Earth Hour with Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences

On March 23rd, at 8:30 PM, people around the world turned off lights in their homes and apartments, switched off electronic devices, and public utility institutions dimmed their illuminations. This was Poland's 17th time participating. This year's edition was dedicated to watercourses and aimed to highlight the poor condition of rivers.

The initiative was joined by everyone – from the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, ministries, universities, schools (with education authorities calling for participation) to energy companies. WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature, an international non-governmental and environmental organization founded in 1961, decided to use this year's Earth Hour to draw attention to the condition of rivers. The WWF Poland website posted a petition: "A river is not just water flowing in a bed. It is something much more valuable. A river is an entire ecosystem accompanying the water: plants and animals living in the river's current and in its valley, as well as those visiting it during migrations or spawning. It is our heritage that urgently needs support, as 99.5% of Polish rivers are already in poor condition. The more the river ecosystem is degraded by human activity, the less resilient the rivers are to various types of pollution and disasters."

The petition includes a plea to the Prime Minister to restore water management to the competence of the Minister of Environment – currently, rivers are managed by the Minister of Infrastructure, responsible for implementing investments rather than protecting nature and the environment. Further points address the restoration of the degraded Oder ecosystem – in the 2022 disaster, more than 215 million aquatic organisms died; developing a comprehensive solution to the problem of pollution, including salinity, of river waters; and river renaturation, i.e., restoring them to a state close to natural rather than their devastation.

The petition also calls for the largest rivers in Poland to be covered by a network of constant, automatic water quality monitoring, the results of which are transmitted to a publicly accessible database and services. The necessity of building such a system became evident during the Oder disaster. In the fall of 2023, the Supreme Audit Office in its report stated that key public administration bodies unprepared for such a situation did not take appropriate actions, did not ensure effective information flow, and did not activate appropriate crisis management structures.

During the disaster, one of the largest in the recent history of European rivers, at least 350 tons of poisoned fish were retrieved from the Oder and its tributaries, including 250 tons in Poland. However, some scientists did not hide the fact that the actual losses were two to three times greater – estimating that even 1000 tons of dead fish were retrieved and even 80% of the organisms responsible for the self-purification of the river died. The direct cause of the massive fish deaths was a toxin produced by algae, the so-called golden algae, whose natural environment is saline and brackish waters. The Oder has been polluted for many years due to human activity, including saline waters discharged by mines. It was precisely the high salinity, as well as nutrients present in the river and its tributaries, that created favorable conditions for algae growth. At the peak of the Oder disaster, the University of Environmental and Life Sciences in Wroclaw, or more precisely, scientists who deal with water protection, river ecosystems, and ecology in their work, presented to the local authorities a program of research, monitoring, and reconstruction of the Oder ecosystem and its tributaries.

Jacek Engel, president of the Greenmind Foundation and co-author of the "White Paper on Polish Rivers" (the first was created over 20 years ago), did not hide when the so-called Oder River Act was revealed last year, that the problem of pollution and the dire state of waters is not only about the Oder. In an interview with "Polityka", he stated: "According to data from the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection, nearly 99% of Polish rivers are in poor chemical or ecological condition. This is obviously due to human activity, but also to their inactivity. More precisely: the inactivity of those who are responsible for this state, namely the State Water Holding Polish Waters."

In 2023, Earth Hour was organized under the theme of expanding existing national parks and creating new protected areas. The petition promoted then reminded that in the last 50 years, monitored animal populations have decreased by 69%, and called for 30% of Poland's land and seas to be protected areas; and for 10% of the country's land and seas to be under strict protection (currently, this is barely about 1.5% of land), and for the creation of a plan to rebuild natural resources. Two years ago, in 2022, Earth Hour aimed to focus on the protection of seas and oceans, and 2021 was accompanied by the theme "Save the Baltic Sea". In 2020, the campaign was held online due to the coronavirus pandemic, which particularly emphasized questions about the relationship between humans and nature, the effects of their interaction, and the necessity of environmental protection. In 2019, Earth Hour engaged 187 countries across seven continents. Icons like the Pyramids of Giza, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, London's Big Ben, the Sydney Opera House, the Colosseum in Rome, and the Taj Mahal in India were plunged into darkness as a symbolic testimony.

Dr. Magdalena Zienowicz from the Department of Landscape Architecture said: – Awareness of the relationship between humans and nature is growing, and not just becoming more significant. This means that it is recognized not only by scientists and activists but also by decision-makers, citizens, public institutions, and businesses.

 Dr. Zienowicz was responsible for the awarded project of illumination of the Botanical Garden, prepared with Prof. Zygmunt Kącki – the director of the Botanical Garden of the University of Wroclaw and Kinga Sadowska, a graduate of landscape architecture at the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. The LIT Lighting Design Awards, the most significant in the lighting industry, recognized the project for its environmental consideration and respect for the garden's 200-year history.

– Earth Hour each year sensitizes us to a different area needing protection. But just as we talk about the pollution of rivers, oceans, or forests, the mass extinction of species, or global warming, we also realize the effects of light pollution resulting from human activity. This specific project showed that it is possible to reduce this pollution, while simultaneously highlighting the uniqueness, natural values, and poetry of the night of a particular place, respecting all living organisms in it. It is nothing other than a conscious care for the environment of which we are a part – emphasizes Dr. Magdalena Zienowicz.

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  Landscape architects from the UPWr awarded for Botanical Garden illumination

  Scientists from the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences have won a prestigious international award for their illumination project for the Wrocław Botanical Garden. Dr. Magdalena Zienowicz admits that it was not an easy project to implement.