This week our director Martin Galea De Giovanni is taking part in the transnational Biodiversity Campaigner’s & Hydro Meeting which takes place in Banja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina.

The focus of the meeting is the development and discussion of the actions towards community-based resistance to destructive hydropower. Hydropower development in Europe and in the world is increasingly seen as a major threat to biodiversity and community livelihoods and in many cases a cause of human rights abuses. This would include FoEE member groups, building on their experience and collaboration for several years (especially in the Balkan region – SEENET network), and FoEI member groups in the Global South which are already working on this theme and will benefit from collaboration and exchange with other groups. The project would also create a new dynamic, result into a clear positioning of the Federation and thus make possible a better engagement in policy and advocacy work on this topic at regional and global levels in the future.

To support and coordinate local and national work in resistance to destructive hydropower development, share skills and experience from various cases across the FoEE and FoEI network, bring together ideas and visions from member groups and build joint understanding and analysis, notably about threats to people (“defenders of territories”) and nature and the drivers behind (esp. investments from European-based companies).

Also, the organisations presented their biggest successes from the last 2 years on Biodiversity, shared the main priorities for the coming year on the topic of biodiversity and introduced new members to the Biodiversity Steering groups.