A great news about the Patagonia Blue Hearth Campaign

Bosnia-Herzegovina, 15 June 2018: the group of activists women, called “the brave women of Kruscica”, who protected the access bridge to their village for 24 hours a day for over 300 days, to ensure that they did not come built a dam on their river,  finally got a very important result! The cantonal court of Novi Travnik decided to cancel the environmental permit for the construction of dams on the homonym river , declaring illegal any type of construction work on the dam.

Despite this significant victory, the women of Kruscica do not intend to stop; they want to ask Minister Salkan Merdazani to cancel the two concessions that have been given for the construction of dams on the river, and until this will happen, they will continually guard the bridge, 24 hours a day to avoid illegal constructions.

Tahira Mika Tibold, President of the local community of Kruščica, comments: “We are delighted that the court has decided to cancel the environmental permit, and international attention has certainly increased the pressure and contributed to this decision. We remain vigilant and will continue to defend the bridge because we know that there is still a long way to go to protect our river and our community from dam investors “.

The story of this fight is part of the Blue Heart documentary produced by Patagonia and premiered in March 2018 and screened in Europe, Japan, South America and Australia. International banks have also been asked to stop investing in the destruction of the blue heart of Europe through a global petition that has so far collected over 110,000 signatures. Act now to protect the last unpolluted rivers of Europe, sign the petition here.

Ryan Gellert, General Manager, EMEA, Patagonia, states: “The ruling shows that as interested citizens around the world, we can make our voices heard in support of the local populations struggling to protect their rivers and communities. Together, we can contribute to the realization of fundamental decisions like this. The biggest battle has not yet been won, because there is still a tsunami of dams with over 3,000 destructive projects planned in the Balkans. However, local victories like this remind us of the power of action that starts from below and grows thanks to a wide public support “.