Chilia Veche-towards development based on nature restoration

The Chilia Veche port is a well-known landmark in Romania, both due to its proximity to Ukraine and the
industrial history of the town, closely linked to the operation of the port. Also located within the perimeter of
the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, the project plans to improve the port's utility and operation, after the
reduction of local industrial activity, converge towards responsible tourism. At the same time, the adjacent
investments tend to support a sustainable local development around the typical delta tourism. These
represent the conclusions of the studies carried out and the debates with local, regional and national
stakeholders. Based on the problems and ideas identified so far, the project aims to analyze the
opportunities for sustainable development of the Chilia Veche port town by renaturing degraded ecosystems
on an area of 277 hectares. At the same time, the investment potential that would ensure the operation of a
tourist hub port in the northern area of the Danube Delta will be analyzed.
The high level of complexity of the ecological reconstruction project in Chilia Veche requires a substantiation
component that brings together data and information about the socio-economic structure of the community,
about the perceptual frameworks and sets of practices regarding local development, the opportunity for largescale interventions at the level of the natural habitat with structural implications and effects for the entire
community.
The project can ensure an integrated character only if it develops knowledge and evaluation components
that allow the stimulation and active involvement of different categories of social actors in the community in
solving its problems, including the reconstruction of unproductive lands in the locality.
The project is based on the identification of the elements of perception, evaluation and expectations of
community members regarding the constructive elements proposed by this project.
We aim to redefine the Chilia Veche area and the interactions between hydro-logical, economic,
demographic, social, political and cultural transformations through the notion of "hydro-social territories". By
these we mean socially, naturally and politically constituted spaces that are (re)created through interactions
between human practices, hydro-logical flows and technologies, biophysical elements, socio-economic
structures and cultural-political institutions.
The main objective is to analyze local development opportunities including the potential for renaturation of the identified degraded wetland and its integration into the overall sustainable economic development plan, also using the advantages offered by the port area. The ecosystem services considered in the analysis were: biodiversity protection, fishing service and fish farms, naturalized rivers and erosion prevention, water quality, nutrient cycling and water purification, ecosystem vulnerability to climate change, ecotourism, recreational activities.