Rivers´regulation in Poland: open letter to the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki

CCB • March 4, 2021

Moratorium on rivers’ development is required in the implementation of any project financed by public money.

The reason for calling for a radical intervention by the Polish Prime Minister concerns the ill-adapted water management. The current state of the water management and the challenges of the national wealth: the natural river network in Poland, is a serious problem. Supporting the need to renegotiate the Water Act, quick and radical measures are necessary to prevent further devastation of rivers.


Previous editions of the Infrastructure and Environment Programmes contributed to deteriorate the status of Poland’s water bodies. The entire river network suffered from extensive interventions involving deepening and damming watercourse channels. This has exacerbated the problem of lowering the groundwater table throughout the country and caused extensive damage to natural river channels and bank revetments of regulated rivers. When formulating plans and programs for rivers or related to water beyond rivers, it is essential to consider the values and state of the environment formulated by the scientific community, NGOs, or the European Commission.


The information of the then Minister of Maritime Economy and Inland Navigation for the Parliament for 2018-2019 proves that water management is to serve water use and not to preserve publicly available national water resources in river systems and in groundwater reservoirs. In recent years the units responsible for water management in Poland neglected rivers’ condition. 

Thus, between 2016 and 2018, the number of rivers in poor condition increased from 90% to 99.4%, which proves that currently the condition of rivers in Poland is the worst in the Baltic Sea basin and in Europe. Moreover, according to the provisions of the National Surface Water Restoration Programme, more than 90% of surface water bodies require restoration measures.

Therefore, we call for:


  • Water management in Poland should be performed by an institution responsible for the protection of the environment, natural resources, climate and forestry to implement modern descriptions of natural rivers (by care and shaping in the corridor of the development of natural channels). It is important to equip this institution with appropriate funds for the protection and maintenance of rivers, but also with the possibility of constituting an opinion on the methods of interference by all stakeholders in the water resources of river valleys.
  • Introduce a general moratorium on the development, deepening and damming rivers in Poland. Ban use of obsolete catalogues and guidelines drawn up before 1980, until the introduction of a regulation to define modern rules for river shaping with understanding the river morphology of channels and its environmental requirements.
  • Arranged a variable river basin management in Poland to restore the natural ecosystem services. Use natural retention potential to counteract the effects of climate change (in the context of drought and floods, while recovering the near-natural self-purification of basin systems to reduce the adverse effects of emissions from basin areas).


In order to spend public money properly and not risk losing funds of the National Reconstruction Plan and the Partnership Agreement, radical steps are needed. That will consist in a ban (moratorium) on regulation, partitioning and deepening of rivers from their source to their mouths, for all investors, up to the effective implementation of modern reference descriptions of natural rivers and standards of conduct for river restoration during their maintenance.


Consequently, we call on the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland to take action in Polish water management.


Read the full Moratorium in Polish

Read the full Moratorium in English

COP30 brings ocean and water to the center of climate policy

By CCB • December 5, 2025
In Belém, in the heart of the Amazon, the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference COP30 immediately set the bar high. In his opening speech, Brazilian President Lula da Silva stressed that climate change is no longer a "threat to the future", but a tragedy that the world is already experiencing here and now, and called on countries to accelerate actions rather than limit themselves to promises. However, as is often the case in COP meetings, the political reality turned out to be more complicated than ambitions. Negotiations were difficult: the countries could not agree on a clear and binding plan to phase out fossil fuels. It is important to note that the Global Action Plan has provided a platform for discussing the development of a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change. At the same time, COP30 has brought tangible progress in other areas: the countries agreed to triple the amount of adaptation funding for developing countries by 2035, strengthened the forest and ocean agenda, and expanded the range of practical initiatives under the Action Agenda . COP30 consolidated the trend: from "water at the center of the climate crisis" to a holistic ocean agenda closely related to energy, food, biodiversity and sustainable coastal development. From the COP29 Water Declaration to the COP30 Enhanced Ocean Water Program At COP29 in Baku, the Declaration on Water for Climate Action was adopted , with the aim to applying comprehensive approaches to combating the causes and consequences of climate change for water basins, emphasizing also the need to integrate water-related mitigation and adaptation measures into national climate policies, including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). COP30 did not reverse this logic, but expanded it towards the ocean and coasts. Both processes "aquatic" and "oceanic" are moving in the same direction: integration of water, coasts and ocean into the climate plans of countries; development of nature-based solutions; strengthening transboundary management of water and marine systems; recognizing adaptation as an equal part of climate policy, rather than an "adjunct" to emissions reduction. Task Force on Oceans and the Blue NDC Challenge The international Task Force on Oceans , led by Brazil and France, was officially presented at the high-level ministerial meeting "From Ambition to Implementation: Delivering on Ocean Commitments" on 18 November, integrating oceans into a global mechanism to accelerate the incorporation of marine solutions into national climate plans. The Blue Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Challenge encourages countries to set ocean protection targets when updating their NDCs. The goal is to transition the Blue NDC Challenge into an Implementation Task Force. Members of the Blue NDC Challenge, currently 17 countries, can adopt a broad set of actions aimed at the protection and sustainable use of the oceans.These measures include the sustainable management, conservation, and restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems, supported by tools such as marine spatial planning, integrated coastal zone management, and climate-aligned marine protected areas. Countries are also encouraged to support sustainable and climate-resilient fishing and aquaculture, ensuring ocean health and long-term food security. B razil has set a clear example: its updated NDC includes a separate chapter on the ocean and coastal zones. For the first time, the national climate plan (Plano Clima) until 2035 includes a thematic adaptation plan for these areas. Priorities include the completion of national Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) by 2030 and major programs for the conservation and restoration of mangroves and coral reefs (ProManguezal, ProCoral).

Pathway to Tox-Free Living: Policy and Action

By CCB • November 24, 2025
Leading scientists, consumer advocates and policymakers gathered on November, 18th in Brussels for the conference "From Evidence to Policy: Toward a Tox free Living Environment" . They warned that exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in homes and consumer products represents a silent but severe public health and economic crisis. New findings presented to over 65 participants by the EU Baltic Sea Interreg project NonHazCity3 , LIFE ChemBee and the ToxFree LIFE for All projects as well as revealed widespread contamination of European households by complex chemical mixtures of hormone system disrupting substances (so called endocrine disrupters – EDCs) that contribute to chronic disease and impose enormous health costs. According to the key note speaker Dr. Aleksandra Rutkowska, the home environment is a significant source of exposure to EDCs through indoor air, dust and daily contact with common products. Current research links such exposure to a shocking amount of lifestyle diseases including 22 cancer outcomes, 18 metabolic disorder outcomes and 17 cardiovascular disease outcomes. Scientists also stressed that the crisis spans generations. EDCs trigger epigenetic changes that not only affect today’s population but also future children and even grandchildren. Other effects include reproduction disorders. Over the last decade, 150 million babies were born preterm, and evidence shows that reducing the use of plastics by half could cut the risk of preterm birth by half as well.