The start of spring is a good opportunity for deep cleaning. As the first warm days encourage people to experience the returning greenery outdoors, the Rewilding Oder Delta team organized a collective cleanup along the Ina, to make sure that some of the most inviting places by the river in Goleniów are free of litter. Last Saturday, 20 April 2024, dozens of garbage bags were collected during this “spring cleaning”. The event highlights the power of collective actions and shows that there are many committed people who want to help keeping their environment clean.

On April 20 this year, the Rewilding Oder Delta team will once again support a waste collection action on the Ina River, which has been initiated for years by the Society of Friends of the Rivers Ina and Gowienica (TPRIiG). Together with the local community and partners from the region, we invite you to a joint event for the river health improvement.

Healthy, free-flowing rivers governed by natural processes offer a wide range of benefits for wildlife and people. This autumn, with the help of local partners, we carried out a range of measures to restore the Ina River – an important tributary of the Oder River.

On 2 July 2023, the city of Goleniów (Poland) organised a protest against the poisoning of the Ina River that took the form of a ‘black’ kayak trip. Participants – residents of Goleniów and friends of the river, as well as municipal authorities, local politicians and entrepreneurs – met on the stream’s banks to express their indignation at the ecological disasters repeated over the years in the catchment area of this beautiful river.

In the light of the upcoming voting for the new Nature Restoration Law, Rewilding Oder Delta hosted a visit of members of the European Parliament Hannah Neumann and Jutta Paulus to present challenges and best practices in the field of ecosystem restoration.

On April 22, 2023, the Polish NGO “Friends of the Ina and Gowienica Rivers” initiated a successful action to collect trash on the banks of the Ina River. This was the second time that a trash collection action was held on the riverbanks, which was coordinated and carried out by the Rewilding Oder Delta team. Notably, this year’s riverbank cleaning was scheduled to coincide with a significant event: Earth Day 2023. On this date, public actions are held worldwide to draw attention to the state of the environment and our landscapes.

For many years, the partner organisation Society of Friends of the Ina and Gowienica Rivers (TPRIiG) has been organising symbolic river clean-up events in the Oder Delta. Thanks to strong community involvement and support from other regional organisations and institutions, hundreds of bags of rubbish, which had lain on the banks and in the riverbeds, were collected.

European rivers have the highest fragmentation in the world, with only one-third in a ‘good ecological condition’. Similarly, rivers in the Oder Delta have also suffered from human intervention and have lost their natural character many a place. As the current dramatic situation on the Oder River shows, our rivers are under constant pression and their resilience is limited. Together with partners, we are therefore working on rewilding the watercourses in our region and welcome the support by the European Open Rivers Programme, a grant giving organisation dedicated to restoring rivers.