General

SAVE THE DATE: 1st European Rivers Summit

From September 27 to 29, we will hold a first European Rivers Summit, which will take place in Sarajevo. Goal of the meeting is to bring together river lovers and initiatives from all over Europe in order to exchange experience, develop ideas and network. The summit ends with a public Balkan Rivers open-air concert featuring artists from the Balkan region. Please share and save the date!

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Patagonia founder: Telling the Dam Truth

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has written an article about hydropower that is meant to rip the green-bandage off this outdated and harmful technology. It has already been covered by several media, such as Huffington Post or Focus and is featured on Patagonia’s blog The Cleanest Line. Enjoy!

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Patagonia petition: No Money, No Dams

Tell the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank (EIB), and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) they must halt their Balkan hydropower investments before the these river jewels are irreversibly destroyed. SIGN THIS PETITION!

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The Dam Truth: Patagonia launches Blue Heart platform

The outdoor outfitter Patagonia is not only supporting our anti-dam campaign, but is also helping to demystify hydro as green and renewable source of energy in general. For this purpose, they have just launched the new website "The dam truth".

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International banks fuelling a hydropower tsunami that’s decimating pristine Balkan rivers – study

+++ Multilateral development banks have supported no fewer than 82 hydropower projects across southeast Europe, including in protected areas, according to a study by CEE Bankwatch Network released today +++

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Research confirms: Hydropower is not carbon neutral!

Hydropower is not green, it is not even carbon neutral, as Washington State University researchers now confirm. “In their paper to be published next week in BioScience, the researchers reported that reservoirs of all sorts are important sources of the potent greenhouse-gas methane. The gas is produced by decomposing organic material underwater,” so the Seattle Times report...

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Program announcement: Madness Hydropower – Sunday at 16:30 im ZDF

On the occasion of the World Rivers Day, the ZDF will air a documentary about the Balkan Rivers and the dam craze that puts them at risk on Sunday, September 25 at 16:30. This episode of the ZDF “planet e” series will depict the beauty of these rivers as well as the opposition against the imminent river regulations and damming.

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Why is the World Bank holding on to out-of-date hydropower?

Hydropower is a phase-out model. Wind and solar – environmentally, socially as well as economically much sounder – are the energy sources of the present and future. Why is then, that the World Bank seems to ignore the global shift in the renewable energy sector and instead continues to advocate for multi-billion dollar dam projects...

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The Balkan River Story on Patagonia's blog

The famous outdoor outfitter Patagonia has just published an article about the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign on their global blog “The Cleanest Line”: 

Save the Blue Heart of Europe: The Balkan Rivers story

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Energy provider Verbund AG: Too much electricity in Europe – not the time for new hydropower plants

Europe’s biggest hydropower corporation, the Austrian Verbund AG, is complaining about too much electricity on the European market. Verbund Chairman Anzengruber says: “It is not the time for extensive new projects in the power plant sector over the next few years. That would not be clever in a time with too much energy”

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