River Rights, Water Justice and New Perspectives on the Protection of Our Waters

On June 18 and 19, 2026, the Blue Community Berlin, together with GRÜNE LIGA and its partner organizations, welcomed Australian legal scholar and Blue Community Ambassador Assoc. Prof. Dr. Erin O'Donnell to Berlin. As part of her European tour, she discussed river rights, water protection and new legal approaches to nature with representatives from academia, civil society and environmental organizations.

In addition to the public panel discussion and a film evening, the program also included visits to Berlin schools and an excursion to innovative water concepts.

Australian Blue Ambassador Erin O'Donnell is coming to Berlin on June 18 and 19

In mid-June 2026, Blue Community Ambassador Erin O’Donnell, who is an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne Law School in Australia and the author of "Legal Rights for Rivers: Competition, Collaboration and Water Governance", will be in Europe, delivering lectures in Zurich, Berlin and Vienna. The Blue Community Berlin welcomes her with a series of events on June 18 and 19 in Berlin.

How much mining can our earth endure – and what responsibility do we bear in this regard? We would like to invite to a two-day conference in Altenberg on September 4–6, 2026. The focus will be on the planned lithium mining in the area – as well as global developments surrounding this coveted raw material. This is where ecological concerns, economic interests, and questions of global justice collide.

The environmental network GRÜNE LIGA is today publishing a background paper on the planned “Net Zero Valley Lusatia”, which summarizes the main points of criticism of the proposed designation of the whole of Lausitz region in Germany as a so-called “acceleration valley”.

„In the name of climate protection, trees and participation rights are to be cut down, in some cases for fossil fuel projects. This is not what the EU wants to promote with the Net Zero Industry Act,” says René Schuster from the Cottbus environmental group.

Planned Mining Violates the Constitutional Climate Protection Law

Bautzen/Rohne, December 2, 2024. Today, a lawsuit was filed with the Higher Administrative Court of Bautzen against the expropriation of a privately-owned forest for the Nochten lignite mine. In the coming months, the court will have to decide whether the forest area may be destroyed as planned by the coal company LEAG on January 1, 2026.

“Expropriation is only permissible for fully lawful projects. The court will need to determine whether the numerous damages caused by the Nochten mine are genuinely necessary for the public good. There are significant doubts about this on several legal grounds. For instance, burning the planned coal amount is incompatible with the constitutional mandate for climate protection,” said attorney Dr. Philipp Schulte, who represents the landowners in court.

Environmental Group will remain there with several events