A long climb high into the wild heart of the Carpathian Mountains brings visitors to the source of the Tisza River.

The Tisza River rises in the Carpathian Mountains in north-western Ukraine and crosses five countries: Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia. It links those countries in a shared responsibility to protect the Tisza Basin’s unique natural resources.

The Tisza River Basin covers 157,186 km2 – the largest sub-basin of the Danube – and is home to 14 million people. The Tisza Basin is roughly divided along the centreline by the Carpathian Mountains, east of which lays the 400–600m high plateau of the Transylvanian Basin, and the plains to the west.

The Tisza is formed from the confluence of the Bila and Chorna Tisza rivers, and the source of the Chorna Tisza is considered the source of the whole Tisza River. It is located on the south-western hill of Bratkivska Mountain in the Ukrainian Carpathians, Rakhiv district, Zakarpatska oblast. The source is located at an altitude of around 1240 metres above sea level. A memorial was constructed in 1889 to mark the starting point of the river’s 900 km journey. Since then, the design of the source has changed several times, protected by the caring work of NGOs from Hungary
and Ukraine.

Long-established ties. The Tisza countries have a long history of cooperation, including the agreement in 1986 to protect the Tisza and its tributaries and the establishment of the Tisza Forum in 2000 to address flood issues. The Tisza countries are all parties to the Danube River Protection Convention, the most comprehensive agreement in force for all Danube countries. In addition, all Tisza countries are parties to the Carpathian Convention, which was signed in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2003 and entered into force in 2006.

The first ministerial meeting of the ICPDR in 2004 established the Tisza Group as the platform to strengthen coordination and information exchange related to international, regional and national activities in the Tisza River Basin and to ensure harmonisation and effectiveness of related efforts. The states in the Tisza River agreed to close transboundary cooperation, aiming to achieve integrated management of the Tisza River Basin. The countries committed to the goal of achieving good water status of the rivers in the basin, through addressing water quality and quantity related problems (flood and excess water events, drought and water scarcity, climate change).

Rebuilding through cooperation. Since the establishment of the first memorial at the site in 1889, time and history had taken their toll on the source of the Tisza, and the wall of the source was endangered during the last decade. Enthusiastic members of the Hungarian GEO-ENVIRON Environmental Protection Association (GEO-ENVIRON) from Szeged took steps to reconstruct the source of the Tisza River.

The main objective of GEO-ENVIRON is to search for natural sources, map them and create an inventory of natural sources. Members of GEO-ENVIRON visited the source of the Tisza River in 2006 to paint pathway markers leading to the source and place information signs in Ukrainian and Hungarian. Renovation of the source was carried out in 2009, initiated by GEO-ENVIRON and supported by the Hungarian Ministry of Environment and other environmental organisations. Fieldwork took five days: the destroyed original wall was removed, a new edifice and stairs were built – all work that had to be carried out during challenging weather conditions.

Recognising shared commitment. Following the ceremonial approval of the Integrated Tisza River Basin Management Plan at the Ministerial Meeting in Uzhgorod on 11 April 2011, the Minister for Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine called for the establishment of memorial plates from each country to be placed at the source of the Tisza River, to recognise the significance of the transboundary cooperation between the countries sharing the basin. The initiative was advocated by the ministers and high level representatives of all the countries sharing the Tisza River Basin, and included the support of several organisations from Ukraine: the Zakarpattya Oblast Branch of the All-Ukrainian Ecological League, Rakhiv Administration, Zakarpattya Water Management Board. More than 70 people from the countries of the Tisza River Basin participated in the ceremonial installation of the plates to celebrate Tisza cross-border cooperation.

Thanks to the enthusiasm and heartfelt motivation of the Hungarian NGOs, the lively and soulful support of Ukrainian civil organisations, the initiative of the Ukrainian Minister for Ecology and Natural Resources and the commitment of all five Tisza countries, the source of the Tisza has become a symbol of cooperation for all Tisza River basin countries. Visitors from all over the world can pay their respects to this symbol and reinforce the need to maintain and protect their shared natural resources.