Rivers without Boundaries

Spilled Molybdenum Tailings Are Spreading Pollution in the Amur River Basin

The Amur-Heilong River has a long history of environmental pollution, with the worst cases resulting from industrial accidents. People of China and Russia still vividly remember the great panic of 2005 when a chemical plant blasted in Jilin Province threatening by toxic spill Harbin and Habarovsk cities and dozens of …

Green Peacock and Friends of Nature win a court case against hydropower in Yunnan

Despite coronavirus fears and strict quarantine China had witnessed a landmark victory in public-interest litigation on environmental matters. We congratulate Friends of Nature (and our friends) with this remarkable achievement and wish them to win this case to the very end. In July 2017, conservation groups Friends of Nature (自然之友), …

The Role of Energy Systems in Decline and Recovery of Aquatic Biodiversity

by Jeff Opperman , WWF-US Freshwater ecosystems and species are in crisis, and 2020 is a pivotal year for countries and companies to take steps to solve that crisis. What does this have to do with energy? A surprising amount.  From hydropower dams that fragment rivers and block fish migration …

Hydro-obituary: The Chinese Paddlefish, Which Lived for 200 Million Years, Has Been Dammed to Extinction

Last year we placed these two pictures on the back cover of the Heritage Dammed report to UNESCO to illustrate the role of dams in mass extinction of freshwater biodiversity. We suggested that scientists will wait for 50 year before declaring the paddlefish extinct. We were wrong, by 49.5 years. …

The end of the misguided Amazar pulp mill project?

As the RwB is still cautiously calculating what else could be done by owners and officials in futile attempts to revive hopeless project, many allies have published epitaphs on Amazar Pulp Mill. Famous former Mayor of Mogocha District and now democratic activist Dmitry Pliukhin, who invited the RwB to assess …

Mongolian Rivers and Lakes Movements regain a chance to win a war on gold mining

Since May 2019 Onggi river movement, jointly with United Movements for Mongolian Rivers and Lakes (UMMRL) has restarted a legal fight to enforce the Law with Long Name( a law to protect headwaters of rivers, protected zones of water reservoirs and forested areas) passed in July 2009 by Mongolian parliament …