have restricted their livelihoods.
FISH STOCKS
I
t’s close to midnight and the mosquitoes are
out in force, yet Marius Nestor barely seems
to notice, despite the fact they swarm around
his head. Smoking a cigarette outside a
rundown fishermen’s bar in the isolated
Romanian town of Sfantu Gheorghe, on the far
edge of Europe’s second longest river, the 37-yearold talks about his life to date.
‘I started work at 14; I gutted and cleaned the fish.
From 17, my dad would take me out every day to
show me how to catch fish,’ he says, remembering
a period in the early 1990s, soon after the fall of
communism in Romania.
Nowadays, like many fishermen in the Danube
Delta, perhaps the least inhabited region of Europe,
Nestor struggles to make a living, caught between
the duel pressures of those trying to preserve the
delta and its stunning wildlife and the traditional
communities within it who are fighting to survive.
‘They don’t allow us to fish where there is fish,
because those are now protected areas,’ he says.
A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1991, the
Danube Delta is one of the most diverse regions on
the planet – a unique habitat of canals, reed-beds,
38 | April 2016
Sturgeon, which could make a local
fisherman’s fortune when sold, is
now an endangered species
lakes and ponds that acts as an important breeding
ground for hundreds of species of birds and
freshwater fish, including several rare and
threatened species. White-tailed eagles can be seen
hunting for prey among the reed beds, while white
pelicans and pygmy cormorants skim along the
water almost playfully. Somewhere in the waters
below, many of the remaining wild sturgeon of the
Danube live out their long lives.
The delta is the ending point of the Danube river,
which snakes its way 1,785 miles through the heart
of continental Europe, through ten countries and
four European capitals. The WWF considers the
lower part of the Danube, including its delta, among
the 200 most valuable eco-regions in the world,
while its labyrinth of channels makes it one of the
largest wetlands on the planet.
Yet for the traditional communities that live
within, life has always been hard. In fact, it has
become increasingly difficult in recent years as
ABOVE, LEFT: Sfantu
Gheorghe is having to
find alternative sources
of income; ABOVE,
RIGHT: fish stocks are
drying up in the delta,
leading to reduced
income for the locals
Four hours from the nearest city and accessible
only by boat, the 860 residents of Sfantu Gheorghe
rely on a single ferry that docks every other day for
any supplies that they can’t grow or catch
themselves. Roads in the town are unpaved and
streetlights spaced far apart.
At night, the men head out in their small fishing
boats, hoping to catch enough fish to feed their
families and then earn enough extra money to
survive the cold winter months. They return in the
early morning to gut the fish and then gather at
one of the bars to start drinking.
‘I have to fish all year round, even in the winter
when the water sometimes freezes over. It’s the
only income I have,’ says Nestor, sitting under a
single bare light bulb outside the bar. ‘Once,
together with five other fishermen, I caught a
sturgeon that weighed 220 kilos, with 58 kilos of
fish eggs. I made 45,000 lei [£8,000] just from that,
but that was in 2001. Life got harder since Romania
joined the EU, not because of EU, but because of
the Romanian government,’ he adds.
For generations, local communities in the
Danube Delta have survived mostly by catching
fish. Yet over the past 50 years supplies of fish have
dwindled steadily as overfishing combined with the
reclaiming of wetlands for arable use, particularly in
the 1970s and 1980s, impacted on spawning
grounds and fish populations. Industrial and
agricultural waste further added to the damage.
Sturgeon, a source of high-grade caviar which
could, with one catch, make a local fisherman’s
fortune when sold, is now an endangered species in
the waters; in 2006, Romania placed a ten-year ban
on catching sturgeon in the Danube. Dalia Onara, a
researcher at the Danube Delta National Institute
for Research and Development in the nearby city of
Tulcea, admits that illegal sturgeon fishing still takes
place within the delta as it is one of the few
opportunities to earn significant money,
‘We all know there is illegal fishing, and that it is
tolerated,’ she says. ‘On one of the bridges out of
Tulcea you can see people on the roadside selling
fish. Often it’s a sturgeon.’
‘The biggest sturgeon I saw was 400 kilos and
three metres long,’ says Vasile Ciumac, a 57-year-old
local fisherman, talking about the years before the
ban as he walks through a long-deserted building.
‘But books say there were sturgeon that weighed
1.5 tonnes.’
Ciumac has taken me to visit a former fish
collection centre, now an abandoned set of
buildings located down one of the small river
channels a short distance from Sfantu Gheorghe.
Inside the main hall, 80 large vats – which once
would have been filled with the day’s catches –
stand empty. Cobwebs hang all around, while many
of the building’s windows are smashed. The place
was shut in 1995, after failing to meet European
standards for the water used to clean the fish.
‘At some point there was so much fish that they
just had to throw it on the floor,’ he says.
Some local villagers have had the idea of turning
the buildings into a museum or a community-owned
fish centre and market, but so far that has yet to
happen, and so it stays as it is; a forgotten place
only visited by a few people like Ciumac, who used
to work there and who rows over in his ancient
boat to visit with the lone caretaker and his dog.
Fishing is the only livelihood most of the local
communities in the Danube Delta have ever known,
and finding an alternative is not easy. Some in the
delta have set up guest houses and eco-lodges to
try to take advantage of the interest from domestic
and international tourists in the delta’s wildlife,
returning to fishing in the tourist off-season.
In places like Sfantu Gheorghe, on the far end of
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CULTURES
Danube Delta
one of the delta’s main channels and popular with
visitors, this has worked to a degree, but it requires
start-up capital that many are lacking. For those in
communities only accessible by smaller boats, it is
likely next to impossible.
UNFAVOURABLE AREA
Travelling between the isolated communities within
the delta can be complicated. Beyond the daily
ferries that along the three main channels, reaching
more isolated villages requires smaller boats able
to navigate the thin and winding waterways.
The journey from Sfantu Gheorghe to Caraorman
takes around 90 minutes, passing through
unmarked channels and under fallen trees. The
boat navigates through freshwater lakes, skies filled
with birdlife, and passes fish weighing stations
where cats lazily eat discarded fish guts. Vast beds
of reeds, some of which are being cut down to be
used as roofing for local’s houses, seem to glide by.
In the 1980s, communist Romania had the idea of
establishing a sand factory in Caraorman, and
coming into the village along a man-made channel,
the skeleton remains of the factory, which was
never operational, stand starkly against the skyline.
Behind, a series of six-storey blocks of flats slowly
fall into ruin; the never-occupied rooms empty but
for loose wiring and graffiti left behind by local
children. Caraorman itself isn’t faring much better.
Many of its houses are abandoned and its
population is shrinking fast. The cemetery is
overgrown with weeds.
‘There are now 280 people here. When I was a kid
it was around 1,500,’ says Mihaela Ivanov, a polite,
middle-aged lady who owns one of the village’s two
shops. ‘Some left because it is difficult to find work,
but most died. Our priest has been here six years
– in that time he’s buried 80, with just three born.’
Ivanov was born in Caraorman, and like most of
the village she is ethnically Ukrainian. The delta
region of Romania is made up of diverse
communities, with Romanians joined by Ukrainians,
40 | April 2016
Turks, Bulgarians and Lipovan Russians, old
believers of the Orthodox Church who fled to the
region to avoid persecution back home generations
ago. Locals often speak more than one language,
depending on whom they are talking to.
Most of the people in Caraorman are fishermen,
and life is getting harder for them. Isolated delta
communities like Caraorman are on life support.
The local school has just seven children, including
the kindergarten, who study in two classes.
‘There are ten families in the village who have no
kids; they prefer not to have them because of the
conditions here,’ says Ivanov. ‘This year we were
declared an “unfavourable area”. Taxes might drop
from 16 per cent to three per cent. There are
months when my husband doesn’t make any
money from fishing. You can’t really survive on
fishing alone anymore.’
‘Everyone young left, it’s only the old people
now,’ says 74-year-old Contzolenco Timofte, just
back from placing his fishing nets overnight and
busy repairing the wooden fence outside his house.
‘It was better in communist times. Then everyone
had work, nowadays so many young people are
unemployed. They have a hard time making a living.’
RECOVERY EFFORTS
During the last decades of communism in Romania,
ending in 1989, industrial and agricultural
development across the delta region, and further
upriver, impacted heavily on the environmental
balance of the entire region, with agricultural and
industrial waste seeping into the water, causing
far-reaching pollution. By transforming wetland into
fishponds or draining it for agricultural use, the
authorities also drastically affected the natural
habitats and spawning grounds for various species.
‘A lot of the wetlands were drained in the 1970s
and 1980s,’ says Cristian Tetelea, former Head of
the Fresh Water department at WWF Romania,
‘approximately 80,000 hectares out of a total area
of around 500,000 hectares.’
ABOVE, LEFT: few young
people remain in the
area, leaving to find work
and opportunities
elsewhere; ABOVE,
RIGHT: Russian
Orthodoxy is one of the
main religions in the area
Caraorman isn’t faring well. Many
of its houses are abandoned and
its population is shrinking fast
WWF Romania recently finished working on a
project in Mahmudia, a small village of 2,000
residents on the southern delta channel, upstream
from Sfantu Gheorghe. The aim, successfully
achieved, was to return wetland drained in the
1980s to its former state by breaching two existing
dikes and reflooding the area.
According to Tetelea, earlier attempts to create
more arable land across the delta region were
largely unsuccessful; the land at Mahmudia was
initially used for crops but the soil became dry and
was turned over to grazing. ‘But it wasn’t good for
that either,’ he adds. ‘We have now recreated the
previous channels that will give the communities
better connections to the internal delta and its
resources. It was a long process to convince the
authorities and land owners; to make them
understand that it is good for nature but also good
for them. After flooding, nature takes back control.
In one to three years the wetland can recover.’
LOCAL THINKING
Nowadays, communities in the delta are cautious
when it comes to outside involvement or help,
which in the past – whether it was the communist
government or those that have come since – has
often had a negative effect on the local population.
‘Authorities don’t generally involve locals in their
decisions,’ says Tetelea. ‘The environmental
regulations put in place over the last few years have
had positive impacts – species have recovered or
stabilised – but locals complain there are too many
regulations; that they can’t compete anymore.
There is a truth to this.’
Sitting in his office in the centre of Sfantu
Gheorghe, Valentin Sidorencu, a former forestry
worker and the city’s mayor from 2008 to 2015, is
adamant that things would be better without
outside interference. ‘We don’t need to be helped –
we need to be left alone to do what we’ve always
done. We understand nature, live among it, know
how to guard it.’
Outside his door, one of Europe’s most important,
isolated and diverse regions stretches outwards.
This article was reported with the help of a Europa
grant from the Romanian Cultural Institute.
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