After decades of painstaking progress in environmental policies, the European Union is entering a phase in which, under the pressure of geopolitical tensions and the demands of big capital, it is increasingly openly renouncing its own progressive principles of environmental protection and public health.
Organisations Polekol, Europa Nostra Serbia, and the local initiative from Ušće - Save Studenica have submitted an official initiative to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris, warning of the increasingly serious pressures that threaten to irreversibly damage one of the most valuable parts of Serbia’s cultural and natural heritage: the Studenica River basin and the cultural landscape surrounding the Studenica Monastery, a jewel of Serbian heritage recognized and inscribed on the World Heritage List since 1986.
The Right to Water initiative warns that Serbia is thirsty this summer as well. A severe drought, decreasing water levels and neglected water infrastructure, which is in an increasingly poor condition, have left dozens of towns and villages without a basic condition for life - clean drinking water. During June, July and August, 108 locations from all over the country - from the north of Vojvodina to the south of Serbia - applied for the right to water. People report dry wells, cloudy water, broken pipes, and the injustice they feel every time they turn on the faucet.
An informal group of citizens, Protect the Prijepolje River, filed a criminal complaint against the PowerIT company from Subotica and its legal representative due to well-founded suspicions that they obtained the energy permit for the construction of a small hydroelectric plant in Velika Ploča by falsifying official documents.
Polecol is among more than 150 organizations from around the world that signed the letter addressed to the UN Secretary General, who we ask to immediately initiate the work of an expert group for a just transition in the sector of critical raw materials.
Polekol participated in the development of the Draft Strategy and Action Plan for the implementation of the Aarhus Convention
