… raising awareness among general public about the state of Slovenian inland waters and dangers they face
… promoting the importance of protection of rivers, lakes and wetlands with their adjacent habitats and drinking water as a basic human right
… supporting civic environmental initiatives through empowerment, encouragement and networking
… engaging in dialogue between civil society, environmental and legal experts and authorities concerning most pressing issues, such as new interventions into rivers and pollution
… participating in constructive opposition to huge, state-led projects, such as planned building of huge hydroelectric plants on Sava river, which would have, according to environmental experts and scientists, disastrous consequences for the river, it’s habitats and reservoir of drinking water underneath it
… advocating for modern, sustainable approaches and nature-based solutions in human management of rivers, including renaturation of watercourses as outlined in EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030
Beginning of our project dates back to May 2022.
Situation in Slovenia
According to official data, about half of Slovenia’s rivers are in a poor state. Freshwater fish are among the most endangered of all organisms in Slovenia: in the last half a century their numbers declined around 80 percent. Despite this, there are countless new construction projects and interventions being planned, a lot of them extremely harmful for rivers, their habitats and drinking water supply, according to environmental experts and scientists. Some of the planned construction projects are to take place in protected areas, like Natura 2000. This is making an already bleak situation predictably worse. Energy and construction lobbyists are often in cahoots with political decision-makers on local and national level, preventing any straightforward public debate regarding the consequences of interventions into rivers. On state level, no debate has yet taken place regarding renaturation of rivers, as envisioned in EU’s Biodiversity Strategy 2030.
After record drought of 2022 and devastating floods of 2023 the interest of public and media in the fate of our inland waters has been steadily increasing. But most citizens are still not fully aware that they can become active themselves in the field of rivers protection or they are not even aware of the threats inland waters face. Another problem arises when people in their local environments start to establish civil society initiatives. They are often discriminated against by local and even national authorities. Discrimination usually takes place in such a way that local authorities and state institutions prevent representatives of civil society from participating in the decision-making process on new interventions into rivers, so the activists have to turn to the courts (if they decide to do so at all). Namely, the civil society initiatives are often founded and led by people who are not lawyers or environmentalists by education, which makes it difficult for them to tackle complex bureaucratic and legal procedures. Although some environmental campaigns have been successful, a lot of the initiatives face problems such as isolation, unrecognizability, small membership, lack of legal knowledge and professional support and inexperience in the field of advocacy.
Our work takes place all over Slovenia and is multifaceted in the sense that we promote advocacy through various information channels, public events and innovative approaches. At the same time, we offer support for civil society initiatives in cooperation with environmentalists and legal experts. We engage in dialogue with local authorities with proposals for solving existing water problems.
Our initial idea was to travel around Slovenia, learn about the problems of our rivers and establish contacts with local civil society groups. From this idea arose a vision of connecting these groups for the benefit of mutual cooperation, encouragement, exchange of experience and information, and this vision has grown into the strategy of establishing a national network for the protection of our inland waters and drinking water.
During the implementation of the project, we came to the realization that the efforts to protect inland waters, and thus drinking water as a fundamental human right, unite people beyond divisions created by daily politics. Empowerment and integration of the civic environmental initiatives are not only a condition for a more effective advocacy in the field of environmental protection, but also a prerequisite for building a better society with greater cooperation and participation of people in decisions that affect their lives, health and environment.