The House of Representatives of Bosnia’s Federation (FBiH) region has adopted a declaration to protect rivers on Tuesday, as well as a complete ban on the construction of small hydropower plants across the entity, a goal environment activists in Bosnia have increasingly been pushing for.
According to the decision, the FBiH Government has three months to analyse and propose changes to the legislation enabling the full implementation of the ban in practice.
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“This is a great success for all activists gathered in the Coalition for the Protection of Rivers of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said the Center for Environment, one of Bosnia’s biggest local environmental organisations.
It pointed out that activists and citizens in the affected areas have been defending local rivers from hydropower plant construction projects by blocking machinery from coming to the area, protesting and using “all available means” throughout recent years.
The conclusion of the FBiH House of Representatives is based on the Declaration on the Protection of Rivers of the Western Balkans which was put together by environmental organisations as a response to the immense damage small hydropower plants cause to local communities.
The document was adopted in November 2019 at a conference organized by Arnika (from the Czech Republic), the Center for the Environment and WWF Adria thanks to the financial support provided by the European Union, the Transition Program of the Czech Republic, the Global Greengrants Fund and the Heinrich-Boll Foundation.
The FBiH Government had previously, on May 12, adopted the conclusions of the document.
The NGO urged the parliament of Bosnia’s other semi-autonomous entity, Republika Srpska (RS), to follow the example of FBiH regarding the issue.
“We are witnessing an increasing number of citizens who oppose the construction of small hydropower plants on rivers such as Bjelava, Biostica, Praca, Rzav, Neretva and many others. The MPs are the representatives of these citizens and it is due time for them to listen to the voice of the people who clearly say “Freedom to the rivers”,” it said.
More than 400 small hydropower plants were planned to be built across Bosnia and about 100 of them were completed so far, the organisation said, adding that citizens were not involved in the process sufficiently and were denied information and their right to express their stance on the projects.
Those hydropower plants that were built have “caused great damage to nature and local communities, and the responsibility for that should be on those who provided their signatures and permits for the construction of these projects,” it said.
