✍️Hugo Dos Santos, full story on our website: www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/bulgarias-tr...

These activists share one conviction: ecology is the path to reclaim their city. They studied abroad, saw what was possible, and came home to build it themselves. United, they believe, they would be even stronger.

Nikola Bonchev created Drujba Garden, an urban garden run horizontally by 80 residents who grow their own food. Former industrial wastelands are now becoming biodiversity hotspots, like the Kremikovtsi mine, now Bulgaria’s deepest lake.

In the Boyana neighbourhood, residents like Aneliya K. are fighting to save the city’s last natural wetland from developers. “We will stand our ground,” she says, after years of legal battles and grassroots activism.

Martin Yankov returned from London to found Kolektivat, an NGO revitalising Sofia’s forgotten rivers. Since 2020, his team has cleaned different sections each year, offering free cultural activities around them. The project will take a decade, but Yankov is not worried.

Svetoslav Aleksandrov, 45, remembers cycling through abandoned railway tracks as a child. Now, he is planning a 32-kilometre green ring that connects Sofia’s parks and neighbourhoods. The municipality, despite showing interest in 2018, has done little since then to support the project.

✍️Žaneta Jansa Gregorová , full story on our website: www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/lithium-mini...

But there is still hope. Local communities are fighting back, demanding genuine dialogue on how transformation can actually happen. They refuse a green transition which repeats the extractive patterns that have already devastated their regions for generations.

In Újezdeček, a local survey found unanimous opposition. Mayor Stanislav Molnár secured one victory, moving the processing plant elsewhere. But GEOMET admits most mining jobs will go to foreign agency workers. The promised battery gigafactory has been abandoned.

The Ústecký and Karlovy Vary regions remain Czechia’s poorest, still bearing the scars of coal mining scars. Companies extracted wealth but never reinvested locally. In 2023, GEOMET offered an unreasonable compensation: a playground upgrade and snow removal equipment in for an 80-bln-euro project.

Prime minister Petr Fiala calls the region Europe’s future lithium superpower. The EU classified the project as strategic, unlocking Just Transition Fund money. But local communities remember broken promises from previous mining operations that left them with pollution and poverty.

Cínovec holds up to 5 per cent of global lithium reserves. GEOMET, a venture between the Australian firm European Metals and the state-owned ČEZ, plans a 450-metre deep mine starting in 2027. It would run for 26 years, producing enough lithium for half a million car batteries annually.

Also in this issue:
🟢André Gorz’s Vision for Autonomy and Radical Frugality
🌐Geopolitics Beyond Growth
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Yet another path is possible. Europe could tackle market concentration, invest in digital commons, and redirect public funding towards mission-oriented innovation for decarbonisation and social resilience.