According to the International Hydropower Association, starting in early 2021, the Swiss Government-funded three-year initiative will see IHA Sustainability, the organisation’s non-profit subdivision, work with project developers, alongside regulators, investors and civil society organisations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. They will try to reestablish good name for “sustainable hydropower”, which is probably a hopeless business given the history of hydropower development and its current reputation in the Balkans. Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina blocked all new small hydro project applications last year, now …

Tragedy happened in the morning of February 7. In a domino effect a glacial avalanche slipping down a mountain gorge hit smaller dam, then its debris assisted demolishing a large hydropower construction site downstream.

Increasing human intervention in ecologically sensitive Himalayan region is making it more vulnerable to climate change, environment experts said on Sunday as a glacier broke off at Joshimath in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district, triggering massive flood in the state.

The glacier burst triggered massive flood in the Dhauli Ganga river and caused large-scale devastation …

A report by the United Nations University has said that by 2050, most of the world’s population will live downstream of dams operating at or beyond their design life, which could have implications on public safety, escalating maintenance costs, and reservoir sedimentation.

The report, “Ageing Water
Infrastructure: An Emerging Global Risk”, by the Canada-based UNU Institute for Water,
Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), says most of the 58,700 large dams
worldwide were constructed between 1930 and 1970 with a design life of 50 to
100 years, adding that at 50 years a large concrete dam “would …

Former Kamchatka Governor Ilyukhin discusses mineral exploration with Indian company representatives

The attempts of Tata Power Co. to explore Krutogorovskoye Coal Deposit at Kamchatka Peninsula has been for long seen by Russian environmental community as an irresponsible and risky enterprise. It would affect pristine natural landscapes, salmon fisheries, marine ecosystems and ancestral rights of indigenous people. In an interview with Rishika Pardikar(OZY), Eugene Simonov, the RwB’s International Coordinator, discusses how this environmental crime fits into wider efforts of Indian Government to secure its share of the Arctic fossil fuel …

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Amur River. Photo by Taipinggou National Nature Reserve

International anti-dam protest in Georgia, where many dams are funded by the EU institutions

The Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition provided recommendations “On Hydropower and Infrastructure for Water Transport Impacts on Freshwater Bodies, Ecosystems and Species” as its submission on Draft Delegated Act (DA) on Sustainable-finance and EU classification-system-for-green-investments.

The text of draft DA dilutes and weakens recommendations
made to European commission by special Technical Expert Group tasked to draft this
legislation. The RwB raises six important points:

1) The RwB is deeply concerned that EC does not follow the TEG’s advice that “Construction …