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Opportunities for biodiversity and environment missed in Bulgarian recovery plan

15 April, 2021

Instead of reforms, the country plans to rehab an irrigation system that can potentially destroy wetlands, and without transparency and public dialogue, the plan cements business-as-usual. With a 30 April deadline for submitting national recovery plans approaching and recent parliamentary elections, the Bulgarian government is failing to propose reforms and measures for biodiversity, sustainable agriculture and low carbon economy. Instead, actions such as rehabilitating state-owned irrigation systems not only contradict national strategies but might damage valuable wetland habitats. A lack of transparency and public dialogue casts a further shadow on the process.

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Half green and half-blind on democracy. As the EBRD turns 30 the vision of its founders is still far out of sight

14 April, 2021

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was created in 1991 at a unique moment in history: after the fall of the Berlin wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the run-up for the Rio Earth Summit on Sustainable Development and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

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Last chance for Member States to include biodiversity in recovery plans

12 April, 2021

Instead of proposing measures that protect nature, countries plan to spend recovery money on projects that jeopardise the EU’s biodiversity objectives. Countries can still reverse this worrying trend before it’s too late.

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Saving ‘private’ Rioni: Georgia’s growing environmental protest

9 April, 2021

In just a few months, a protest against a large dam on the Rioni River has grown from a handful of people in Lechkhumi, western Georgia into a national demonstration. On the International Day of Action for Rivers, 14 March, thousands of Georgians made history with the largest environmental protest in the country’s recent past.

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Biodiversity forgotten in the Latvian recovery plan

8 April, 2021

There is less than one month left for Member States to submit their national recovery and resilience plans to the European Commission. Yet, the Latvian plan is still far from fulfilling the Commission’s requirements to allocate at least 37% of proposed measures to achieving climate objectives.

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