A clash is raging between nature and finance. On the one hand, the EU is striving to improve the deteriorating state of nature across Europe, with initiatives like the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the European Green Deal. On the other, massive amounts of public money continue to flow to infrastructure projects with devastating impacts on the natural world. Our work where finance meets the natural world advocates for adequate protection and restoration projects to ensure a green future for all.
IN FOCUS
Rivers and communities
The countries of the Energy Community Treaty have diverse energy mixes, but hydropower has traditionally played a strong role in many of them. Albania is almost completely reliant on dams for its domestic electricity generation, followed by Georgia with an average of 80 per cent of electricity generated by hydropower and Montenegro with an average of 55 per cent.
EU funds and biodiversity
In May 2020, EU leaders committed to an ambitious Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, outlining the clear need to act on biodiversity loss and address the failing health of nature.
Discussions are now underway to agree on a new EU budget which will run from 2027 to 2034. This represents a golden opportunity to improve biodiversity spending to achieve the objectives of the biodiversity strategy in full.
As well as addressing the biodiversity crisis, strategically supporting nature through EU funds is also one of the most effective ways to tackle climate change, while providing jobs and improved health at the same time.
Yet, with many of the previous strategy’s objectives left unachieved, the pressure now mounts for this decade. Never before has there been so much potential – and urgency – to use EU funds and investments to address the biodiversity crisis.
Related projects
Free-flowing rivers in Central Asia
Central Asian rivers are under threat from hundreds of new hydropower plants. We have created a map of the key rivers in the region that need urgent protection and are calling on the development banks to stop their destruction.
Emerald Network in the Western Balkans
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia are required to establish a sufficient number of Emerald Network sites as signatories to the Bern Convention. However, since 2011, not a single new site has been proposed and many stunning rivers remain unprotected. The #EmeraldForRivers campaign aims to support governments in expanding the Emerald Network.
Turnu Măgurele – Nikopol Hydraulic Structures Assembly on the Danube river, Romania and Bulgaria
The project, if built, would not only devastate critical habitats, leading to the potential extinction of species such as the Danube sturgeons, but also displace local communities, disrupt existing investments, and violate several EU environmental directives.
Latest news
European Commission complicit in EU nature law violations in Bulgaria’s Kresna gorge
Blog entry | 18 October, 2017The government is heading downhill in the Kresna Gorge with an EU funded motorway project. The European Commission watches the tragedy unfold and overlooks persisting procedural and legal flaws.
Read moreBulgaria to carve motorway through nature haven
Press release | 13 October, 2017The Bulgarian government has yesterday evening announced it will construct an international motorway partially through EU protected wildlife haven Kresna Gorge, threatening tragedy for one of Europe’s most biodiverse nature sites.
Read moreNenskra HPP: the concerns of worried locals fall on deaf ears of project developers
Blog entry | 12 October, 2017In an interview, a teacher from Chuberi in the Svaneti mountains gave us an impression of how the project developers of the planned Nenskra dam engage with locals.
Read moreRelated publications
Kungrad 1-3 wind power project, Uzbekistan
Policy comments | 11 March, 2025 | Download PDFThese detailed comments refer to the draft environmental and social impact assessment report for a 1.5 GW wind project Kungrad 1, 2 and 3 in Uzbekistan. The comments were submitted to the Asian Development Bank in March 2024. This project is one of sev
How to interact with development banks lending to hydropower projects in Central Asia: A toolkit for civil society activists
Toolkit | 3 February, 2025 | Download PDFThis toolkit is aimed primarily at civil society organisations in Central Asia tackling the construction of dams or other unsustainable water infrastructure.
Needs and priorities for biodiversity funding: A comparative analysis of Hungary and Poland
Briefing | 20 December, 2024 | Download PDFThis publication provides an overview of the priorities for national biodiversity needs in two countries – Hungary and Poland.
