Category: <span>Greening Silk Road</span>

STATUS OF THE DAM DAMAGE : The IHA reports how dwindling hydropower sector destroys biodiversity riches and social stability…and calls for its recovery.

The International Hydropower Association (IHA) published its 7th “Hydropower Status Report”. Report illustrates further decline of annually installed hydropower capacity, with “optimistic” estimate of only 15 GW added worldwide in 2019. We still tend to believe that the 12.5 GW figure from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is more …

Green Cure for BRI after COVID-19

Global Civil Society Call on Chinese Authorities to Ensure that COVID-19 Financial Relief is Not Targeted to Harmful Projects along the Belt and Road. On April 29, 2020, the Rivers without Boundaries along with other 260 civil society groups across the world called on the Chinese government to ensure that …

Statistics shows: The Queen of the United Kingdom Have Chosen a Wrong Source of Power

The Daily Mail reported that the Queen has won over environmentalists an argument about developing 2MW hydropower scheme on River Muick in Scotland. The new hydro which affects natural ecosystems of Cairngorms National Park will supply the Balmoral royal estate and the expected net financial value of generation goes up …

Spilled Molybdenum Tailings Are Spreading Pollution in the Amur River Basin

The Amur-Heilong River has a long history of environmental pollution, with the worst cases resulting from industrial accidents. People of China and Russia still vividly remember the great panic of 2005 when a chemical plant blasted in Jilin Province threatening by toxic spill Harbin and Habarovsk cities and dozens of …

Green Peacock and Friends of Nature win a court case against hydropower in Yunnan

Despite coronavirus fears and strict quarantine China had witnessed a landmark victory in public-interest litigation on environmental matters. We congratulate Friends of Nature (and our friends) with this remarkable achievement and wish them to win this case to the very end. In July 2017, conservation groups Friends of Nature (自然之友), …

Horizon Scan of the Belt and Road Initiative: Researchers Name Top Conservation Issues

An interdisciplinary group of researchers was assembled to identify ‘frontier horizon’ environmental and social issues for the BRI. One hundred issues were initially submitted and “rapid destruction of natural river ecosystems” came out as the most pressing issue of all (although it is not very novel). Chinese companies and financiers …