International Rivers

📣Join us and our partners for a #RightsOfRivers event!

The #BalkanRivers are some of the last #free-flowing rivers of #Europe and are a hotspot for #biodiversity. These rivers are now being threathened by plans to build over 2,500 dams! #StopTheDams

Keynote speaker:

Monti Aguirre, Latin America Program Coordinator, International Rivers Register

Dams on the Balkan rivers – the ecocide case of Serbia’s Kopaonik Josanica region.

The Balkan rivers are some of the last free-flowing and wild rivers of Europe and are a hotspot for biodiversity with unique ecosystems and wildlife, including the critically endangered Balkan lynx. They are home to 69 different fish species that live nowhere else in the world, and their beds provide shelter for over 40% of all endangered freshwater mollusk species in Europe.

However, those rivers are now highly endangered with the plans to build over 3,000 dams on just about every one of them. If built, it would possibly result in nearly one in ten of Europe’s fish species being pushed to the brink of extinction with eleven endemic species being wiped out, seven more would be critically endangered, four types of sturgeon would be devastated and the number of endangered species would double to 24, according to the University of Graz report. Deforestation and soil erosion will follow, along with irrevocable changes to the course and character of untamed rivers, a quarter of which lie in pristine national parks and protected areas

That’s why, groups are mobilizing to campaign for the dams to be classed as #ecocide, for the recognition of the Rights of Rivers to be healthy and free-flowing, for the dams to be taken out of any ‘renewable’ energy policies, for the subsidies to be immediately stopped and for the dams to be taken out and rivers returned to their full health. More information