The ecologist parties of Moldovan and Ukraine have signed a common appeal to the Prime Ministers of the two states, whereby they demand to abrogate the Program for Developing Hydropower Plants in Ukraine until 2026, which was approved by the Cabinet in Kyiv in July 2016. The program envisions the construction of six cascades of hydroelectric plants on the Nistru River. According to ecologists, the consequences for the environment will be serious.

“Despite the incontestable impact of this program on the environment and the international legal obligations of Ukraine, this important document hadn’t gone through the procedures stipulated in the Aarhus Convention or the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), in accordance with the Protocol on SEA adjusted to the Espoo Convention, which was ratified by Ukraine,” says the appeal.

Chairman of the Green Ecologist Party of Moldova Anatolie Prohnitski, in a news conference at IPN, said the Ukrainian Government’s actions can lead to the desiccating of the Nistru up to the Black Sea. To warn about the existing dangers, at the Greens Global Congress held in Liverpool at the start of April, representatives of the ecologist parties of Central and Eastern Europe pleaded for stopping the works on the Nistru.

The Greens’ appeal says the program to build hydropower plants does not take into account the risks related to the safety of drinking water, food security and technological security. The negative impact of this process will be felt by over 25 million people.

“The well-known consequences of the construction of such hydroelectric plants and regulation of the discharge of water include the increase in the level of water, accumulation of large volumes of water and sediments in reservoirs, flooding of larges areas for forming beds for these reservoirs. This lead to the degradation of the ecosystems of rivers, loss of water self-cleaning capacity and capacity to qualitatively and quantitatively recover biological resources, flooding of surrounding areas and significant pollution of groundwater,” says the appeal.

Anatolie Prohnitski also said that the situation upstream of the Nistru has been already worsened by the accumulation lakes located near the Novodnestrovsk hydroelectric plant. As a result, the level of water decreased and the area near Soroca districts became muddy.

The Liverpool Congress adopted also other resolutions. These refer to the situation in Syria, the war in Ukraine, Europe’s contribution to protecting Global Commons, nuclear power and strengthening of the pillar of social rights.