Boskov Most

Macedonia urged to suspend controversial hydropower project

December 4, 2015

Strasbourg, Skopje, Prague - In the latest blow to planned hydropower dam in Macedonia's Mavrovo National Park, the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention, the European wildlife treaty, added today its voice to growing calls to reconsider this reckless project. The spotlight is now on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the project's main financier.

Institution: EBRD

Theme: Other harmful projects

Tags: Balkan lynx, biodiversity, Boskov Most, hydro, Mavrovo national park, Balkans, EU neighbourhood

Bern Convention Committee to decide fate of Balkan lynx and Boskov Most hydropower plant in Macedonia

The critically endangered population of the Balkan lynx (Lynx lynx balcanicus) may be getting a new lease on life this week after being threatened by planned hydropower constructions in its core area of reproduction.

Tags: Balkan lynx Bern Convention biodiversity Boskov Most hydropower Balkans EU neighbourhood

Institution: EBRD

Theme: Other harmful projects

Activists help put the brakes on Balkan hydro projects

August 27, 2015

Source: Richard Lockhart, Newsbase

Balkan governments are under mounting pressure to curb the construction of hydropower plants (HPPs) in national parks and wildlife areas, where hundreds of projects are planned or underway.

Environmental campaigners have already scored successes in halting new HPPs. In late July, Croatia’s environment ministry rejected Hrvatska Elektroprivreda’s impact study for its 68-MW Ombla HPP near historic Dubrovnik,

Courts in Republika Srpska (RS) have twice this year backed activists’ claims that environmental assessments on proposed plants in the Sutjeska National Park were flawed.

Theme: Energy & climate, Balkans

Tags: Boskov Most, Energy Community, hydropower, Mavrovo national park, Ombla, Balkans

Pressure mounts on EBRD to quit Macedonian dam folly

Bankwatch Mail | May 14, 2015

Macedonia's Mavrovo national park is the largest and richest national park in the country and home to the critically endangered Balkan Lynx. The Macedonian government, however, has plans to also make Mavrovo the home for two large and around 20 small hydro power plants. Could the EBRD cancel its involvement in one of the projects?

Institution: EBRD

Theme: Other harmful projects, Development

Where will all that power go? New study assesses extravagant energy ambitions in the western Balkans

Bankwatch Mail | May 14, 2015

Western Balkan countries have ambitious plans to increase their electricity generation over the next years. But what will happen if they all become a regional energy hub? Will there be a demand for all the available electricity?

Theme: Energy & climate, Social & economic impacts

Western Balkans electricity plans: where will all that power go?

Tags: Boskov Most coal E.on electricity Enel energy exports hydropower stranded assets Tuzla Western Balkans Balkans EU neighbourhood

Institution: Chinese investors, Commercial banks, EBRD

Theme: Energy & climate, Social & economic impacts

The Boskov Most hydropower plant, Macedonia

Briefing | October 20, 2014

The Boskov Most hydropower plant includes an accumulation dam 33 metres in height and a power plant with a total capacity of 68MW, Around 80 per cent of the project falls within the territory of the Mavrovo national park, the largest and richest national park in Macedonia. Three years after the signing of a loan agreement over EUR 65 million from the EBRD, little progress has been made with the project. This briefing details several reasons why the project should not receive support from the EBRD.

Institution: EBRD

Theme: Other harmful projects

Balkan lynx stage protest at annual meeting of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

A delegation of 20 lynx from Mavrovo National Park in Macedonia today occupied a corridor in the Polish National Stadium in Warsaw, where the EBRD Annual General Meetings are taking place 14-15 May.

Their message: "EBRD, don't finance the Boskov Most dam, as it will destroy the forest in which we live and eventually kill us." The 20 delegates from Mavrovo Park constitute almost half of the little over 50 lynxes which still survive in the park today (the Balkan lynx is an endangered species).

Tags: Balkan lynx Boskov Most EBRD annual meeting hydropower Mavrovo national park protest Balkans EU neighbourhood

Institution: EBRD

Theme: Other harmful projects

Threat posed by hydro to Mavrovo National Park under the spotlight at Skopje conference

On Thursday in Skopje, over 100 people attended the first public conference [mk] regarding the two planned hydropower plants in the Mavrovo National Park, one of the oldest and most valuable protected areas in the country. A petition to save the park that was launched one day earlier has already gathered over 13 000 signatures.

Tags: Balkan lynx biodiversity Boskov Most ESP hyropower IUCN Mavrovo national park Balkans EU neighbourhood

Institution: EBRD

Theme: Other harmful projects

An EBRD interpretation of biodiversity protection in the western Balkans

With potentially devastating impacts on natural habitats, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has so far offered no real commitment to environmental protection in its ambiguous decisions on two hydropower plants in Croatia and Macedonia.

Tags: biodiversity Boskov Most hydro power Ombla Balkans

Institution: EBRD

Theme: Other harmful projects