Milica Radenkovic Jeremic
BBC journalist
While the whiteness of the snow is cut through by tall, thin trees and sparkling ice on the water, the crunch of my footsteps in the snow and the distant barking of dogs are the only sounds that reverberate around Reva Pond.
Just a few hundred meters from the busy Belgrade - Pančevo road, it is peaceful and quiet.
However, fresh footprints prove that I am not the only one who, in early January, reached the home of hundreds of animal and plant species, among them the protected white-tailed eagle, otter, and great crested grebe.
A few hours before me, Ana Džakić was here, who, with the White Heron Association, has been fighting for years to ensure that the Reva Pond and its surroundings remain intact.
"Nine kilometers from the center of Belgrade, there is a place like this that our city should be proud of and present as a nature reserve," says Džakić.
Four years ago, environmental activists, With the support of public figures, they managed to stop the delivery of construction waste and rubble, but now they are preparing for a new battle.
Since the end of 2025, it has become increasingly certain that a "bulk cargo terminal of the new port of Belgrade" will emerge at this location, as the Serbian Government has passed Regulation on the determination of the port area.
This terminal would handle and store stone aggregates (such as sand and gravel) "in accordance with prescribed technical and environmental standards," according to the state Port Management Agency.
Such an undertaking would not only enable more efficient handling of stone aggregates, but would also bring environmental benefits, such as cleaning and improving the banks from sand dumps, it is written in the answers for the BBC in Serbian.
"Water transport is also recognized as the most environmentally friendly form of transport, with significantly lower emissions of harmful gases compared to other types of transport," they add.
The life of the Reva pond
The little green frog, the pond turtle, the great crested grebe, and the black stork are just some of the species that call Reva home.
I haven't seen any of the birds, but the occasional call from the frozen undergrowth tells me they're there.
Among them, the white-tailed eagle reigns supreme, having built four nests here, with impressive dimensions of almost two meters in diameter and weighing up to 200 kilograms, explains Ana Džakić.
"It shows us that they are doing well here and that they are finding everything they need," he says.
The terminal would cover an area of 57 hectares, and the Port Management Agency says it would be built "700 meters from the Reva pond."
"It is planned that a significant part of the space, around 40 percent, will be dedicated to green areas, and the recultivation of this area is also planned," they say.
Ani Džakić, however, says that the terminal would "cover two important points - the Reva Barrage and the Reva East Foreland."
"These are the two most important points on the basis of which this area was designated as IBA area," he says.
IBA (Important Bird Area) is an area that the world's umbrella organization for the study of birds, Bird Life International, is recognized as internationally significant for their conservation and biodiversity.
"I don't know if there is another capital city in Europe that has so many eagles."
"Instead of making it an honor and creating an oasis, the authorities violated a number of international regulations and decided to make it a terminal," says Zoe Lujić, founder of the organization Earth Thrive and the Balkan Center for Nature Rights.
Among the regulations that would be violated by the construction of the terminal, she singles out the Bern Convention, to which Serbia has been a signatory since 2008, which protects flora, fauna and wild habitats.
"According to the Bern Convention, species are protected wherever they live, not just in places that have been declared protected."
"The white-tailed eagle is strictly protected under domestic and international laws."
"A terminal cannot be built a few hundred meters from its nest. There's noise, pollution... So, would you like a terminal next to your apartment?" he says.
Reva, he continues, is also protected under the Ramsar Convention, whose goal is the preservation and sustainable use of wetland ecosystems.
He also says that building the terminal would also violate the Bonn Convention, which protects migratory animal species.
Instant protection
Current urban plans allow for the construction of a terminal in this area, although activists have repeatedly requested that the planning documents be amended.
Over the past years, the Institute for Nature Conservation has issued several decisions for the construction of terminals, but with compliance with certain conditions.
"The existing indigenous vegetation of marsh and swamp ecosystems in the Danube riparian zone must be preserved to the maximum extent possible," it states. in the decision on protection conditions for the purposes of developing location conditions.
This means, among other things, that "wild bird habitats are preserved," that the terrain must not be cleared during the bird's nesting period, and that workers and machinery must not come closer than 300 meters to white-tailed eagle nests during certain periods of the year.
The same decision, however, also stated that this "area is, from a landscape perspective, unfavorable for the construction of buildings."
The Institute also produced a study in 2023 proposing that the Reva Pond become a protected habitat.
"The protection study is in the process of being harmonized with data from the real estate cadastre, which is why the protection procedure has not been initiated," the Institute stated in written responses to the BBC in Serbian.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection did not respond to a question from the BBC in Serbian whether there is a plan to protect this area.
The Institute, however, says that when the Government decree was passed paving the way for the construction of the terminal, the Protection Study, "as a proposal for placing the Reva Pond and its surroundings under a certain form of protection," was respected.
"According to preliminary data and a comparison of cadastral plots from the government's Decree on the Determination of the Port Area with data from the Protection Study, the terminal is not within the scope of the area designated for protection."
"The cubicles on the Danube, which are within an ecological corridor of international importance, and the possible negative impacts of the construction and exploitation of the terminal itself on the Revu Bar and its surroundings are controversial," the Institute states in its responses.
An uncertain future
The Port Management Agency submitted in 2025 Environmental Impact Assessment Study for the Terminal Construction Project.
The study stated that the terminal construction works will have a "spatially limited and temporary impact" on the environment, and will not cause "significant and lasting consequences".
The possible consequences of the terminal's operation are briefly analyzed, with the claim that the terminal will be "optimally organized, arranged and equipped for the purpose of environmental protection".
This does not reassure Ana Džakić and her colleagues.
"If a terminal were built, habitat fragmentation would occur and this would have consequences for nesting, feeding and everything else that living things need," explains Džakić.
"Some of the populations would be buried, and some would have to look for another habitat," he says.
Zoe Lujić describes the entire area as a living organism.
“These living beings depend on each other and are connected to their home.
"Mushrooms in the ground provide food for trees, which provide homes for birds. It's a symbiosis, you can't cut off a community like it's an inanimate object," he says.
Environmental activists reiterate that they have nothing against the project, but that the terminal should be built somewhere else.
The Agency, however, states that this area "has been planned for the development of port and logistics activities since the 1970s, taking into account good traffic connections with public roads that do not pass through central city zones."
Although they say they "respect the opinions and suggestions of non-governmental organizations based on relevant expert evidence," their responses do not suggest any intention to abandon the project.
Suggestions from non-governmental organizations "will be considered and, where possible, implemented through further project development, as there will be an emphasis on implementing the project in accordance with the highest environmental standards," they state.
It seems that for environmental activists, the only outcome they can accept is abandoning the terminal.
That's why they are ready to fight again like they did four years ago, when they built a human wall to stop trucks with construction waste.
They are also announcing a legal battle before domestic courts and international organizations.
"All living beings have an innate inalienable right to life, health, natural renewal, and home, and a rich living community like Reva has that same right," says Zoe Lujić.
"The state should not view it as an object that can be destroyed or 'relocated', as this would permanently harm or even kill Reva and its inhabitants," he concludes.
Watch a video about the so-called 'Novi Sad on the Water' project
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube i Viber. If you have a topic suggestion for us, please contact bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
- Preservation of the Reva pond: "Nature belongs to all of us"
- "Novi Sad on the water": The idea is public, the investor is private, and whose shore will it be?
- Droughts in Serbia are becoming the 'new normal'
- Smoke, garbage and protests: Blockade over landfill near Novi Pazar
- Are we really the last generation to see fireflies?
- Landfills in Serbia: Ecological time bombs
Bonus video:
