Nenskra hydropower plant, Georgia

The area where the Nenskra dam is planned to be erected, as well as the banks of both the Nenskra and Nakra rivers, are now adorned by black alder trees. Only few of them will remain if the project is realised as planned.

Various river habitats will also be irreversibly altered, not only at the site of the dam itself but also throughout the 17 kilometers downstream the Nenskra river, and the 9 kilometers downstream the Nakra river, as a result of the drastic changes in the water flows and sedimentation regime.

The reservoir that will form behind the Nenskra dam is expected to submerge around 200 hectares of the Caucasian beech forest on the surrounding mountain slopes. In fact, this unique habitat has already been damaged by newly paved access roads leading to the project site. The construction of the dam and additional roads will inevitably take an even heavier toll on this old-growth forest.

Moreover, the area slated for the reservoir – 400 hectares in total – is known as particularly important for the local population of brown bears which, like other local mammal species such as wolves and lynxes, are only likely to suffer serious disturbances throughout the construction of the Nenskra project and during its operation.

In addition, the increased and permanent human presence in an area that has been a wilderness since millennia poses an especially severe risk to the West Caucasian tur and the Persian leopard, two species already considered globally endangered, not least as a result of poaching.

The environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) for the project, which was supposed to account for the natural wealth in the area and hence be a key red flag, turned out to be wholly insufficient. An external review of the assessment report, commissioned by the Georgian environment ministry, determined it contains a range of insufficiencies and warned about the environmental price tag of the Nenskra project.

Still, after the project design has been heavily modified to meet requirements set by the international financial institutions backing the project, in February 2019 the Georgian environment ministry decided to waive the legal requirement for a new ESIA. Instead, the ministry ruled that the original, flawed ESIA remains valid. The following month two Geogian NGOs decided to challenge the ministry’s decision in court.

The Upper Svaneti region is a geologically volatile mountainous area prone to landslides and mudflows. This natural hazard is even more pronounced at the site of the planned Nenskra reservoir and around Nakra.

The village has a history of mudlows that have already washed away the local cemetery and agricultural fields. The local residents have long been calling for protection measures, and they now fear that works on the Nakra river could cause flooding of their village.

In July 2018, the Chuberi community, closer to the dam site, has seen major floods damaging road infrastructure, devastating the homes of at least three families, and ultimately leaving the entire community “without … proper access to drinking water and electricity,” according to an emergency report of the Red Cross.

Members of the local community are worried this tragedy could repeat with works on the massive hydropower project in an area that is already geologically unstable. And they have a good reason to be concerned since the Nenskra project promoter has failed to undertake a genuinely comprehensive assessment of the geological, hydrological and seismic conditions around the project site.

In addition, there are concerns that works on the tunnel through the ridge between the Nakra and Nenskra valleys, that are planned to include blasting, could accelerate the degradation of the nearby glacier.

Living within the Nenskra valley, the indigenous Svans have thrived for millennia, self-dependent and largely in isolation. The Svans make an ethnic subgroup of Georgia’s Caucasus mountains with their own language, laws and traditions.

The longstanding traditions in Svan communities in the region govern customary land ownership as well as decision-making and judiciary institutions such as the Lalkhor, the Councils of Elders.

Therefore, the Svans bear the characteristics of an indigenous people as spelled out in the International Labour Organisation’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention and several other international treaties.

But above all, the Svans identify themselves as an indigenous people. In March 2018, representative of 17 Upper Svaneti communities convened the Lalkhor in response to a string of development projects that threaten their livelihoods and the natural environment. In a milestone event, the council issued an official declaration demanding Svans are recognised as an ancient, indigenous, aboriginal, autochthonic people with appropriate rights for customary and community property in Svaneti. The declaration also called to stop the development of infrastructure projects, including the Nenskra hydropower plant, that do not have the local communities’ consent.

As an indigenous people Svans are entitled to certain protections that are formally recognised by at least three of Nenskra’s international financiers. Yet, so far these development banks have all failed to acknowledge the Svan’s indigenous status. In 2018, Green Alternative and Bankwatch lodged complaints with the grievance mechanisms of the EIB, EBRD and the ADB, requesting the banks apply their indigenous peoples standards in the Nenskra case.

As of June 2019, these complaints are yet to be resolved, and the Svans remain locked in a struggle for recognition as an indigenous people and the protections for their lands, culture and heritage that comes with it.

The livelihoods of approximately 1 000 people who live in the villages of Nakra and Chuberi are intimately linked to the natural environment as they rely primarily on forestry, animal grazing, and subsistence agriculture, and the Nenskra hydropower plant could compromise all types of livelihood in the area.

The massive project would entail a significant loss of agricultural lands and pastures that are customarily used by families or the community, and it could also change the micro-climate in the two valleys, thus altering the conditions enabling people’s livelihoods.

Such profound permanent changes would inevitably take a serious toll on the local economy – threatening to push local residents into poverty and marginalisation – and ultimately pose a risk to the traditional way of life the Svans have been nurturing since generations. Some local residents fear that the new reality will leave them no option but to move away.

In particular, as a 2016 study by Green Alternative and Both Ends found, women stand to bear a disproportionate brunt from building of the Nenskra hydropower plant. The project’s ESIA contains only a token paragraph on the gender aspect, which is essentially an aggregate, crude description of the current situation. The report authors note that the ESIA fails to assess any gender impacts the Nenskra project might have, including the various implications for the communities, and specifically on women of bringing in a large, male-dominated workforce for the construction of the project.

According to a report by the project promoter JSC Nenskra, 13% of the women in the two communities are farmers, 33% are housewives. While the company has been claiming the project would benefit the local residents through the creation of new jobs during the construction phase, it’s mostly men who would be recruited. And if indeed local men, who normally work in sustenance agriculture, will be employed in the project, the result could be increased workload for women substituting them on top of their current responsibilities. At the same time, women who sell nuts and berries they collect are concerned they could lose much of their incomes because of the project’s impact on the local forests.

None of these have been recognised by JSC Nenskra, neither has it proposed any meaningful measures to prevent or mitigate the impact on the local women.

Watch: In the shadow of the dam

Claims by the project promoter that the Nenskra hydropower plant enjoys wide public support are at odds with reality. From its inception, the project has increased tensions within and among Svan communities in the region. Numerous rallies have been organized over the past four years in Svaneti and in the capital Tbilisi to protest the heavy toll the project is set to take on local communities and the pristine nature.

More than 3,000 signatures have been collected in support of the Lalkhor declaration from March 2018.

Moreover, even though protests have been peaceful, opponents of the project have also faced intimidation. Senior politicians have repeatedly criticized protesters, arguing their actions are “meaningless”. Some locals have complained that they received threats prior to public meetings, specifically aimed to discourage them from carrying posters and banners or interrupting the public hearings in any way, and police forces have also been present at public consultation meetings.

Resistance to the building of the Nenskra plant has been escalating in tandem with growing protests against almost a dozen other controversial hydropower projects throughout Svaneti and beyond, and they are only likely to increase if local residents feel the project promoter, the Georgian government and the international investors continue to turn a blind eye to their objections to the project.