CCB APPEAL TO LITHUANIAN PARLIAMENT AND GOVERNMENT

Please see the text of the Appeal here

Rimantas Braziulis and Antanas Kontautas from Lithuanian Green Movement gave the following comments to the Statement.

The 15th CCB General Meeting and Conference adopted the Appeal to the Parliament of Republic of Lithuania and Government of Republic of Lithuania. In it, CCB urges the Lithuanian Parliament to reconsider the recent initiatives to revise the list of 147 rivers, established in 2004, where spawning habitats for migrating fish are protected and construction of Hydro Power plants is prohibited, and to allow construction of new Hydro Power plants in previously protected rivers.

Surely, some entrepreneurs are very unhappy with this. They make complaints and lobby changes in this list. Under their pressure, the Committee for the Environment of the Lithuanian Parliament recently adopted the advice to the Government to shorten the list of protected rivers and to shrink the areas of nature protected areas. We cannot ignore such decisions. Therefore, we decided that this process should be opposed with the statement by such international organisation as CCB. We hope that opinions from other countries will support our Government and our Parliament in making environmentally sound decisions.

This is very important for Lithuania, because 67 thous. km of rivers has been artificially modified in this country. Only 17 thous. km of rivers still stay untouched. These natural river parts are the last reserve for natural ecosystems, and if they are regulated, the remaining natural ecosystems will be lost.

One example of the conflicts around rivers is Sesartis river. There, one entrepreneur made several attempts to build a hydropower plant during the last five years. Sesartis is known for a large number of fish species spawning there, including, for example, salmon, sea trout, lamprey, and grayling. Construction of a dam is impermissible on Sesartis river, because this will destroy spawning grounds.

Another example of a place where business is willing to build a hydropower plant is Minia river. So, right now it is very important to prevent any changes in the list of protected rivers and their parts. We believe that the CCB Appeal will help us in our activities. We think that we should use this method of international statements more broadly, in other cases also.