Project Manager
Amelie Huber has been fascinated by free-flowing rivers ever since her first research trip to the Indian Himalayas in 2011. There, in the catchment area of one of the longest rivers on Earth, the Brahmaputra, the social scientist studied the social impacts of the global hydropower boom for several years. With her PhD in Political Ecology at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology in Barcelona, she focused on the social conflicts that result from ignoring the political aspects of environmental problems.
At the Balkan Rivers Days 2015 in Belgrade, the native of Allgäu not only got to know the campaign “Save the Blue Heart of Europe”. She also became aware that Europe’s last free-flowing rivers in the Balkans, too, are severely threatened by hydropower development.
Today, as project leader at EuroNatur, Amelie Huber herself campaigns for the protection of Europe’s last intact river landscapes. Within EuroNatur’s Rivers Team, she has been in charge of the Anti-Hydropower Platform since 2020, supporting international resistance against the uncontrolled expansion of hydropower plants in the Mediterranean region. One of her core fields of work is to coordinate the ‘Lawyers for Rivers’ initiative – a growing, cross-border network of lawyers who uncover and take legal action against offenses related to hydropower projects. “Linking scientific expertise with political environmental activism – that’s exactly what inspires me about EuroNatur’s conservation work,” she says.