Investigation of “The Guardian”, hydropower plants are destroying Balkan

The prestigious newspaper “The Guardian”, raises an alarm that the building of thousands of hydropower plants is putting in danger the rivers of Balkan and the ecosystem around them. 



Through an investigative article, the newspaper publishes a series of documents from specialized institutions which raise the alarm that more than 2000 dams that are currently under construction, might have a destructive impact in the region’s environment.

The Guardian says that western financial institutions have funded millions for the construction of dams in Balkan, in order to remove the region from the energy crisis.

But the environmental impacts might cause a review of this policy. The British newspaper focuses on Albania, which has hundreds of hydropower plants under construction.

“Eight dams are being built at the Vjosa river by foreign companies. The Albanian government is trying to resist to these temptations”, the newspaper writes, quoting Prime Minister Rama saying that during the first six months in office, he received phone calls on a daily bases from Albanian, European and American companies that wanted to build dams in Albania.

The Minister of Energy, Damian Gjiknuri, says that everybody seems to want to build a dam in Albania. 

“The international financial institutions have not been as careful as they would be if these dams were built on their backyard”, the newspaper quotes Edi Rama, who calls this “the course of poor countries”.

According to “the Guardian”, the head of the Albanian government has asked some of these institutions, such as the EBRD, to fund small agricultural enterprises rather than hydropower plants, but they hesitate.

“In Kalivac,  a dam reached an advanced phase before debates stopped its progress, leaving behind a huge concrete hulk on the river’s banks”, the newspaper writes, quoting the area specialists saying that fifty-six hectares of plane and poplar trees in the river region have been cut down, and that it could be a threat for the entire region.