By Alexandra Marvar – The Nation, 11 November 2019 In times of conflict, war, and climate change, hydropower is state power Since the early 2000s, a massive hydropower project in southeastern Turkey has been mired in controversy, moving forward in fits and starts. But as of this past July, construction is finally complete. As the...
By Will Christou, Syria Direct, 10 November 2019 AMMAN— Northeast Syria is facing an acute water shortage as a result of damage to civilian water infrastructure and the roughly 108,000 Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) who fled the Turkish offensive, “Operation Peace Spring,” early last month. On October 29, the Autonomous Administration of North and East...
Statement by Save the Tigris Campaign, 12 October 2019 On 9 October, Turkey started a military offensive in northeast Syria. A move which will have disastrous consequences for the region. This armed conflict will have a direct impact on populations, ecosystem and post-conflict recovery of the area. Concerns mount of a humanitarian catastrophe. Water is...
Stop the filling of the Ilisu Dam! Statement by Save the Tigris Campaign, 29 July 2019 Despite strong domestic and international opposition, the Turkish government has commenced filling the reservoir of the controversial Ilisu Dam on the Tigris River in the Kurdish Southeast of Turkey without giving any official warning to those still living in...
Following years of neglect under the Assad regime and the struggle against Daesh, North-East Syria continues to be plagued by water scarcity. Overconsumption from the Turkish side of the border has reduced supplies to the area. Since agriculture is the main source of income for the local population, they rely heavily on water. In addition,...
Humat Dijlah Association (Tigris River Protectors) – the Iraqi partner for Save the Tigris Campaign – and a wide range of Iraqi civil society organizations, movements, and individuals (signed below) address the Turkish Government to abandon the decision to flood the Ilisu Dam because of the serious environmental effects that will affect directly on Iraq....
With the filling of the Ilisu Dam reservoir imminent, the annual session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) in Baku, Azerbaijan was an important opportunity to address the key threats to the Iraqi Marshes with policymakers. Minimum water flows to the heritage site have not been met in the past 2 years. Since dam...
Commentary by Josh Klemm on 1 July 2019 for Mongabay This July represents a critical opportunity to protect rivers and the World Heritage sites that depend on them. Key government leaders will converge on Baku, Azerbaijan for the 43rd annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee this week. Established under the auspices of the United...
By Elizabeth Ingram – Hydro Review Content Director Iraqi, U.S. and Italian officials have celebrated the completion of a project to shore up Iraq’s Mosul Dam, which is 371 feet tall and 2.2 miles long and holds back about 32 billion gallons of water. Trevi says a recently held event formalized the return of the dam to...
A new report compiled by Save the Tigris member Rivers without Boundaries and World Heritage Watch, a draft of which was presented by civil society during the World Hydropower Congress, is an indictment of global conventional hydropower construction. As the title Heritage Dammed suggests, the report sets its sights on ecological sites on the UNESCO...
