A massive slab of wartime concrete blocked the Pčinja River in Kumanovo, North Macedonia for more than 70 years. A 53-meter-long and 30-meter-wide (174 by 98 feet) structure of reinforced concrete packed with salvaged railway steel impeded the free flow of water and fish for at least 70 kilometers (44 miles) upstream. It was considered a safety hazard by the local Shuplji Kamen community. In late 2025, the barrier was demolished after efforts by the nation’s Eko-svest environmental organization. It was the first large-scale removal of its type in North Macedonia. It was also one of 603 obsolete river barriers, including dams, weirs and culverts, removed from European rivers in 2025, according to the 2025 Dam Removal Europe report. Researchers estimated removing those objects reconnected more than 3,740 km (2,324 miles) of rivers across the continent, a new single year record for dam removal in Europe. “Barrier removal [is] one of the biggest ecological ‘easy wins’ available today,” Chris Baker, director of Wetlands International Europe (WIE) wrote in a statement. “These obsolete barriers no longer provide any benefits, yet they continue to degrade rivers.” According to WIE, there are roughly 1.2 million barriers in place today that fragment Europe’s rivers, of them more than 150,000 are “considered obsolete.” Since 2020, nearly 2,300 dams have been removed across Europe, mostly in Sweden, Finland and Spain. Iceland, along with North Macedonia, carried out its first removal in 2025. Iceland removed an old hydroelectric dam that was no longer in use. The barrier…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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