Citizens and activists from Bosnia’s Coalition for the Protection of Rivers gathered in front of the government building of Bosnia’s Federation (FBiH) region, demanding that authorities implement an earlier decision and stop the construction of small hydropower plants on Bosnian rivers.
Last week, numerous global environmental organisations called on the FBiH government to ban the construction of small hydropower plants in the entity.
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“The Balkans’ rivers continue to face an onslaught of small hydropower plant construction, including in protected areas, with plans for 3,000 dams to be constructed in the region. The dams bring with them the construction of access roads, tunnels, bridges, and transmission lines, with an influx of other human activities that require tearing down the forests around the rivers and that threaten the animals that live there. According to freshwater experts, if this is allowed to continue, at least 10 percent of all European freshwater fish species will go extinct or will be pushed to the brink of extinction,” said a statement published on the website of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The FBiH House of Representatives adopted a declaration to protect rivers and a complete ban on the construction of small hydropower plants across the entity in June, following a series of protests by citizens and activists.
According to the decision, the FBiH Government had three months to analyse and propose changes to the legislation enabling the full implementation of the ban in practice.
Coordinator of the Coalition for the Protection of Rivers of Bosnia, Dragana Skenderija, said on Wednesday that the FBiH government has not done anything regarding the issue so far and new small hydropower plants are being built.
“Nothing was done and, in those three months, the construction of new small hydropower plants started. We are here to point out that we are following what is going on and that we will not give up and will continue our battle for our rivers until the end,” Skenderija said.
The protesters demand the introduction of a moratorium on the construction of small hydropower plants and the abolition of subsidies for their construction throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“We expect that authorities will begin working in the interest of the people and not individuals, inventors who are destroying our rivers and making profits based on destroying the lives of people who live along those rivers,” she said.
