Hnutí DUHA

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 2005). The movement has been 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 the communist party from power and officially registered as a non-government organization on September 28, 1990 under the name Hnutí Duha - Přátelé Země Česká republika (The Rainbow Movement - Friends of the Earth Czech Republic).[1] Since then it has grown into a large organization, eclipsing the other environmental movements (such as Greenpeace) in the country. Among the most well-known members are Vojtěch Kotecký and two of the founders: Jan Beránek and Jakub Patočka. Several members of Hnutí DUHA have become prominent members of the Green Party of the Czech Republic but the movement is nominally independent of political parties.

As of 2007 the organisation employs around 30 people in the centre in Brno and a smaller number in Prague. Ten branches were established throughout the country (the first one in Olomouc in 1991). Large numbers of volunteers, usually students, participate in the activities of Hnutí DUHA. The movement rejects formal hierarchical structure and prefers to work in task-oriented semi-independent groups. The 2005 budget was less than 11 million CZK[2] (in the past few years this number has steadily decreased). About 60% of funding comes from foundations (like the Heinrich Böll Foundation), and about 15% from grants by the Czech state. The remainder consists of individual contributions and profit from the organisation's web-based publishing house. Starting in 2001, the movement issues a bi-monthly journal Sedmá generace (The Seventh Generation).[3]

The movement organizes protest campaigns (e.g. a 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 the use of renewable technologies. It helped to stop or to delay several large construction projects (e.g. a new highway to southern Bohemia, and expansion of lignite mining in northern Bohemia).

Hnutí DUHA is part of the 30 national organisations that Friends of the Earth Europe represents and unites at the European level.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.mvcr.cz/rady/sdruzeni/sdruz027.html[]
  2. ↑ http://www.hnutiduha.cz/index.php?cat=kdo&art=financovani
  3. ↑ http://www.sedmagenerace.cz/

External links

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