Hnutí DUHA

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Hnutí DUHA (-Czech, translated to English as The Rainbow Movement) is an environmental movement in the Czech Republic, the most prominent in the country (as of middle of 2000s). The movement is a member of the Friends of the Earth International for the Czech Republic since 1994.

Hnutí DUHA was founded in 1989 by a group of students from Brno, Czechoslovakia shortly before the fall of communist party from power and officially registered as a non-government organization on September 28, 1990 under name Hnutí Duha - Přátelé Země Česká republika (The Rainbow Movement - Friends of Earth Czech Republic).[1] Since then it grew up into a large organization, eclipsing the other environmental movements (as Greenpeace) in the country. Among the most known members are Vojtěch Kotecký and two of the founders: Jan Beránek and Jakub Patočka. Several members of Hnutí DUHA became prominent members of the Green Party of the Czech Republic but the movement is nominally independent of political parties.

As of 2007 the organisation employes employs around 30 people in the centre in Brno and in small part in Prague. Ten branches were established throughout the country (the first one in Olomouc in 1991). Large number of volunteers, usually students, participates in the activities of Hnutí DUHA. The movement rejects formal hierarchical structure and preferes to work in task oriented semi-independent groups. The 2005 budget was bellow 11 millions Czk [2] (for the last few years this number is slowly decreasing). About 60% of funds comes from foundations (like the Heinrich Böll Foundation), about 15% are grants by the Czech state, the rest are individual contributions and profit from web based publishing house. Starting in 2001 the movement issues a bi-monthly journal Sedmá generace (The Seventh Generation).

The movement organizes protest campaigns (e.g. a years long campaign against the Temelín Nuclear Power Station during the 1990s), provides environmental impact estimates for assessment processes and for new legislative acts, offers ecological services for individuals and municipalities and promotes use of renewable technologies. It helped to stop or to delay several large construction projects (e.g. a new highway to southern Bohemia or expansion of lignite mining in northern Bohemia).

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