The Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition (RwB) shared with the UNECSO its deep concerns with  spurred development of Egiin Gol Hydro Project and cancellation of basin-wide Regional environmental assessment (REA) of hydropower by the World Bank MINIS Project in Mongolia.  Later in a separate letter, the Coalition together with Greenpeace will submit observations and suggestions on the Lake Baikal World Heritage site protection and management by the State Party of Russian Federation .

 
To: UNESCO World Heritage Center and
CC: IUCN World Heritage Department.
 
The Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition (RwB) …

Hundreds of new hydropower projects are planned in the Western Balkans, as investors sought to take advantage of the huge and relatively untapped water resources in the region. Now, however, public sentiment is turning against these investments and several have been cancelled or put on hold.
In the latest development at the end of February, after thousands of people protested in the Kosovan city of Peja over plans for a series of hydropower plants on the Lumbardhi river, Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj ordered an immediate halt to construction pending …

 
Around 10,000 members of the Kachin community on Thursday, Feb 7,  staged a protest march in Kachin State’s Myitkyina calling for termination of dam projects both upstream and downstream on the Irrawaddy River. While Myanmar is bound to suffer serious environmental impacts if the Myitsone Dam project goes ahead, China will take 90 percent of the electricity produced, lead protester Steven Naw Awng said, explaining the reason behind the rally. “The mega dam is not for us. But we will lose our lives and property …

The last year ended up with a  massive landslide blocking hydropower reservoir on Bureya River. Since the RwB reported on the issue last year considerable attention of national authorities and international media was drawn to it. Many politicians have participated in crisis-solving making this somewhat reminiscent of parallel  drama of Hidroituango, where emergency operation was remotely supervised by the new president of Colombia two days ago. The only entity which keeps low profile and has minimal information on its web-sites is the Rushydro State Company which owns the Bureya …

Nepal’s hydropower boom needs strategic assessment and public oversight

Children crossing a bridge across Budhi Gandaki River in Arughat, Nepal (Photo by Eugene Sim0nov)
Prologue: A tale of two dams
In 2017, I visited 1,200 MW Budhi Gandaki hydropower project, 70 kilometers from Kathmandu, and found many similarities with the Egiin Gol hydropower project in Mongolia, long monitored by our RwB Coalition. 
Both projects were designed in the 1970s Soviet-school mega-hydropower planning style, both have not progressed in 40 years. In both cases, the international consultancy Tractebel Engineering proposed to increase dam height …

We are getting used to it: “No one was killed, we are happy” –became a standard  reaction to “better” incidents at large-scale dams   which are on the rise this year. So far in 2018 just on the RwB’s record large dam accidents happened in China, Colombia, Kenya, Laos, Myanmar, Russia. On December 13, in a “mild man made emergency” one of three gates of Dicle dam on Tigris has broken pouring water in unprepared downstream valley and partially submerging UNESCO World Heritage Site. Besides poor maintenance and lack of  public …