Rivers without Boundaries

New dams, old damage: hydropower quietly expands as biodiversity pays the price

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has released the first of its two annual statistical reports on renewable energy capacity additions for 2025. As is customary, a revised edition will follow in approximately four months, incorporating government-submitted data that typically undergoes more rigorous verification and tends to yield more conservative …

Dams Without Accountability: Why AIIB Should Be Wary of Hydropower

Over ten years of its existence, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has considered just ten hydropower projects for financing. Three were cancelled, seven received approvals. Only one was implemented without co-financiers — a refinancing of an already-built hydropower plant in Vietnam. This record speaks for itself: the bank is …

Rogun Dam Study Ignores Key Risks, Threatens Regional Stability

The transboundary impact assessment for Tajikistan’s Rogun Hydropower Plant (HPP) fails to meet World Bank environmental and social standards and contains fundamental shortcomings, according to a new report by the international environmental coalition Rivers without Boundaries. The assessment relies on outdated data from 2014 and uses static models that do …

A major weakening of nature conservation laws in Russia

At the end of 2025, the Russian government and legislature undertook an unprecedented attempt to weaken key nature conservation laws. After two years of intense debate, the ‘Law on the Protection of Lake Baikal’ was amended by the Russian State Duma on 9 December 2025 and signed by the President …

World Bank’s Executive Directors block investigation of the Rogun HPP Project despite the advice of their own Inspection Panel

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has declined to open an investigation into potential environmental and social risks linked to the construction of the Rogun Hydropower Plant in Tajikistan. The decision was reported in a press release published by the environmental NGO Rivers Without Boundaries. As a result, the financial institution chose not to review a complaint filed by residents of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan …

Converting Lives into Kilowatts: Resettlement Plans for Rogun HPP Project Threaten Tens of Thousands of People

“Rogun Alert”, a coalition of concerned CSOs, has analyzed the Resettlement Action Plan and Livelihood Restoration Plan (RAP-2 and LRP-2) for the Rogun HPP construction project. In their analytical report CSOs have identified serious shortcomings in the documentation that could negatively affect tens of thousands of people. The project to …