Free Rivers Award

Free Rivers AwardThe FREE RIVERS AWARD honors activists, communities, social movements and non-governmental organizations which defend or restore free-flowing rivers and the rights of communities that depend on them. It supports effective grassroots campaigns and celebrates their successes.

The Free Rivers Award is sponsored by Friends of the Earth International, International Rivers, and Oxfam Australia. It was created in 2009, and is granted every three years on World Water Day.

The first FREE RIVERS AWARD was awarded to Hasankeyf'i Yaşatma Girişimi in March 2009.

Hasankeyf'i Yaşatma Girişimi has inspired the international movement against dams by achieving an extraordinary success against the construction of the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris River in Turkey. Due to their efforts, the construction of the dam was stopped in December 2008 and the international financiers of the project, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, have temporarily suspended the contracts and financial risk guarantees for the project.

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