Posted on March, 20 2008

WWF and The Coca Cola Company have joined forces to conserve and protect the Danube, Europe's lifeline and the world's most international river basin. The project, which takes place within the framework of the global partnership between the two organisations, focuses on reconnecting the Danube river as a lifeline, including people, habitats and species.

Reconnecting the Danube and its people

Among specific activivities, the partnership seeks to enhance protection and management of the Danube’s greatest natural jewels by creating and strengthening a Danube network of protected areas. The benefits of reconnecting the Danube floodplains and side arms to the main river system will be demonstrated on the Middle Danube in Hungary as well as on the Lower Danube in Romania.

The project will also support restoration of sturgeon migration up and down the Danube as well as engage fishing communities to revive sturgeon fisheries. WWF is currently supporting efforts of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River Basin and the governments of Serbia and Romania to assess opportunities for restoring migration paths across the Iron Gates dam -- the major barrier to extending migration by 1000 km all the way to the Slovak border.

A major focus of the project is also to promote and support good river basin management through exchange of best practice at different levels across the Danube River Basin and across the world. The Danube is considered by many to present one of the best examples of integrated river basin management.  

Global partnership

The work on the Danube takes place within the framework of the global partnership that was signed between WWF and The Coca Cola Company in June 2007 to conserve and protect freshwater resources around the world.

By 2010, the partners seek to measurably conserve seven key freshwater river basins;
improve the efficiency of the company's water use; support more efficient water use in its agricultural supply chain, beginning with sugar; and decrease the company's carbon dioxide emissions and energy use.

Aside from the Danube, conservation activities of the partnership focus on the China’s Yangtze River, the Mekong River in Southeast Asia; the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo of United States and Mexico; the rivers and streams of the Southeastern United States, the water basins of the Mesoamerican Caribbean Reef, the East Africa basin of Lake Malawi, and Europe’s Danube River.

Europe's lifeline

The Danube is the very lifeline of Europe. Despite many man-made changes and technological impacts, the Danube still retains much of its outstanding ecological qualities. WWF considers particularly the lower part of the Danube including its delta as one of the Earth’s 200 most valuable ecoregions with a unique biodiversity, great potential for ecological improvements and additional socio-economic benefits.

Contact: Andreas Beckmann, WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme, T: +43 1 52 45 470 17