The Komarnica River will continue to flow freely through its eponymous canyon - at least for the time being. The project has been temporarily halted, but not cancelled.
The planned Komarnica dam would destroy this unspoilt canyon.
© Nebojša Atanacković
Protest performance during public debate on the Komarnica hydropower project in Podgorica, with placards stating "We don't destroy nature for 1% of electricity" and "Water is life, not profit."
© Montenegrin Ecologists Society (CDE-MES)Montenegro's state-owned electricity supply company has withdrawn its application to continue the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the Komarnica hydropower project. Unfortunately, the Montenegrin Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to reject the EIA for the nature-destroying project altogether, as recommended by an expert commission. Instead, the procedure has merely been suspended, leaving the door wide open for another attempt to realise the project, especially before the announced amendment to the law comes into force, which should allow approval procedures to be bypassed or at least significantly accelerated in future.
“This decision lacks legal foundation and merely buys time for the investor. It’s a clear case of procedural manipulation and institutional evasion of responsibility,” stresses Andrijana Mićanović, General Secretary of the Montenegrin Ecologists Society. “The competent authority should have delivered a final verdict on the Environmental Impact Assessment, enabling Komarnica to be removed from the spatial plan—instead, it allowed the investor a tactical withdrawal without acknowledging the project's harm.”
“The current development is a Pyrrhic victory, indicating that the decision clearly violates the interests of nature and the civil society,” says Dr Amelie Huber, Project Manager Fresh Water at EuroNatur. “In our opinion, the EPA should focus more on these interests than on those of investors.”