If we had to choose one word to describe Snežana Jagodić Vujić’s activism, it would be decisiveness. For more than two decades, Snežana has been fighting for healthy air, water and land, as well as for greater citizen participation in decision-making processes, and against divisive policies based on religious or ethnic grounds. She heads the environmental association “Eko put” from Bijeljina and is the initiator of numerous actions aimed at protecting nature. She creates real small natural oases from landfills, such as the Eco Visitor Center “Jezera”, and is currently leading an initiative fighting against the construction of a lithium mine on Majevica. This year, she was nominated for “Face of a Defender”, an exhibition of portraits of 12 women who do not give up in the fight for human dignity and well-being and who work on various issues: from the protection and promotion of the rights of women, children and other vulnerable and minority groups, to building peace and a culture of remembrance, environmental protection and the fight against corruption.
We talked to Snežana about the role of women in the fight for a healthy environment and the current initiatives and projects in which she is engaged.
You are one of the founders of the initiative “Majevica – Nature Park, Not a Lithium Mine”. This initiative was supported by more than 6,000 citizens with their signatures, which were submitted to the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska at the end of January. What is currently happening with this initiative?
SNEŽANA: The initiative, with the collected 6,057 signatures of the residents of Bijeljina, Zvornik, Lopare and Ugljevik, was submitted to the National Assembly on January 20, 2025. It first went through the Agency for Identification and Verification of Signatures and that was successfully completed. However, they then asked for additional documentation to be submitted to them, among other things, they asked us to fill out a form for harmonization with EU regulations. All of this was not necessary last year when the first petition was made in the territory of the municipality of Lopare, which was shamefully rejected in the National Assembly of the RS. Basically, we submitted all the documentation they asked for and now, the next step depends on them. We still do not know when the initiative will be on the agenda of the National Assembly, we are waiting for them to let us know. We learned about the application for a concession for a lithium mine in Majevica from the media. And now the illogical issues arise – how a request for a concession has been submitted, while at the same time the procedure is underway to protect this area and declare Majevica a nature park. It is up to us to fight for the concession not to be granted. We are going through the prescribed procedure, according to the law, without any urgency or anything, so let’s see when they will call us…
Of the four members of the Initiative Committee “Majevica – Nature Park, Not a Lithium Mine”, three are women. What was your experience like and how did the signature collection process go?
SNEŽANA: First, the moment was very inconvenient. Signatures were collected between December 21, 2024 and January 16, 2025. The weather was very cold and bad. We in Bijeljina were well organized. The municipality provided us with 24 volunteers, and the Mountaineering and Ecological Society Majevica provided 12 volunteers, so we had a sufficient number of people to collect signatures. And they were mostly women, I have to emphasize that. In Lopare, they were just as well organized, while in Ugljevik we had a very specific situation. At the beginning of this whole story, we had the association “Kolona BB” from Ugljevik. They were offered 30,000 BAM from the office of the mayor to do some project, but on the condition that they withdraw from this story. And they withdrew. There were several volunteers who wanted to participate in collecting signatures, but they were forbidden to do so. In the end, Andrijana Pekić from Guardians of Majevica and a few other colleagues were freezing and collecting signatures on their own. We heard that there were also arguments in Zvornik, because some people from the association were afraid that they might be left without the support they receive from the budget, even though it is a small amount of money they receive.
At a protest assembly organized in Bijeljina on April 6, Ljubinko Petković, from “Guardians of Majevica”, said from the podium that “ladies are the ones who are carrying this fight”, he called you lionesses, but he also mentioned that you were arrested? What was that all about?
SNEŽANA: There were arrests, but not because of our initiative. The reason was the organization of an assembly in support of students in Serbia. The police arrested 30 or so of us. They arrested me first. I asked them: “Am I the only progressive force in Bijeljina, so I am the first to be arrested?” It felt bad. I reminded them that for every assembly I organize, I regularly send a letter to register the assembly and that this time is no different. I did not organize that assembly; I just shared that post on social networks. So I was not at the police station because of our initiative, but my colleague Dragana Ristić from Lopare, who leads the group “Say No to the Lithium Mine in Lopare”, was called to an informal interview with the police regarding the posts on that group. And she went with a lawyer to that interview. We have a unique situation in Majevica, here both the citizens and the local authorities are all on the same side. The protest assembly in Bijeljna will be remembered in history for the fact that the mayor of the municipality of Čelići from the Federation, two councilors from the Tuzla City Council, people from Teočak came to the assembly, so we included all municipalities and cities from Majevica and those that gravitate towards Majevica. We gathered around a common topic, which is the survival of the people in these areas. We showed unity, while those in power want discord among the people.
What is a just green transition for you?
SNEŽANA: All of this came from the European Union. They need it, they need to free themselves from their energy dependence on Russian gas and Russian energy sources. They passed the law on critical mineral resources, where they see us as a third world country that will provide them with these raw materials. We tell them this clearly and they are not indifferent. Our resistance to the opening of lithium mines and other critical raw materials is indecisive, firm and clear. On the other hand, our so-called decision-makers have alienated themselves from their own people. They have forgotten that citizens are the ones who have the power and do not understand that other times have come where people want togetherness and unity, where they no longer want discord and some meaningless divisions about who is of which religion and the like. We are entering a time when we all need much more wisdom in order to survive the coming years. We had floods in Prijedor again this year. They bypassed Bijeljina, which does not mean that the Drina will not rise when the snow starts to melt on Durmitor. Semberija is an agricultural area, a lot of food is grown here, but if the water is polluted, we will no longer have food. And we are in double danger here – Jadra, on the one hand, and Majevica, on the other. Mining and processing of lithium would inevitably lead to water pollution with heavy metals. You can survive for a month without food, but you cannot without water. So we support a green transition, but not at our expense. Germany is also full of lithium, so let them mine it there. It is up to us not to let the machines come to Majevica.
About ten years ago, you launched an initiative to protect the Drinica area, the old Drina riverbed. You turned the illegal landfill that used to be there into a real little ecological paradise. Do people visit the Eco Visitor Center “Jezera”?
SNEŽANA: There are always visitors. We even have people from abroad who found us on Google Maps, come for a few hours, and stay for a few days. We have almost completed our research on birds, fish, and plant life in this area. Two years ago, we received funds from Waters of Srpska for the revitalization of the Drinica, which we additionally cleaned over a two-kilometer length. The eco-system here is the same as in Zasavica near Sremska Mitrovica, where the Drina and Sava waters mix. Now we have a problem with their beavers that have crossed over to our state. We had to fence the poplar trees with wire up to a height of one meter to prevent the beavers from cutting down the trees. It is not nice to see the wire, but it is the only way to prevent them from destroying the trees. By the way, the Eco Visitor Center is not a commercial place, there is no charge. Only when the area of the old Drina course is placed under protection will we think about charging entrance fees.
I am going back to the women in the Initiative Committee and the role of women in environmental protection in general. They are at the forefront of many local initiatives and actions. How do you explain that?
SNEŽANA: Women are less afraid. Women somehow carried all these struggles for a healthy living environment from the beginning. And they are definitely much less afraid. Last winter, when we were collecting signatures, I was so disappointed in the men and the level of fear they showed. Their words were: “I can’t sign this”, and when I ask “so why can’t you?”, I get the answers “well, I don’t know, I’ll see…”, I simply have no words. Women are in charge. The 21st century is the century of women, therefore…
ANTRFILE
SNEŽANA: The Drina River flows under our feet here in Bijeljina. From Majevica all the way to Loznica and Valjevo, there is this huge reservoir of groundwater that is 30 to 50 meters deep, and it is water of the highest quality. And when the main riverbed does not have enough water in it, it draws all that water back. That is why the water level in our lakes drops. It can happen that the water level in the lake drops from 6 meters to 20 centimeters. However, what poses a great danger to the Drina River and all of us is illegal gravel mining. In the last few years, a few companies have earned over 100 million BAM from stealing gravel. For the construction of the Loznica-Šabac highway, huge amounts of gravel were extracted from the Drina River, which certainly significantly changed the riverbed. And because of this rampage with gravel, we are directly threatened by every high level of water. When the level of the rivers rise, the Drina River will reach the city center in 10 minutes. The Drina embankment was not built, and the money was spent. There is also the cadastral problem of the border that runs through the middle of the Drina, and that is a river that moves, sometimes left, sometimes right, so it is not clear whose jurisdiction it is to control those who are illegally extracting gravel.
Interviewed by: DRAGANA DARDIĆ
Photo: Courtesy of Snežana Jagodić Vujić
