Environmental activists sound the alarm and warn the authorities that the building of the hydropower system on the Nistru will destroy the river in several decades. In a news conference at IPN, Alecu Reniță, president of the Ecologist Movement of Moldova, said the maintaining of the Nistru does not mean only drinking water, but also keeping of life in a basin of at least 72,000 square kilometers.
According to Alecu Reniță, if the hydropower project is implemented, the Nistru will lose all its natural characteristic and will be turned into a chain of cascades and in several decades will become a swamp. Amid climate change, when the sources of drinking water diminish, the value of the Nistru is even more important as there is no other source of drinking water in the region.
The leader of the Ecologist Movement of Moldova said the whole segment of 1,362 kilometers of the Nistru River should be managed in concert by Moldova and Ukraine, according to the standards set down in international conventions. Currently, the river is fragmented and each region exploits it according to the own interests, without taking into account the impact on the whole ecosystem.
Iuliana Cantaragiu, expert of the National Environmental Center, said a negative impact on the ecosystem of the Nistru has been witnessed during the last few years. The river pollution level has increased. Biodiversity is affected owing to the decline in the quantity of water and such a phenomenon is more evident in the lower Nistru, where the channels are practically dry. A number of species of fish disappeared and the natural environment of a number of species of birds was destroyed.
Ina Coșeru, a member of the Eastern Partnership civil society platform on environmental protection, said Moldova and Ukraine, by signing the Association Agreement, undertook to adjust the laws on the protection of the environment to the European standards. In the negotiations of the joint Moldovan-Ukrainian commission, the Ukrainian side said the building of hydropower plants is a normal practice worldwide and it does not consider this project will have a negative impact on the river. Civil society calls on the Moldovan authorities not to consent to this project until there is no study of the environmental impact. If the project is approved of, the environmental NGOs will mount protests on front of the Government Building and the Embassy of Ukraine. The activists are decided to launch a campaign to collect signatures for a petition against this project that will be submitted to the Governments of Moldova and Ukraine and to the European Commission.
