Nature Restauration Law : Encouraging but fragile results from the ENVI Commission

June 15 MEPs from ENVI Comission saved the Nature Restauration Law project, the amendment to reject the legal proposal did not pass, although with the smallest margin possible (44/44).

Compromise amendment 6 on Article 7 (river connectivity) was approved, which means that the 25,000 barrier removal target is – so far – still in the ENVI report. Although an encouraging result, it does not mean much, as there is a chance that the ENVI report ends up being rejected. MEPs will continue the voting of the last individual amendements during the next ENVI Committee meeting end of June, and then will vote on the full ENVI report.

So nothing is certain at this stage, advocacy efforts will need to continue until the plenary vote on the week of 10 July.

More infos : Save the “Nature Restauration Law” – European Rivers Network (ern.org)

Read the Press release from EEB

European People’s Party fails with disinformation campaign

Nature and the ever-growing list of stakeholders supporting the Nature Restoration Law can breathe a sigh of relief as the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee of the European Parliament rejected attempts by conservative and right-wing groups to kill the proposed law in a very tight vote on Thursday morning.

[…]

Sergiy Moroz, Policy Manager for Water and Biodiversity at the European Environmental Bureau, said: “Recent weeks have seen a growing chorus of unprecedented support for the Nature Restoration Law [2], including from the scientific community, as this law offers a solution to tackle both the climate and biodiversity crises. Science is clear: the biggest threats to food security and to farmers are climate change and the degradation of nature. We urge the MEPs to resist the misinformation campaigns and continue negotiating constructively towards the adoption of a strong Nature Restoration Law in the lead committee and plenary without further delay.”

read Press release in full : https://eeb.org/the-nature-restoration-law-lives-to-fight-another-day/ 

Save the “Nature Restauration Law”

The Nature Restoration Law, which will be shortly put to vote in the European Parliament, sets the target of restoring at least 25,000 km of free-flowing watercourses by 2030 (Article 7) in order to improve the natural longitudinal and lateral connectivity of watercourses. These objectives complement the obligations of the Water Framework Directive and is necessary given the significant degradation of aquatic ecosystems.

Read our note for Members of the European Parliament  in french  and english.

We should even go further and set a target of 178,000 km by 2030.

But even more, there is a high risk that it will be fully rejected as several parties went as far as calling to completely denied it back this past May.  This next Thursday 15 June the ENVI Committee of the European Parliament must be strong.

Send a message easy and quick message to your decision-maker to be ambitious : https://www.restorenature.eu/en/take-action #RestoreNature

 

The Nature Restoration Law proposal lays out plans to restore thousands of kilometers of rivers.

More info about fragmentation by dams

More info about Nature Restauration Law (anglais)

DRE launch today the dam removal progress report for 2022

The latest report uncovers a surprising figure of (at least) 325 barriers have been removed in 16 European countries – a new record! As in 2021, most of the removed barriers were weirs, as these structures have a high probability of being old and obsolete and can be removed in a cost-efficient way. But large dams such as the Roche-qui-boit dam in France (16m high) are also among the 2022 achievements.

Several factors have contributed to the new numbers such as newly available funding opportunities, like the Open Rivers Programme, the coordinated efforts of national and regional public authorities to report removed barriers, and the hype created by findings of last year’s report disseminated all around Europe.

Given the latest developments in European climate policy and the Commission’s proposal for a Nature Restoration Law, it is important to keep highlighting dam removal as a crucial tool to accomplish ecosystem restoration and celebrating success stories across Europe. Moreover, barrier removal also contributes to the global Freshwater Challenge to restore 300,000km of degraded rivers by 2030, a goal launched at the UN Water Conference held in New York in March. Besides pollution, habitat degradation, and over exploitation of natural resources, freshwater ecosystems face one major issue: dams.

It has been found that over 1,2 million barriers fragment European rivers, with many being obsolete. Among the several harmful consequences is biodiversity loss, with a decline of 93% in freshwater migratory fish populations in Europe and 76% on a global level. The alarming numbers ask for costeffective and efficient solutions to restore rivers. Dam removal has been paving its way in nature
restoration tools – a trend has been confirmed across Dam Removal Europe’s annual reports.

Read the press release

Read the report

Logo Openrivers

Open Rivers : Second weir removed on the Tardoire !

Read more

Save the date : international colloquium “Des Saumons et des Hommes 3 ” 19-21 October 2023 – Brioude (France)

Ten years after the last meeting, SOS Loire Vivante – ERN is organising a new conference on the Loire salmon. This is an opportunity to take stock of the situation of the Atlantic salmon in the Loire and elsewhere. National and international experts will try to understand the reasons for the decline despite restoration efforts and whether our actions are still in line with current and future challenges.
Is it due to climate change or to phenomena at sea or in the river? During the health check and the presentation of the results of restoration actions, we will compare the case of the Loire with other highly migratory river basins such as the Rhine, the Elbe, the Adour, the Garonne, the Sélune, etc,
Are you interested in this event?

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Rhine River : Fish passes in Rhinau and Marckolsheim: the work has really entered the active phase

Officially launched on 8 October 2021 by Mrs. Bérangère Abba, Secretary of State to the Minister of Ecological Transition, in charge of Biodiversity, the first shovels began to be dug in Rhinau and Marckolsheim this autumn 2022.

A great technical challenge awaits EDF. These fish passes will be the largest ever built in France and in Europe. The work will be carried out simultaneously on both sites, with commissioning scheduled for 2025 for Rhinau and 2026 for Marckolsheim. This is a great step forward and in line with the timetable announced at the last conference of ministers in Amsterdam in February 2020.

But a bigger challenge still awaits EDF on the Rhine: solving and developing the Vogelgrün dam, the last real obstacle before Basel. In this context the Salmon Comeback coalition will again ask the ICPR to set up an interdisciplinary working group dedicated to Vogelgrün in order to study additional alternative solutions to those studied in the past, which proved to be extremely complex and expensive.

More information and video presentation of the project: :  https://www.edf.fr/hydraulique-alsace-vosges/passes-a-poissons-rhinau-marckolsheim/le-projet-en-bref.

terrassement passa à poisson Rhinau
Rhinau works © EDF

logo Living Rivers Europe

Joint meeting of maritime and water directors: LRE calls for a commitment to raise ambitions for river restoration

Ahead of the joint meeting of maritime and water directors on 29 November 2022, the Living Rivers Europe coalition is sending a letter to the water directors asking them to engage in the Council deliberations on the European Commission proposal for the Nature Restoration Law to:

● Raise the barrier removal target to 15% of EU river length (178,000 km) restored to a free-flowing state by 2030 and make it legally binding;
● Remove the highlight given to exemptions to the Water Framework Directive objectives and TEN-T regulation to ensure proper implementation;
● Prioritise barrier removals according to the ecological potential of the removal, in particular the connectivity between marine and freshwater ecosystems;
● Increase the intermediary percentage targets laid out in Article 4 for the restoration and re-establishment of areas and the restoration of habitats of species, and shorten the timeline for reaching 100%, as this article also covers some freshwater ecosystems and those restoration actions would also complement the action on river connectivity;
● Recognise the need to expand the EU financing support available for free-flowing river restoration in addition to the sources identified in the EU Guidance on barrier removal for river restoration, for example, through the establishment of dedicated funding for nature restoration, pursuant to the mid-term review of the Multiannual Financial Framework.

Around exemptions from the WFD objectives :

● Make full use of the measures provided by the Water Framework Directive and other EU rules to bring Europe’s waters to good status as soon as possible and by 2027 the latest
● Do proper cost benefit analysis before applying exemptions and include long-term costs such as costs related to climate change in the decision-making
● Do proper economic analysis and put in place economic instruments for cost recovery for the coal sector, including mine drainage fees and adequate fees for cooling water abstraction that account for the external costs of operation. Earmark the revenues for restoration measures.

Read letter 

Sélune River / France : The salmon is back !

France / Sélune River : Only 4 weeks after the demolition of the Roche qui boit dam and 2 years after Vezin’s demolition, a first salmon was already electronically located upstream of the construction sites !

more information on the dam removals on the Sélune River !

World Fish Migration Day – Exceptional visit of the “New Poutès” in France

On the occasion of the World Migratory Fish Day, of which ERN is an official partner, SOS Loire Vivante organizes in cooperation with EDF two guided tours of the “Nouveau Poutès” dam.

Indeed, in the Haut Allier, the works at the Poutès dam are now completed! Since the end of 2021, the dam is reconfigured to allow the free circulation of the last wild salmon populations during 3 months per year while maintaining about 85% of the hydroelectricity production.

To know MORE about the World Migratory Fish Day

Become aware of the relationship between humans and fish

Freshwater fish are the emblems of living rivers, indicators of good quality of the environment and vector of the development of sustainable activities on the territories. 15,000 species of freshwater fish and more particularly the 1,100 species of migratory fish are in danger. They no longer travel freely because of the numerous developments carried out on our rivers over the last few centuries (dams, weirs, etc.). To accomplish their migration, which is essential for their complete life cycle, they are now dependent on our policies and our commitments to restore and protect our rivers.More info on https://worldfishmigrationday.com/ but also Twitter, Facebook, Insta

 

May 21, 2022 is World Migratory Fish Day !

May 21, 2022 is World Migratory Fish Day !

Organized every two years by the World Fish Migration Foundation, this day honors free-flowing rivers and migratory fish, which are often threatened. This day, many organizations around the world organize events on the theme “Reconnecting fish, rivers and people”. Already 95 events open to the public are registered, and it is not over.

> Check out the events

> Any association or individual can get involved and register an event.
Organize an event

> Take part in the actions organized by SOS Loire Vivante / ERN:
Virtual visit of the “New Poutès” dam completely reconfigured for salmon migration.

The location of the dam on the upper Allier river is of crucial importance: it determines the access of the salmon to the best spawning areas for the Loire-Allier strain of salmon, a unique strain able to migrate over long distances!

SOS Loire Vivante / ERN will organize a visit to the “new Poutès” dam and will record the visit and conduct interviews on site.

Other actions are being organized by SOS Loire Vivante.

 

> Website of the world fish migration day