00:05:26.060You have been a river defender for decades, and I'm so honored to join in conversation with you today around your current work on the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign.
00:05:35.640And I'm trying to imagine the beauty of the Balkan rivers, as they're unfamiliar to me, and I'm sure many of our listeners as well.
00:05:44.200So I'd love to open with an introduction to this region.
00:05:47.940Would you begin by taking us down a specific river or tributary in the Balkans that is dear to you?
00:05:53.740yeah that's difficult because there are so many different rivers i mean what the region we are
00:06:01.400speaking about um is from slovenia down to greece so that there are a lot of countries
00:06:08.620it's basically ex-yugoslavia albania greece and bulgaria and i've been working on river
00:06:15.920protection and restoration for all my life i would say and i've been mostly in what we call
00:06:22.820central europe like germany switzerland austria and spain and these countries and when i saw these
00:06:29.840rivers on the balkans for the first time with my intense eyes i was really amazed i didn't know
00:06:36.880that that was still existing you know sometimes you have an idea you know theoretically that
00:06:43.400these rivers should be in a good shape but that is a difference when you see them for example when
00:06:50.000you go to albania there's one big river it's called the viosa this is probably the last big
00:06:57.840wild river in europe it flows 270 kilometers without any artificial obstacles so no dams
00:07:06.500no dikes no levees no nothing it flows as free as always she always did that river and not only that
00:07:15.480but also the tributaries so all the little rivers and streams that run into the river
00:07:20.840are also free and that is completely unique and that is an experience you you suddenly
00:07:27.500are confronted with something that you call a river but looks completely different to other
00:07:33.600rivers that we are used to see in central europe and that's so beautiful but then you go to bosnia
00:07:40.280Vezegovina, for example, which is like a six, seven, sometimes ten hours drive with a car.
00:07:46.260You have crystal clear rivers, waterfalls where you think that could be South America.
00:11:33.800Because, you know, when somebody says, well, the dam is bad, for example,
00:11:37.920And there's certainly someone in the room that says, you know, but it's it's better than coal.
00:11:43.080It helps the climate that there's always some it's like a killing argument.
00:11:46.860And what what a lot of people have lost here, even in my NGO community, is the ability to look down on the ground, what happens on the ground.
00:11:57.280Whenever we talk about environmental protection, most of us look literally up in the air and think about CO2 equivalence or something.
00:12:07.920but they're not thinking about fish not birds not space not not even people that are affected
00:12:15.220they're victims but for something like they call a higher and a better good so that's climate
00:12:21.920protection which is not true in fact i mean there are so many arguments against it we all know these
00:12:28.000arguments but it's like emotionally driven we we have been you know these these arguments that
00:12:34.520hydro is green and better than this or better than that is so deeply rooted in some of the
00:12:40.620societies and hydro is very old is a very old technique very very very old so there is there's
00:12:47.560lobby groups very old lobby groups and they're very they have a very good network into the into
00:12:54.620the administrative bodies into the political arenas um to to get these projects through and
00:13:00.980what we are fighting on the balkans is actually we're doing this for the balkan rivers of course
00:13:06.080we're trying to make it visible what is happening but it's happening everywhere else in europe at
00:13:13.980least the only difference is that in most parts of europe you don't have these beautiful wonderful
00:13:19.380intact rivers anymore and you in rest in austria or in spain or in italy or in france we have mostly0.94
00:13:25.820channelized rivers and then you damn them that is bad but it's not as bad as you damn a pristine0.91
00:13:34.040river that's something like a big step or big shock for everything you know and this is what0.98
00:13:40.520is what we call the blue heart of europe it's in the balkans you have these rivers and this is
00:13:46.500something which we have with the knowledge of the 21st century so we should avoid all mistakes and
00:13:54.660what we are trying with the campaign is on the first hand make the dimension of the attack visible
00:14:01.480so we are not talking about a dam here and the protection of that river or this river we put on
00:14:07.440our lens on our what do you say on a camera like a wide angle lens and we show the whole threat
00:14:14.900in which is about 3 000 hydropower plants this is enormous literally every little stream would
00:14:21.160be affected and even hydropower people would say this oh no this is too much this is you know that
00:14:27.300we shouldn't go for all of this this is one and then we on the second level we try to make the
00:14:32.600people on the ground we help we try to help them there's so many opposition mostly the the people
00:14:39.140the locals the local community who live along the rivers are opposing the dams because different to
00:14:47.680for example Austria people depend on those rivers you know for example in Albania when you're in
00:14:53.920Albania there's little village let's it's called Bencher for example there is one or 200 people
00:14:59.900living in the village but 4,000 sheep and goats and all these sheep and goats every morning
00:15:05.520they walk uphill into the mountains to eat but when they go they drink in the river and when
00:15:11.960they come down in the afternoon in the late afternoon they drink again and now there are
00:15:17.300dam plans to divert all the river from their place so this village would be left with with a dry river
00:15:24.920bed and that would mean there the animals wouldn't have something to drink that would be the end of
00:15:30.880the village actually so and there's a lot of other people who use the water for drinking purposes
00:15:36.260you know they go fishing all these things and that is and we try to to help them to give them
00:15:42.420a voice and at the same time try to make them proud of what they have because most people on
00:15:49.060the Balkans no matter where are not aware that their river is something extraordinary for them
00:15:56.340it was always the river they can't they cannot compare they don't know what it looks like in
00:16:01.320other places in europe so we can we can tell them this is enormously beautiful and therefore it's so
00:16:06.840important that even when i go there from the outside you know or my team we go there from
00:16:11.560the outside from germany from austria from from france wherever you know they suddenly realize
00:16:17.480hey why the hell are you coming here and i say yeah because this is so incredibly beautiful
00:16:23.300and you should protect it and together we might be able to find something that you can make a living
00:16:29.780with these rivers for example you know promote fly fishing it's the best place in the world for
00:16:36.540fly fishing but there is very very little at the time or this what i said told you about the viosa
00:16:43.120in albania that must become the first wild river national park in europe this is the only place
00:16:49.420in whole europe where you can establish such a thing when you do that tourists from all over
00:16:55.260europe at least would go there to see a wild river and that would bring income to the people and that
00:17:03.260again was the reason why all the villages along this 200 and something kilometers stretch the
00:17:10.380mayors signed that they don't want dams but they want this national park because they see they love
00:17:17.260their river on one hand of course but they have to live and this ecotourism or whatever if you do it
00:17:22.440the right way there is a chance i know there's always this risk with the the tourism but you
00:17:27.640know i i rather go for the risk than for the dams because if you build the dams that's it
00:17:33.480that that's over then and then if if for example they would build huge reservoirs
00:17:38.600then everything is flooded the fields of the communities are flooded uh you turn this dynamic
00:17:45.000river when you see that there's it's more than one and a half miles wide with gravel banks
00:17:50.280sandbanks floodplain forests it's it's really great and this would attract the people and the
00:17:57.380dam would destroy all of that and there's so many things that people don't know you know when i tell
00:18:03.180them about what a dam does they basically see a reservoir and think oh okay maybe i can there's a
00:18:09.160lot of fish in there but every day twice per day they release the water from the reservoirs in
00:18:16.860order to produce peak electricity so downstream of that dam you have twice a day a flood wave
00:18:25.320towards the sea nothing survives that nothing survived that you know ecosystems are can deal
00:18:32.920with floods because that's part an essential part of a river ecosystem but these flush things twice
00:18:41.080a day or once a day whatever it's no nobody can deal with that so they we try also to to make
00:18:47.580them understand what is coming when they when we don't stop the dam and so far you know i would say
00:18:55.08095 of whenever we were there no matter which country on the balkans people on the ground
00:19:02.160were completely happy and supportive and they take a lot of hope in us that we save their rivers and
00:20:19.180I want to go back to when you were speaking about
00:20:48.460this we could call it greenwashing of dams and you recently produced a documentary called
00:20:55.980climate crimes about the consequences of green energy so thank you so much for bringing visibility
00:21:02.180to this and i think it's absolutely essential that we constantly question how exactly we are
00:21:09.880transitioning away from fossil fuels are we reinforcing the same power structures who are
00:21:15.880we displacing now that we are building hydropower dams instead of oil rigs you know our our solar
00:21:22.660powered lifestyles just as consumptive and human supremacist as our petrol powered ones you know
00:21:29.540this is a thread we have touched on many times in the show yet we've never fully delved into the
00:21:36.940devastation that hydropower brings so i'm hoping that you could speak a little bit more about the
00:21:44.680far-reaching ecological and cultural impacts of hydroelectric dam and diversion projects,
00:21:50.120you mentioned about the ecological effects and the cultural effects and people on the dam,
00:21:56.700but maybe if you could explain a little bit more of just how quickly a landscape changes following
00:22:03.900the construction of a dam. And then maybe a second part of that question is, if you have
00:22:09.540anything to say regarding hydropower compared to solar power in terms of detrimental impacts?
00:22:16.860I mean, I start with the hydropower question. I think for most of the people, it's clear and
00:22:23.120obvious that large scale dams are bad. When you talk about mega dams or large scale dams,
00:22:29.560most people would agree in saying they are flooding the landscape, they're flooding the
00:22:33.220area of the people they're changing the landscape um but you know what what they're not aware is
00:22:40.200it's not only changing the landscape from a active dynamic fluctuating river to a stable
00:22:45.700reservoir type but they're blocking of course not only the migration routes of the of the fish and
00:22:52.180other species but the sediment transport you normally when you see from a picture perspective
00:22:57.340If a river transports the gravel, the big gravel from the mountains, and they bring them down to the sea and on that way, these big stones get smaller and smaller because they are hopping on the ground and they become smaller and smaller.
00:23:12.340And in the end, it's sand. A lot of sand in the ocean is there because of the rivers. They've been transporting it. If you build a dam, this is blocked.
00:23:21.560A UN study came with the conclusion that today about one-third of all the sediments in river systems are blocked behind dams.
00:23:32.820That leads to the erosion not only in the riverbeds below the dams, that's called riverbed incision.
00:23:40.920So because the gravel is not there, but the water power is there, so the water is digging deeper and deeper into its own riverbed.
00:26:39.180What is very important for me and a very important point, talking about the Balkans, about the 3000 dams, about 90 percent of them are so-called small scale dams.
00:26:51.300They're with less than 10 megawatt installed capacity.
00:26:55.660So that is another thing that people think small is beautiful.
00:26:58.900why they think big dams are bad but small is beautiful somehow so this is completely wrong
00:27:04.980because they are diversion types what they do to a river is by no means better than the launch
00:27:12.760dams because what you build you build a wire or a dam and then you divert the water through pipes
00:27:20.560to some place else you take it away from the original riverbed leaving the old riverbed
00:27:26.960mostly dry it's it's like a body then you know like the arabic word this happens on the balkan
00:27:33.160and this is happening almost everywhere and the problem with that is that you don't even produce
00:27:39.400electricity you know these little dams produce so little energy so little electricity that even
00:27:47.520the european union now recommends to not build dams with less than 10 megawatt anymore because
00:27:53.180it doesn't make sense and you have to know that when you want to build a dam you need to have an
00:27:59.680infrastructure in place you need to build roads you need to build bridges construct tunnels
00:28:06.360you have to cut forest in order to build transmission lines all of this and on the
00:28:13.160balkans it's not like in the u.s or in other parts of europe there are already roads everywhere more
00:28:19.040or less but most of these valleys are completely pristine you have forest down to the river valley
00:28:25.580and there's there's no road nothing there and in order to be able to build these diversion
00:28:32.480dams you need to build all these roads you do all the destruction in the nature it's like
00:28:37.320you remember when you when you think about the amazon for example and when you see them you
00:28:42.220know they've built a new road you see this fishbone model things you know where people
00:28:47.320you know live then everywhere around these roads and it's it's pretty similar with with these dams
00:28:53.700it's you have a dam but then you have all this infrastructure then other things are following
00:28:58.580people you know probably do poaching then they poach different thing because they have access to
00:29:04.840to former remote areas all these things come with the dams and that is so frustrating on one side
00:29:14.540When you say, Jesus, we are doing these mistakes in the 21st century, although we should know better.
00:29:20.300You mentioned the dam removal procedures or movements in the U.S.
00:29:25.520And here they're doing the old mistakes, although most people know better.
00:31:52.760And when you mention these, what we're doing, because we all ask for more renewables and that it opens the gates for destruction of nature, that is true.
00:32:03.500And hydro is, from my perspective, the worst in that because they have deteriorated the rivers globally so much already.
00:32:17.260They should be, from my perspective, there shouldn't be any hydropower plant built in the world.
00:32:21.980You know, this is it. We have different options now. And solar is an important option. I'm completely aware that there is a negative side on, you know, all the resources that you need for solar. There's wind also. But I am from northern Germany originally, and our region is full of windmills.
00:32:43.480That is, again, the doses of this is deciding whether it's healthy or killing.
00:32:49.720And in some places, even in my hometown in Germany, it's too much.
00:33:09.580But if we are not tackling our growth system, if we are not turning that into a degrowth system, especially the so-called first world countries, I am afraid there is no hope for nature.
00:33:27.460i'm very optimistic for the for a lot of humans um because we can to a certain extent we can live
00:33:36.000without nature uh but the nature won't survive if we continue if we consume as we consume uh now or
00:33:45.200we you know we even we consume more and we grow and grow um then it's hopeless i'm afraid then
00:33:51.860sooner or later we have to eat the world and the first we have to squeeze out then either people
00:33:58.700to make money out of them or nature and nature is the easiest so that's what we always done
00:34:05.220and this is i think that we have to start the discussion i know a lot of people have already
00:34:10.320started the discussion but even with my film that was in the end when i showed all the the effects
00:34:16.940of so-called green energy sources like biodiesel when they're logging all these
00:34:24.100primeval forests in Borneo and Indonesia for palm oil or whatever, biogas, whatever,
00:34:31.880hydropower plants. That is, a lot of people are not aware that this is negative. They think,
00:34:38.440yeah, but it's green, so green, green, green. I think the NGOs have to stop bluntly asking for
00:34:45.280more renewables this is half it is half a message because then then it's dumb it's only valuable if
00:34:52.960you say we have to change to renewables while we are reducing our consumption i don't know of any
00:35:00.700concept that proves that we can continue in a way to live and then have our energy provided by
00:35:09.800renewables there's no way we have to reduce you know for example in countries like austria and
00:35:15.220Germany we are not getting any closer to fight global warming the opposite is true you know at
00:35:21.940the same time we're we're fucking up the countries and the and the landscapes and the nature and the
00:35:26.780and the biodiversity this has to be discussed even though if I don't some most people don't
00:35:32.640have an answer but we have to discuss that and we have to look on the ground again we have to learn
00:35:38.920to look on the ground again and 15 years ago when i was working with wwf we were a lot of
00:35:45.920people in the organization and we knew about nature actually nature we knew about fish birds
00:35:53.620ecosystems what we call now ecosystem services we knew a lot of these things and then through the
00:36:00.520climate change in our heads or in the in the whole heads they were we changed the people
00:36:06.000so bit by bit there were more people who were working on climate change issues they had no
00:36:12.140ideas about salmons or no idea about kingfishers or whatever all they ever cared about was reduction
00:36:19.580of co2 emission for whatever price and this has to change this has to change we have to
00:36:26.200inform the people like through this podcast you know what is happening uh they're pretending to
00:36:32.760do it for the good, but all they do is killing nature and threatening people. And you can see
00:36:38.460that perfectly on the Balkans because everyone says, you know, but it's green, but it's green
00:36:43.780hydro. And we try to open their eyes and open their brains and their hearts to, you know,
00:36:49.460have a look at it, have a look at what it's looked like. Go there, go there and see with your own
00:36:55.260eyes how wonderful it is. And now it's, for example, the Patagonia has produced that film
00:37:30.040my goodness you really spoke to my heart especially the degrowth model and it was
00:37:38.800earth day here a couple days ago honestly a bit depressing to see what was being pushed out for
00:37:46.760earth day actions and hardly any of it was about degrowth or lower your consumption of plastic a
00:37:56.040lot of people were focusing on plastic, which of course is really important, but to continue
00:38:02.360to push green energies, especially NGOs like you were speaking about, to have that be the
00:38:08.780solution, to not look at the economy, to not look at our lifestyles, not look at our consumption,
00:38:14.340to not look at the fact that the more and more people we have, especially with a developed
00:38:19.640world lifestyle the less of everything else on this earth that we have because we eat the earth
00:38:26.360like you were saying we consume and it is such a huge debacle that we're in when so many groups
00:38:36.200whether that's government groups or large NGOs or small NGOs even or communities aren't actually
00:38:42.060talking about the depth and the complexity of the solutions. Gosh, going also back to what you were
00:38:49.820talking about with the subsidies, it's similar here in the United States where we are actually
00:38:56.000paying, our taxpayer dollars are actually paying for the logging of our last remaining old growth
00:39:02.900on our public lands. We are actually subsidizing the destruction of our last remaining wild places
00:39:09.780from logging oil mining and etc so it's shocking and disturbing and disgusting and then the other
00:39:18.740part of going back to hydro which i really was shocked about was that not only do the hydropower
00:39:24.700projects displace people plants creatures but they also aren't clean they're not emission-free
00:39:31.620forms of energy production and i was so astounded to read that the world's hydroelectric dams are
00:39:37.020responsible for as much methane emissions as Canada. So with large dams and reservoirs
00:39:43.480emitting 104 million metric tons of methane annually, which is 34 times more potent than
00:39:50.400carbon dioxide, and that these emissions are not even included in global greenhouse gas inventories.
00:39:57.320So that's just something that's completely washed over.
00:40:01.080It is. That's the world. That's the way it is. I do believe, in the end, in conflict. I do believe in strategies that say, okay, we have our position. Maybe it's hopeless, but we stand here. And you have to run over me to build that dam, for example.
00:40:20.880I think that we have been living for the last two decades in a very, very pragmatic world.
00:40:27.520So whenever we're in a conflict, say, oh, don't go into a conflict.
00:40:48.380And even not only here, but also globally, I would say, the World Bank stopped all the funding in the 90s for large-scale hydropower plants.
00:40:59.320But then came the global warming discussion.
00:41:01.800China stepped into the market in 2000 to build dams, and everything changed.
00:41:07.360But then, you know, every NGO has the right to have a position to speak up whenever they want.
00:41:13.800you feel like you can participate but most of the time it's a participation trap
00:41:18.480so what i'm you know trying to achieve with river watch is we're a small organization we try to be
00:41:26.000flexible we try to be very clear we're against these dams you know i know that there's a lot of
00:41:31.860open questions i cannot answer but no matter what even if those dams on the viosa would be
00:41:40.120valid for the electricity consumption or production in albania i would even though i would always fight
00:41:48.220against the dams because for me this river is completely you know this is our last we have in
00:41:54.380europe we have thousands of dams in europe but not such a river anymore so it's in a way it's
00:42:00.900not a pragmatic position we have it's a fundamental position and i think this is very important to
00:42:06.180have like we were talking about is julia butterfly hill she wasn't pragmatic she was sitting on the
00:42:10.860tree and in the redwoods and saying not with me i don't accept that i know there's a lot of things
00:42:16.140speaking against me but i don't do that and this this is an attitude we we need much more we need
00:42:22.040much more emotions we are so much driven by facts and you know calculations and then uh you know
00:42:28.500all this economical stuff that brought us away from actually what we're what we are humans and
00:42:34.800And we are not calibristic people that are roboters, although, you know, Google and Facebook
00:42:41.060and all this think we are predictable, but we're not in a way.
00:42:58.960We will lose some of the fights, but we will win a lot of fights.
00:43:02.880And I'm sure we will save a lot of these rivers.
00:43:06.160And maybe, maybe this is something like the core of a development.
00:43:10.780When we stop, for example, with the Balkans, as an example, the subsidy system in Europe, that will immediately stop, I would say, up to 10,000 hydropower plants.
00:43:22.640If we convince the big banks like the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank to not fund in dams on the Balkans anymore, if we force them to, they will think twice to invest in other regions.
00:43:40.440And even bigger NGOs catching up now and saying, hey, maybe that was we were a bit too pragmatic and a bit too realistic with the hydro.
00:43:48.520We should go remind ourselves to the 80s and 90s.
00:43:54.260I have my hopes are in this competing thing.
00:43:57.020And I hope the Balkans is a good example for me.0.94
00:43:59.980If we go there and we fight, we have a chance.0.55
00:44:03.440If we would deal and argue with the investors and say, make the dam a little bit greener, or let's talk about fish ladders or bypasses, that's rubbish.
00:46:37.140It lives in the rivers that run into the basin.
00:46:39.900It deems oxygen-rich, cool water, and it spawns in gravel.
00:46:45.920And it was traditionally all over the place.
00:46:48.700But, you know, as you know, it has been population have been reduced and reduced and reduced due to pollution of the rivers and then mostly damming.
00:46:58.440Somebody told me years ago saying, hey, but on the Balkans, this Danube salmon must, you know, there must be good population.
00:47:07.040We asked scientists to assess the Danube salmon, and it was a very positive result that this species, you know, is still widespread on the Balkans.
00:47:18.920It's actually the last oasis for this species.
00:47:22.300But at the same time, there is about more than 90 dams planned inside their territory.
00:47:28.540And the scientists predict if these dams would be built, about 70 percent of all the population would collapse.
00:47:34.740maybe more because the remaining population would be too small then to survive but that was
00:47:41.140an important knowledge because that shook a lot of people and a lot of fishermen that love
00:47:47.860huchen because it's a very famous sport fish and then we did the same with all the other
00:47:55.020endangered and protected fish and that is the study we're speaking about it was recently published
00:48:30.080in Macedonia, in a little river. And it's believed that there's only a few hundred individuals left
00:48:37.780of these little fish species. And what we did with all the endangered species, so we not only
00:48:45.060assessed where each of these fish species lives in the Balkans with a map and a little bit of
00:48:51.280description, but also then we had a look on the dam projects that are being planned inside the0.97
00:48:58.960territory of each of those fish species and the result of the expert were that if the damn tsunami
00:49:06.560as it is planned would really happen we would lose about 49 fish species and that equals about 10
00:49:17.820percent of all fish species in europe so so much about green energy so this gives us another layer
00:49:27.540of arguments, because fish is slightly more popular than insects, I would say. We hope that
00:49:36.520especially people who are interested in fish or angling, that they join our network and get the
00:49:45.520information about this damn tsunami and then open their voice, sign petition, whatever, help creating
00:49:53.540a bigger network so that's the way we're doing it the Balkans is the fish hotspot and if the0.98
00:50:00.000tsunami would become reality that would be history but I'm sure it won't because we're working on0.96
00:50:08.120this actually with a lot of from a lot of different angles and I'm very very hopeful that we at least
00:50:15.880can stop the funding of the bigger ones and i don't know how quick that goes that we stop the
00:50:23.380subsidies because a lot of these fish species are threatened not by large-scale dams but by small
00:50:29.340dams that will take some time but until we are getting there we we try to um use the legal weapon
00:50:39.040much more that is for me something that is the most important for the future the most
00:50:45.340important tool within our campaign. We need more money to finance lawyers and legal experts.
00:50:52.500We have had some successes with this weapon, if you like. We stopped a dam process on the Vyosa
00:50:59.680in Albania. That was, by the way, the first environmental court case in the history of
00:51:06.140Albania. And we had no chance at the beginning. And then the administrative court, all three
00:51:12.920judges voted in our favor. In the end, it was a sensation in Albania. So we like to copy-paste
00:51:19.640a strategy for all of the Balkans. I'm actually dreaming of a thing that's called a marda of0.99
00:51:26.440lawyers. We need a whole bunch of lawyers that file lawsuits in the countries, write complaints
00:51:33.320to the European Union, to the Bernd Convention about crucial dam projects. We must invest more
00:51:40.620in these legal weapons you know we have to raise awareness we have to create networks
00:51:44.580but this is like soft uh this is very soft weapons you know use that word again but
00:51:50.520actually when the when they're going and going ahead with the dam project you have to fight
00:51:57.300legally and that is a good chance and the very last instrument you have is to block the construction
00:52:04.860site. And that is what some people do, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina. That's near Sarajevo,
00:52:12.960if somebody has heard it. There is right now, there is a community, a very small village,
00:52:18.180actually, Kružnica. There is especially women blocking a bridge towards the construction site
00:52:25.860for 220 consecutive days and nights now. They're sitting there and it's cold. It's in the mountains,0.98
00:52:31.860believe me in the winter it was really cold and they never give up an hour away from this
00:52:38.320there is a village called and again there were the whole village blocked the construction site
00:52:45.980for more than 300 days and nights these are little rivers you can jump across those rivers so small
00:52:52.040are they but the people fight the last thing you have is to block it when the when the construction
00:52:58.160gets physical it's the end of writing letters or trying to lobby you got to be there and that is
00:53:03.700in some cases it works in some countries like albania it it's not the case and it's very dangerous
00:53:10.060in albania in between 2012 and 2016 five people got killed in protest against dams and one was
00:53:19.760shot in the head and is still alive so you're risking a lot in these countries it's not like
00:53:26.080you block it in germany you know you don't risk that much so it's a dangerous thing i'm so grateful
00:53:32.800for those people who risk their lives risk their comfort for the protection of these places and
00:53:41.080i think it's really interesting the strategy of using the legal weapons as you said about them
00:53:48.920And because I think about here in the United States, and I know also with the Vyosa River, the environmental assessments are completely inadequate.
00:53:59.660And to be able to understand the language of these environmental assessments, and then be able to communicate and use the wording and the vocabulary and the angles that the companies are using,
00:54:17.640It seems like legal work and lawyers can really come in and speak directly to the ridiculousness of these assessments, perhaps, and other things to be able to stand like the rights of nature in New Zealand, for instance, how the river was it was given personhood.
00:54:37.140so the river itself had rights and i think it's a really interesting angle to take the legal
00:54:43.120framework and use the law for the environment yes it is important and that we've done it
00:54:50.820not enough um but at the same time that is expensive because the expertise of these people
00:54:56.420cost some money and that's what makes it difficult and we were so used to raise media attention
00:55:04.780you know historically because that made a difference but in these days it's so difficult
00:55:10.700because there's so many so much information out there everything is dramatic and so it's it's we
00:55:16.240are dealing with a lot of global information at the same time that was different in the 80s here
00:55:22.240in Austria for example when they blocked the Danube construction site for a dam and that was
00:55:27.080like a revolution when the Austrians went to the Danube in the winter of 1984 to block an ongoing
00:55:34.340construction side because austrians are very pragmatic people per se they don't do that
00:55:39.140normally but they did that and they stopped it and 12 years later this is a national park now
00:55:43.640there's no dam there's a national park instead and so there there are good there are good examples
00:55:50.060but you know not making a long story but this is important we need to invest in legal expertise
00:55:58.860because as long as we have a functioning ruling system we must use it that's a very important1.00
00:56:07.020card and one more thing if you like to see these women of kruznica um you know this patagonia film0.99
00:56:14.540the blue heart uh which will be screened saturday the premiere you see them in there this is one of
00:56:20.620three stories uh from the balkan rivers that shows you this what i was i've been talking about
00:56:27.820The one is Vyosa in Albania. The other one is the Mavrovo National Park in Macedonia. And the third one is the rivers of Bosnia, with the story of these women, the brave women of Kružnica.
00:56:41.860oh my gosh so much love and gratitude for those women and all those people before the media had
00:56:48.820a lot more power because there wasn't social media there wasn't so much engagement with the
00:56:55.980internet and facebook and television and just the influx of information hitting people in the head
00:57:03.160every day it's hard to rile people up these days because they're saturated and they're overwhelmed
00:57:09.520I think it's really important to have a number of strategies like you're talking about.
00:57:14.580And I'm wondering, with these strategies and with the many campaigns that you're working on and have worked on, how do you navigate the international politics, especially since there are so many countries involved?
00:57:29.180We're in the position with the European Union.
00:57:31.800This is the political tool, the political arm we have to deal with.
00:57:36.640even if those countries like Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, they are not part of the
00:57:42.080union yet, but they're all candidate countries. So they're all in discussion with the European
00:57:47.060Union. And the union should stand for standards. And they have their rules and their legal rights
00:57:55.340and rules. And we try to make sure that the European Union and the government of the European
00:58:01.740Union, which is called Commission, European Commission, they are aware of this problem,
00:58:05.880because most of people say, as most of other people would say, I've never heard about that
00:58:09.380problem. I didn't know that there were rivers with so much beauty and intactness. I didn't know
00:58:15.900there were so many dam projects because this is also important. You have to make the problem
00:58:21.800visible. And sometimes the details is not the problem. The big picture is the important thing.
00:58:28.140And for us, the big picture was the map with the 3,000 spots on it. Each spot was representing one
00:58:35.120dam. And suddenly you saw it's like a disease that would kill the whole Balkans. That is very1.00
00:58:41.440convincing. So you need these pictures, these images, and then show it to the people, have facts.
00:58:47.380That's for sure. You need to have all this. But in the end, facts is one thing, but most people
00:58:54.880are driven by emotions. You need to have the facts that you feel right with your emotions, but
00:59:01.840it's we have to create more emotions therefore you need uh celebrities that give you the voice
00:59:08.180you you need to tell the right stories storytelling is something very very often my community is very
00:59:15.140good in facts and then you raise more facts and then a new study and it adds more facts
00:59:20.760but it doesn't bring you any further um and then sometimes you know it's so emotional and you say
00:59:29.100wow i do it i i know it's probably not the right mindset but i do it i go for it i protect that
00:59:35.760forest that reef or that river so for me it's it's always a good campaign is a good balance
00:59:44.300between the heart and the brain and a lot of projects are mainly brainly driven and then you
00:59:50.700lose most of the people that's so true if facts alone worked we wouldn't be in the situation that
00:59:58.280we're in right now on so many levels. I mean, just looking at climate change, we've had numbers
01:00:03.300for a long time. We've had facts and scientific data for a long time about the ecological
01:00:10.180destruction, climate change, carbon emissions, so on and so forth. And that hasn't done much.
01:00:16.660We're actually just getting worse and worse every year. And I think the emotions and intuition and
01:00:22.900instinct have been sidelined by dominant culture and they haven't been valued and to reclaim
01:00:31.360that emotions and instinct and intuition actually are quite powerful in how we are alive as humans
01:00:38.960and how we show up in this world is really beautiful and I think some of the problem being
01:00:45.260with reaching people is kind of what you were talking about before just the sheer overwhelm
01:00:50.240of it all. What is the direction that people should take? You know, is it giving up plastic
01:00:55.500straws? Is it changing their lifestyle? Is it not flying on airplanes? I mean, there's just so many
01:01:02.120pieces to the equation. And then I was thinking about Riverwatch, the nonprofit organization that
01:01:07.640you founded. Of course, you're working on stopping these, I think, 3000 dams, but you're also
01:01:14.020interested in working towards taking down existing dams. In addition, like I said, to halting the
01:01:20.100impending hydropower projects. So from what I understand, there's 4,500 dams that have already
01:01:26.080been removed in Europe, with 2016 seeing the demolition of the largest dam to date, the
01:01:31.500Yicla de Yeltas Dam in Spain. So I'm curious to learn more about the actual
01:01:37.700dam removal process, and then what ensues after a river is freed.
01:01:43.320This number is very big, but it is mostly little wires from old mills. So real hydropower plants
01:01:50.040have been removed very few in europe there is some like in the one in spain you mentioned
01:01:55.440they're outdated their dams without any turbines in it anymore so that they're removed uh so what
01:02:02.380the way we were working on this and we tried to um create a little bit of a movement towards
01:02:08.120dam removal in europe is to actually address the dams that do the most harm and have the less
01:02:16.560effect on the energy so there is a lot of these dams out there um just to give you an example
01:02:23.620austria alone this little country has 5200 hydropower plants we have the highest density
01:02:32.240globally on dams and if you remove little wires here and there that doesn't change it but it's
01:02:40.280on the one side, it's every dam that is gone helps rivers. And the other hand is, I think it's a good
01:02:47.820strategy, also to avoid new ones. It's like a football game, you need you need a defense and
01:02:53.960an offense. And we are basically defending rivers, but we are not attacking the energy communities.
01:03:01.240And this is also from was from a strategic way of thinking to attack the dams, make them work
01:03:07.980against us rather than the rather than working us against them you know that was one um but you
01:03:15.120need a very very long breath in europe especially i think even maybe even more than in the u.s
01:03:20.460in countries like switzerland um austria norway you know mountainous countries the dam the
01:03:27.460hydropower plant is so deeply rooted in all of us i would say it's more than arguments it's more
01:03:34.540than electricity it's something like your character it's something like it's in you and
01:03:38.960when somebody questioned the dam it seems like you question all the austrians you know it's so
01:03:44.120or whenever when i wanted to make an interview for example for the climate crimes and i once
01:03:49.540interviewed for example the energy minister from brazil because of the bela muncha dam and we asked
01:03:55.980him where do you want to sit in your office he immediately chose a position underneath a photo
01:04:02.860of a big dam and that happened more than once to us so people think these monuments are completely
01:04:09.620sexy or whatever you know so there's it's a myth these dams nobody would dare to sit under a picture
01:04:15.120of a nuclear power plant not even a coal power plant but a dam they do so with this dam removal
01:04:21.400we are at the very very beginning but the network is growing and i try to give it a little bit of
01:04:27.740political aspect, you know, to fight the dams, to come up with the numbers and how senseless
01:04:36.560most of these dams are and how senseless most of these, you know, from these 5,200 dams