Thursday, November 03

7:30pm CET

Paneltalk & Movie Screening

In Albania and all around Europe citizens have raised their voices to protect Europe’s largest wild river—the Vjosa. This year Albania's government listened, and promised to establish a national park to protect the Vjosa forever.

We talk with Besjana Guri from EcoAlbania about the campaign success and the progress towards establishing the Vjosa National Park. Being a member of the national park working group in Albania we are excited to hear directly from her here in Berlin.

For additional impressions Matthias Leupold & Eric Berg present their short movie "In the Name of Vjosa". And Living Rivers Foundation shares insights on river conservation in Germany.

The energy issue cannot be discussed separately from housing, raw materials, transport or nature conservation policy. With public input lectures in the morning of our half-year meeting, we want to give examples of such interactions and encourage holistic discussion. We cordially invite you to join us on 19 November 2022 in the roof hall of the Kultur Forum Dresden, Adlergasse 14, 01067 Dresden.

A broad alliance of environmental organisations is writing an open letter to the environment ministers of the states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt to demand concrete measures to end coal subsidies that are harmful to the environment and the climate.

Coal companies are evading their legal obligation to be financially liable for the environmental damage they cause.

LEAG and MIBRAG are responsible for the extraction of 470 million cubic metres of groundwater per year, and the resulting sulphate and iron discharges are poisoning surface waters - the costs of which have so far been largely borne by the public purse.
The climate crisis requires an exit from coal as quickly as possible and thus an early closure of the opencast lignite mines. However, this does not mean that the coal companies should be paid with public funds to fulfil their legal obligations to restore the opencast mines.

The ongoing energy crisis has brought exorbitant profit margins to the companies operating coal-fired power plants, and the federal government is holding out the prospect of additional sources of revenue by reactivating lignite-fired power plants. Under the Coal Phase-out Act, they are to receive a further €4.35 billion in public funds as "compensation" (of which LEAG accounted for €1.75 billion), should the European Commission classify them as compatible with EU state aid law in a procedure currently underway.

 #SAVEODERDIE #saveor 

25 September, 2 pm 

WORLD RIVERS DAY on the Oder - Call for participation! 

On 25 September 2022, the World Rivers Day will take place. To mark this occasion, we are planning a canoe action on the Oder in Kienitz (Oderbruch) at 14:00. 

Together we want to raise awareness of the importance of rivers and honour their important function as lifelines of the earth. 

After the recent catastrophe that happened right in front of our eyes without us being able to intervene or get hold of the polluters, we want to remember the millions of living beings that were wiped out in just one moment without any consideration. 

We all know that we cannot exist without clean water. Therefore, we want to raise awareness against water pollution and work to restore our rivers to their original form. 

Come to Kienitz on the Oder on 25 September at 2 pm and paddle along! 

Respected experts will also be invited to report on the Oder. 

We are looking forward to creative banners, signs and other contributions. 

Please forward this press release to interested people and draw their attention to our petition https://innn.it/Fischsterben. 

The challenges for water management are great: climate change, globalisation, the loss of biodiversity and the continued use of surface waters and groundwater require consistent and strategic action to avoid overexploitation of water resources and to ensure the important services of these ecosystems in the long term. In recent months, the management plans and programmes of measures for the third and thus decisive management cycle of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) have been published. However, the level of ambition of the present management plans does not reflect these challenges. Even the draft of the National Water Strategy does not make any concrete statements on the timely implementation of the WFD.

We want to discuss the current management planning with you at this year's Forum: How do we ensure future-oriented water management? Is the transparency approach pursued by some federal states in conformity with the WFD? What claims can be derived from the climate decision of the Federal Constitutional Court? What levers exist to advance the implementation of the WFD?

Further information: https://www.gewaesserschutzforum.de

The programme can be found here: https://www.wrrl-forum.de/programm2022/

For registration: https://www.nabu.de/wir-ueber-uns/veranstaltungen/32226.html