By Florian Goga
VJOSA RIVER, Albania (Reuters) – Standing in the fast flowing water and swishing nets through the trees and shrubs on the banks, scientists have been collecting data on the flora and fauna around Albania’s Vjosa River as they try to stop the construction of hydropower plants.
The river, dubbed the last “wild” river in Europe, flows uninterrupted for 270 km (170 miles) from Greece across southern Albania to the Adriatic Sea, without any dams or power stations.
But the government in Albania, where 95% of electricity is generated from hydropower, hopes to build 30 new plants along the river as it looks find more diverse and reliable supplies as climate change makes rainfall more erratic.
Environmentalists say the work would flood the area around the river and change its flow as it snakes through boulder-strewn canyons and acres of pristine forest.
So far, a court case has halted any construction, and that is how the campaigners hope it stays, with the ultimate aim of having the river and its network of tributaries being declared a national park to give it full protection.
“Our main goal to document as many species as possible,” entomologist Gernot Kunz, from Austria’s University of Graz, told Reuters, marvelling at the richness of insects he found during a night-time expedition. “The biodiversity is very, very high and we have many species that only occur in that area.”
He has been working with a team of scientists from Austria, Italy, Slovenia and Albania taking samples from the network.
The campaign has caught the eye of actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who highlighted it on Instagram in March, garnering hundreds of thousands of views and likes.
“The river is vitally important for more than 1,100 species of freshwater fish and is culturally significant to people in Albania,” he posted.
Fritz Schiemer, a river ecologist from the University of Vienna, hailed it as “a jewel”, and thousands of Albanians have signed a petition calling for its protection.
But even as far back as 2010, a World Bank study warned that future climate change could cut Albania’s hydropower generation by 20% over the coming decades, and droughts since then have periodically hit output and sent prices higher.
The government says reliable electricity production is crucial for the country’s economic prosperity and has pledged the project would have minimal environmental impact.
(Writing by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Alison Williams)
