The shore of Siberia’s Lake Baikal that has seen the building of most hotels is now covered by algae caused by releasing untreated waste into the water. Every wave brings more algae [Image by: Vitaliy Ryabtsev]

After the closure of the Baikal cellulose-paper industrial complex in 2013, the main cause of pollution for the great Siberian lake became mass tourism. In 2019, the flow of tourists was three to four million per year.

One of the environmental consequences of tourism is the
pollution of the …

“Blue Horse” also known as “Bluecifer” . Source: https://masterok.livejournal.com/2328912.html

In many transboundary basins of the World the lack of joint plans of shared basin management based on the latest environmental and hydrological research prompts riparian countries to unilateral actions for water accumulation and use within their respective boundaries, while ignoring environmental consequences of such practice. The countries often present such projects as voluntary commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Dam is being built across floodplain of Ulz river just in 27 kilometers upstream of the transboundary …

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 …

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 …

International Rivers, Rivers without Boundaries and other partners
are seeking your support in a global call for a just and green recovery
at  www.Rivers4Recovery.org. 

Rivers for Recovery Report

This global action focuses on calling out and confronting efforts to use the
post-COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery to push for  more destructive
dams and prop up the ailing hydropower industry.  At the same time, it
highlights alternative pathways for a truly “green recovery” through river
protection and other nature-based solutions, valuing community-based
initiatives, that should be supported by governments and 
financiers. 

We send the global call to financiers, governments of dam-building countries, international …

SHORT SOBERING REPORT

Enashimskaya Hydro in Siberia

Since the Report by World Commission on Dams (Nov.
2000) for 20 years there has been relative consensus that large hydro is
associated with excessive social and environmental impacts and should be given
no green ticket into sustainable future. Somehow it was simultaneously
stipulated that “small hydro is OK” and it took two decades and thousands of
ruined rivers to start questioning this type of “green energy”.

Major international energy organizations(like the the IEA or IRENA) have already stopped dividing hydropower into “small” and “large” about 3-5 years ago as it …