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The European Green Deal misses Europe’s subterranean biodiversity hotspots

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 1403–1404 (2022)Cite this article

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To the Editor — To tackle climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, the European Commission in 2021 initiated the European Green Deal (EGD)1, designed to achieve a sustainable and carbon-neutral economy by 2050. An important action within the EGD is the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (BS2030), a comprehensive plan for protecting nature, reversing degradation of ecosystems, and securing ecosystem services2. Biodiversity protection is considered essential for a successful implementation of the EGD, and the program is designed such that actions should also not harm biodiversity outside the EU1. These are laudable and necessary aims, but we argue that some actions of the EGD collide with its goal of protecting biodiversity. This is particularly evident when considering the effects of planned hydropower development on subterranean biodiversity in the Western Balkans.

Hydropower is a source of renewable energy, yet it is often not sustainable. Devastating effects of hydropower on aquatic and riparian biotas have been documented3. While the BS2030 aims to restore 25,000 km of rivers in some parts of the EU, an action that includes dam removal2, paradoxically, there are extensive plans to build new hydropower plants in other parts. These pressures are especially strong in the Western Balkans4, where many rivers are still free-flowing and are waterways considered an unexploited source of renewable energy5. We are concerned that their conversion will have devastating effects on biodiversity in the region.

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Fig. 1: Planned hydropower plants threaten subterranean diversity of Western Balkans.

References

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Acknowledgements

The study was funded by Slovenian Research Agency (grants P1-0184 and J1-2464 to C.F. and PhD grants to Š.B. and E.P.), Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 310030_197410 to F.A.), University Foundation of Eng. Milan Lenarčič (stipend to E.P.) and Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (grant CEPF-109136 to M.Z.)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SubBio Lab, Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Cene Fišer, Špela Borko, Teo Delić, Anja Kos, Ester Premate, Maja Zagmajster & Valerija Zakšek

  2. Department of Aquatic Ecology, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Florian Altermatt

  3. Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Florian Altermatt

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  1. Cene Fišer
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Correspondence to Cene Fišer.

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Fišer, C., Borko, Š., Delić, T. et al. The European Green Deal misses Europe’s subterranean biodiversity hotspots. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 1403–1404 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01859-z

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