Goldman Environmental Prize winner Munkhbayar, who in January 2014 was sentenced to almost 22 years in jail, as well as four of his friends from the Gal Undesten Movement, won significant reductions in their sentences in the City Court of Ulan Baatar.  They were protecting the law prohibiting mining in sensitive areas from being abolished. See THE SHORT HISTORY OF THE LAW WITH LONG NAME. Goldman Environmental Prize winner of 2014 Suren Gazaryan believes  that  the Munkhbayar’s case demonstrates wider tendency of  increased persecution of environmental activists.

Picture from January …

In an article on “Water-Energy Nexus Reaches Crisis Level in Asia” Parameswaran Ponnudurai very clearly points to most disturbing tendencies in hydropower and thermal energy sectors both severely threatening water resources and freshwater ecosystems of Asia. However, unlike the author RwB doubts that traditional institutions like the World Bank are likely to design effective strategies to solve these problems, World Bank support to MINIS Project in Mongolia is one of examples of highly irresponsible behaviour that threatens globally important Lake Baikal by supporting dam planningon its main tributary –Selenge River. …

More than 100 people left Yangon (RANGOON)  on March 23 to walk 1200 kilometers all the way to Myitsone in Kachin State, launching a national campaign to shut down the Myitsone dam project completey. Since export-oriented hydropower built by Chinese companies prevails in Burma, this is an example which Russian has to society watch carefully.

The Myitsone dam project lies unfinished in Kachin state, northern Burma, caught in a tug of war between the Burmese government and a powerful Chinese corporation. Although President Thein Sein has officially suspended …

The International Rivers’ China Program and expert from Rivers without Boundaries Coalition (RwB) on March 20, 2014 met with China Three Gorges Corporation (CTGC) and discussed interaction with NGOs, standards for overseas investment and possible involvement of the CTGC in the Amur river basin.
All relevant departments of CTGC were represented in the meeting in Three Gorges Group Beijing office: Mr. Lin Chuxue – Mr.Lin Chuxue –Executive Vice president, Mr. Yang Hongbin, Deputy Director of Sci-technology & Environmental Protection, Mr.Qin Guobin -President of CYPI Co.(HK)-subsidiary company dealing with Amur, Mr. Yang …

Today on the March 14, 2014 at public hearings in the town of Mogocha on Trans-Siberia Railroad local people endorsed an ambitious plan to develop a nature reserve on 330 000 hectares.This protected area is designed to safeguard the Upper flow of the Amur River and valleys of its two principal sources: Shilka River and Argun River.

Roe deer crossing Shilka river in the proposed nature reserve. Photo by Eugene Simonov

This is a symbolic origin of the Amur – the last great free-flowing river that empties from Eurasia into the Pacific …