Buk Bijela dam and the Upper Drina cascade
December 13, 2021
Planned as a joint project of public utilities owned by the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, Buk Bijela on the upper Drina is being pushed forward in violation of local legislation and international conventions.
EBRD to Stop Financing HPPs in Protected Areas – Exit – Explaining Albania
May 28, 2019
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has announced that starting from January 1, 2020 it will not finance hydropower plants (HPP) projects in areas with high biodiversity. EBRD’s new environmental and social policy sets stricter
Milestone bank summit in Belgrade a step towards protecting Balkan rivers, but greater transparency still needed
March 1, 2019
For immediate release. Belgrade – The ‘Save the Blue Heart of Europe’ campaign [1] gave a cautious welcome to a first-of-its-kind summit between the financial sector and green activists, where a roundtable about the role of banks in the destruction of Balkan rivers by hydropower dams was centre stage.
EkoSvest calls on Macedonian government to move to more rational renewable energy support system
December 10, 2018
Environmental NGO Eko-svest has this week called on the Macedonian government not to continue subsidising new renewable energy plants through the guaranteed buy-off of electricity at a guaranteed price and to instead move to a more competitive system with lower costs for end consumers.
Shuakhevi hydropower plant, Georgia
August 13, 2018
Georgia’s biggest and one of the most controversial hydropower plants is mostly famous for its failures. Two months after becoming operational in 2017 its tunnels collapsed. And after two years of repairs water is leaking from the dam. Shuakhevi hydropower plant (HPP) once promised to bring energy independence to Georgia. Instead it managed to collect an impressive ‘portfolio’ of problems in a wide range of areas: from biodiversity, to gender impacts, to community relations.
The European Parliament resolution urges European financial institution to respect indigenous peoples rights
August 9, 2018
Celebrate the rights of those 5 per cent who hold 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity. Today is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
Environmentalism and democracy on the rise in Albania
August 1, 2018
Public participation is a prerequisite to functioning democracy. Environmental justice is crucial to sustainable development. But in Albania, a small, southeastern European country only recently emerging from decades-long, self-imposed isolation, democracy is still struggling to be born, and suffers from often being confused with unchecked capitalism.
Devastating floods are the latest warning sign about controversial Nenskra hydropower project
July 31, 2018
From the outside, this tragedy might seem like a natural disaster, a force majeure. But one cannot ignore the human factors at play.
Court complaints launched against Bosnia-Herzegovina hydropower permits
July 26, 2018
Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Nikšić, Podgorica, Prague – The Aarhus Resource Centre Sarajevo has submitted two court complaints [1] to the District Court in Banja Luka against the environmental permits for the Buk Bijela and Foča hydropower plants on the river Drina in Bosnia-Herzegovina near the border with Montenegro.
Environmental problems of Shuakhevi Hydro Power Plant, Adjara, Georgia
July 23, 2018
The 184 MW Shuakhevi Hydro Power Plant is under construction on the Adjaristsqali river and two of its main tributaries in the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, Georgia. The design envisages it as a run-of-the-river plant with capacity of diurnal storage
