Meet Our Team

Rivers have been my passion since childhood. So, nothing was more logical than to turn my passion into a professional activity. For decades, I have initiated and coordinated long-term river basin-related campaigns to save the Danube, Ebro, Guadalquivir, Loire, Elbe, and Rhine in partnership with international NGOs, in particular, the WWF international.

I mainly use my experience and expertise as a river expert and communicator to create an efficient interface between politics, science and civil society.

As a result of a 10-year campaign, "Living Loire" for the preservation of the wild River Loire, I was able to play a key role in the realization of the first Europe-wide removals of large dams.

To promote international cooperation among NGOs, I founded the European Rivers Network (ERN), which today is linked to many stakeholders in the 50 most important river basins on the European continent.

My name is Misha Nesterenko. I have more than 10 years of work experience in conservation, restoration of wetlands and community development. Yet, I have a good experience in mobilizing stakeholders, conflict resolution and building partnerships to do practical actions. I strongly believe that conservation should stand strongly on real impact on the ground and “act locally but thinking globally” is one of my guiding principles. I do understand the great value of wilderness and cultures in our part of Europe and I would be happy to put my efforts to rewild our rivers and bring back their natural and cultural values.

I am Wetland International Europe’s focal point seeking to accelerate the implementation of EU freshwater-related laws, restore and protect free-flowing rivers and upscale nature-based solutions for inland waters, in collaboration with our members, networks and partnerships in Europe.

I have spent the past two decades at the intersection of conservation science, policy and communications in the US, EU and globally. Rivers run through my experiences – including the Hudson, Niger and Rhine. Before working at the global and European levels for Wetlands International, I spent more than a decade in Washington, DC as the Legislative Director for environmental champion and member of the US House of Representatives Maurice Hinchey and the Research Director at the League of Conservation Voters. I also have significant field experiences researching wetland-dependent species, from the Everglades in the US to the Bolivian Amazon, and for more than 15 years as a volunteer for the Delaware Bay Shorebird Monitoring Program in the US.

Julia Boverhoff is Freshwater Policy Associate at The Nature Conservancy Europe. In her role, she supports TNC’s Freshwater work as well as the policy actions that are intersecting with TNC’s work on the ground. She focusses on aspects of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the Nature Restoration Law, but also on topics related to the broader topics around Freshwater, such as the EU Green Deal at large, energy, climate adaptation and resilience both in the European as well as in the global context. She promotes the establishment of policy measures that help enable dam removal on the ground.

Passionate about working on the development and implementation of Freshwater related policies in Europe and beyond. Excited to see how the newly adopted Nature Restoration Law can lead to 25.000 km of Free-Flowing Rivers in Europe.

Prior to joining the Nature Conservancy in 2022, she was a Blue Book Trainee at the European Commission, in the Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans.
Julia holds a double masters in Environmental Law (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Civil Law (Leiden University).

My name is Barry Bendall and my professional background is as a fisheries scientist studying the migratory behaviour of fish with a particular focus on the impacts of barriers. For me, it has always been very apparent that physical barriers are one of the major factors impacting fish populations but also the functioning and resilience of wider river ecosystems.

Understanding the problems is one thing, but it is vital that we use this knowledge to deliver action. I joined The Rivers Trust more than a decade ago to support the work of grass roots organisations restoring river catchments throughout the UK & Ireland. Since then, local Rivers Trusts and partners have delivered hundreds of dam removal projects, opening up thousands of kilometres of habitat, restoring natural processes and improving biodiversity.

However, despite all this work and the benefits provided, mainstreaming dam removal projects is still a major challenge with many legislative, financial, institutional, and social barriers preventing the scaling up of action. There are many thousands of barriers across the UK and Ireland and the problem is the same across most of Europe and the world.

Scaling up dam removal activity to the levels required to reverse decades of decline requires collaboration and coordination at local, national, and international scales. It is this that motivates me and my involvement with the Dam Removal Europe coalition.

Removing dams is one of the most effective ways to restore rivers to their natural functioning for the benefit of nature and people. Following the announcement of the EU biodiversity Strategy and impending Nature Restoration Law to connect 25,000km of rivers, there is a growing need to coordinate, advise and drive dam removal projects across Europe. Under the Living European Rivers initiative, I coordinate and engage with WWF offices and partners across Europe on dam removal topics.
Currently my focus is on scaling up of dam removal in South Eastern Europe: a biodiversity hotspot with massive dam removal potential. Under the 1.27 million Euro DRE project, funded by Open Rivers Programme and lead by World Fish Migration Foundation, we are able to implement activities that will create suitable enbling conditions for dam removal. With these enabling conditions we aim to build the DR movement in the region, initiate policy change and develop a pipeline of 100 dams to be removed.

My name is Rene Aalderink, from my early childhoode I spent a lot of time along the Berkel river, fishing, observing, becoming one with nature around me.

After my study environmantal chemistry I worked for some years in ecotoxicologie, I became aware how fragile ecosystems can be, what an impact small amounts of toxcicants can have. Now I am a labtechnician specialized in medicine and pesticide analyses in surface water at water researche laboratory Aqualysis in Zwolle. The quality of surfacewater is monitored off 5 regional water authoritys in the Netherlands, important for the aquatic ecology, the research contributes to the Europeen water-framework directive.

I was very lucky to join the WFMF at some projects abroad. In Sweden I was fascinated by salmon leaping out of the water of the Ätran River. The fish can swim up due to the construction of fish passages, beautiful. I think I can imagine how desperate fish can be if they want to spawn upstream but are not able to reach this point, all of them craving for a dam, smelling their partners, driven by the urge of sex. I was inspired by incredibly enthusiastic people who wanted to make the world a better place for the environment of fish with fish passages and free flowing rivers.

It is unbelievable what the WFMF has achieved so far, for example the organization of the World Fish Migration Day around the world. In a few years this has grown into a gigantic event with hundreds of locations. I am therefore grateful that I can participate as a volunteer at the foundation, in order to make people more aware of the importance of fish migration.

What is a short, cool (interesting/exciting/weird) fact about you that helped lead you to where you are now?

Growing up in the leading global region on high-tech facilities I considered nature as something that should never be taken for granted. At the same time I spent most of my younger days in or near water bodies, and I still do. My enthusiasm and passion for aquatic ecosystems and their inhabitants, especially fish, is something I want to share with the larger community.

Why is dam removal important to you?

Rivers are the blood supply for our ‘lungs of the earth’, forests. Hence, rivers form the basis for terrestrial life while at the same time being the infrastructure for aquatic migration routes for fish species to fulfil their life cycle. Roadblocks on these migration routes prevent these cycli to be fulfilled with far-reaching ecological consequences.

How do you hope to make a difference?

Aside from the story of the life-sustaining capabilities of rivers I want to strengthen the argument for dam removals with data visualizations. Make sure the larger audience is aware of the spatial scale of rivers that are affected by (obsolete) dams. In combination with ecological analysis this may enable us to pick out priority dam removal candidates that will allow for the recovery of dynamic river ecosystems.

What is a short/cool/ interesting/exciting/weird fact about you that helped lead you where you are now?

My passion for water is rooted to my childhood, to the Tagliamento river in northern Italy where I used to go to my grandparents for the summer holidays. Back in the days, I thought it was just a river, now I know it’s a very special one, the king of the Alps, one of the last of its kind! I remember the joy of swimming in pure clear water, playing with the stones and run around that huge riverbed. I believe that the purity of that place helped me to value nature and shaped who I am and what I do!

Why is dam removal important to you?
A river by definition flows. At the moment this fundamental characteristic is prevented by a barrier every kilometre of river in Europe. I think the removal of these structures is the only possible way to really give a chance to our river systems to thrive again.

How do you hope to make a difference?
I was really keen about becoming a research scientist, but now I realise that the problem we have is not getting more knowledge, but find ways to bridge the available one to the people out there. I hope to amplify the link between river management and the public, between dam removal and policy makers. I believe communication is the tool that has the power to unite these worlds to really make a difference!