Machines still in the Cijevna canyon: See what TV Vijesti recorded

From Podgorica through the Božaj border crossing, through the Cijevna canyon to the final destination - the village of Tamara in Albania. From here, they say, it's nice to watch the river, but the view is spoiled by the pipes.

Works on one of the small hydroelectric plants, here on the Albanian side of Cijevna, are ongoing. Although the workers are not currently in the field, the machines are there and, according to local residents, they are working every day.

And they started, says Rok Bujaj, more than 10 months ago.

"Nobody even informed us what was going to be done here. They simply started building," says Rok Bujaj, a resident of the village of Tamare.

During all this time, a lot has been built. However, the river swelled, so it covered some tracks.

"I have cattle, sheep that I bring all the way from the hill here to water them, because there is no water up there. We will be without this," says Simon Nakaj from the village of Tamare.

The locals are outraged, because there is nothing they can do. The hydroelectric plant, they say, is not only an ecological problem, but also a socio-economic one.

And, our public has been waiting for more than 4 months for answers to the questions of how many hydroelectric plants will be built on the Albanian side of the river and what consequences it will cause in the part of the Cijevna that flows through Montenegro.

At the Center for the Protection and Study of Birds, they are not encouraged by what we found in the field.

"The work has certainly progressed, that is something that can be seen. We have also contacted the international community, we have also written to the Berne Convention in the hope that they will help us fight for, at least initially, answers", Ksenija Medenica from NGO Center for the Protection and Study of Birds.

Even our Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism still does not know what impact the construction of this and other hydroelectric plants on the Cijevna will have on the environment. They say they asked their Albanian colleagues for documentation twice, but they did not receive it.

"The Republic of Albania did not submit the requested documentation. In the period from the beginning of October to the end of January 2019, diplomatic and technical communication was carried out with the competent Albanian institutions, in which it was pointed out that in the spirit of good neighborly relations, we will agree on a position on the sustainable management of this common water resource", MORT replied on February 7.

The Ministry states that at the end of December last year they also contacted the Secretariat of the ESPO Convention, which stipulates that se Neighboring countries that have common natural resources must inform each other about possible works that may have an impact on the other country.

"On January 22.01.2019, XNUMX, we received information that our request is being considered by the Implementation Committee of the Convention, which will contact Montenegro on this issue," MORT states.

Meanwhile, Albanian Energy Minister Belinda Baljku said she would stop the construction of new hydroelectric plants and launch an investigation into 182 permits issued for the construction of 440 such plants.

"We will wait a few more days to see if the individual list of facilities to which the decision refers will be published, and if that does not happen, in order to obtain information that may be of importance for the Cijevna river, we will send a request through diplomatic channels through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Albanian foreign," added MORT.

Both our and the Albanian side say that the two sides should cooperate in this case, stating that international agreements should be respected.

"The conclusion is that the voice of the citizens is clearly not being heard and that the institutions on both sides are ignoring the problems of the citizens," adds Medenica.

But it is not just about Cijevna - the importance of every river, our interlocutors conclude, should be above personal interests. Locals of the village of Tamare already have a hydroelectric power plant, but they say that it is of no use.