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More necessary than the sun - on going
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More necessary than the sun - on going
Location: Roma, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Focus:
Photographer, Photojournalist, Architecture, Documentary, Photography, Portraiture, Political Journalism, Reportage
Covering:
Asia,
Europe,
Skills:
Research, Photo Assisting, Photo Editing, Photojournalism, Video Editing, Film Photography, Visual Producer, WordPress, Adobe Creative Suite, Photoshop
School:
ISFCI
University Of Trieste _ Science of Communication
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© 2025 Matteo Trevisan
The Banovići coal mine, owned by the RMU Banovici company.
The mine is one of the largest in the Balkans and supplies the country's power generation and industrial plants, but also exports its material abroad. The mine has an estimated annual production of 1.5 million tonnes of coal and ranks fifth in Europe.
Banovići (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023.
Banovići Bosnia and Herzegovina
“More Necessary than the Sun” is a photographic journey into the environmental and human toll of extreme pollution in the Central Balkans. Begun in 2022, the project captures the alarming impact of outdated coal plants, vast lignite mines, and weak oversight, which have led to some of Europe’s highest pollution levels.
Although the EU is advancing ambitious climate policies, including a proposed 2035 ban on petrol and diesel vehicles, such efforts stop at its borders, leaving these regions and their vulnerable communities exposed to unchecked pollution. Through this series, the project confronts viewers with the stark consequences of environmental exploitation often fueled by foreign corporations in what is seen as neo-colonialism.
The WHO reports that 90% of people worldwide breathe polluted air, with pollution levels in the Balkans up to five times the EU’s recommended limits due to coal- reliant industries and inadequate oversight. Pollution in the Balkans stems largely fromoutdated power plants and mining industries run by foreign companies. Corruption and lax regulations have enabled unchecked environmental damage, with no transparency on pollution-linked diseases affecting local populations.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has led to energy shortages across Europe, promptingsome countries to return to coal, a choice that exacerbates pollution within the EU and beyond in regions still heavily dependent on coal- fired energy.
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Two wolves at the 'Bingo' zoo in Tuzla, a few hundred metres from the thermal power plant (TPP) owned by the state-owned Elektroprivreda Bosne i Hercegovine (EBiH).
Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, October 2023.
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Some local farmers near the village of Fajtovci take a break while threshing the fields. Before the arrival of winter, they prepare to process fodder and store it for the animals. Local farmers complain that dairy farms in the area do not want to buy their milk because the animals drink water and eat fodder contaminated by the mine.
Fajtovci (Sanski Most), Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 2023.
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View of the Nikola Tesla A thermal power plant from the village of Urovci.
The Nikola Tesla A and Nikola Tesla B power plants in Obrenovac are recognized as the third and sixth largest sources of SO2 pollution in Europe, emitting 109,000 and 57,100 tonnes, respectively. The Nikola Tesla A is also the fourth largest source of particulate matter (PM10) pollution in Europe.
Urovci (Obrenovac), Serbia, December 2024
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An X-ray of Željko. He is a worker at the underground gold and copper mine owned by the Chinese company Zijin Mining. In April 2023, he suffered a serious workplace accident when a large rock fell from the ceiling, severely injuring him. He has since lost 40% of the mobility in his arm. Željko had worked at the mine since 2012, before the Chinese acquisition in 2018, but he claims that since then, safety standards have declined and accidents have increased. He is currently suing the company.
Bor, Serbia, February 2025
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Željko is a worker at the underground gold and copper mine owned by the Chinese company Zijin Mining. In April 2023, he suffered a serious workplace accident when a large rock fell from the ceiling, injuring him severely. He has since lost 40% of the mobility in his arm. He had worked in the mine since 2012, before the Chinese arrived in 2018, but he claims that since their arrival, safety regulations have decreased and there are more accidents. He is currently in a lawsuit with the company.
Bor, Serbia, February 2025
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A flower inside a grave in the village of Slatina. The effects of intensive extraction
and smelting are felt across the area. Air quality is a major concern. A report
from January 2024 revealed frequent spikes in sulfur dioxide (SO2) levels around
Bor, contributing to both acute and chronic respiratory issues, as well as acid rain.
The study also found fine particulate matter (PM10) containing heavy metals such
as lead, cadmium, nickel, and arsenic.
Bor (Bor), Serbia, September 2024
Slatina (Bor), Serbia, December 2024
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Each miner is given a personal number plate, which he must hand in to the technical office before going underground to receive his personal torch.
Banovići (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 2023.
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The shift supervisor calls the miners to roll before going underground at Banovići mine. The mine employs more than 2000 people, including miners, technicians and administrative staff.
Banovići (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 2023.
Banovići Bosnia and Herzegovina
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View of the city of Zenica and the stadium of the Čelik football team, which means 'Steel' in Bosnian, founded in 1945. In the background is the steel factory owned by the ArcelorMittal company. According to data from the Hydrometeorological Institute of the Federation of BiH, in 2019 Zenica had the most polluted air in the Federation of B&H and the high concentrations of sulphur dioxide and dust were particularly pronounced. The metallurgical factory, which produces energy by burning coal, is, according to the association Eko Forum, the dominant source of SO2 and dust emissions in Zenica. Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2022. Zenica Bosnia and Hergozina
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Mirsad Selimović, at his home in the village of Tetovo. A former worker at the ArceloMittal steel factory, he has been fighting laryngeal cancer for 15 years. In front of him are all the medicines he is forced to use. When the wind is strong and the dust from the factory gets too high in the air, he is forced to spend his days indoors. He blames his illness on the pollution caused by the still factory; his wife also suffers from heart problems.
Tetovo (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2022.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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The Muslim cemetery in Tetovo, behind ArcelorMittal's steel factory.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report published in June 2019, in 19 Balkan cities, including Zenica, air pollution causes one in five premature deaths.
Tetovo (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023
Zenica Bosnia and Herzegovina
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A woman prays inside the Orthodox Church in Lipnica, a village close to the Thermal Power Plant (TPP), owned by the state-owned Elektroprivreda Bosne i Hercegovine (EBiH). The air pollution in the industrial town, has been above legally allowed limits on 12 out of 20 consecutive days, according to joint measurements performed by CEE Bankwatch Network and the Tuzla-based environmental group Center for Ecology and Energy.
Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 2023.
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A villager from Tetovo shows the residue that dust has left above his greenhouse. An ordinance of the local authorities has banned the citizens of Tetovo from eating eggs and leafy vegetables because the air and soil are too polluted.
Tetovo (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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A miner inside the Banovići coal mine. According to the head of the miners' trade unions, the mine has coal for another 40 years, but will most likely have to close in 15 years to comply with agreements made with the European Union. Banovići (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023.
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A 6-year-old girl from the village of Vranovo, suffering from leukemia. She and her family live just a few dozen meters from the Smederevo Steel Plant, and according to her family, her illness is due to the pollution caused by the plant. SO₂ emissions from the NERP coal plants are a major problem in Serbia. In 2023, they emitted 5.4 times as much SO₂ as allowed under the NERP ceiling.
Vranovo (Smederevo), Serbia, September 2024.
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An 'iron picker' inside the Rača landfill. This man, together with his son, lives by collecting ferrous waste that comes from the factory and is then sold back to the factory. This work is paid very little and is very dangerous because it exposes these people to contact with waste materials that are deposited in the ground without any treatment; the dust spreads in the air and can pollute groundwater.
Tetovo (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2022.
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Izet Barcic, in the village of Bukinje; he lives with his wife a few hundred metres from the Tuzla thermal power station. "I feel lucky to still be alive. They operated four times and removed my lung. Before the operation I weighed 120 kilos, I felt very strong. Afterwards I weighed only 40. This plant is killing us all and I hope one day to be able to leave this place".
Bukinje (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023.
Tuzla Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Edita, inside her house in the village of Tetovo, a few dozen metres from the steelworks owned by the ArcerloMittal company. "The young people here want to leave, they have lost confidence and only the elderly are left to fight. I wonder why we don't have the same rights as those who live in London. Why is it not like in Europe?" Edita is a member of the EkoForum association and has been involved with the community in the village of Tetovo for several years.
Tetovo (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2022.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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A resident of Zenica sweeps her terrace from the black dust that has settled there.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report published in June 2019, there are almost five thousand premature deaths in Bosnia and Herzegovina in urban agglomerations, where it is estimated that people can lose up to 1.3 years of life due to bad weather conditions.
Tetovo (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023
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A young boy inside his home, which will rise a few dozen metres from the Zenica steel factory.
He, his two brothers and his parents live in a difficult economic condition and cannot afford to leave their home to find one in a less polluted area. His father says they can never drink coffee in the garden because it fills up with black dust within minutes. The boy suffers from chronic respiratory problems.
Tetovo (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2022.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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View of the Banovići mine, owned by RMU Banovici. The mine is one of the largest in the Balkans and supplies the country's power generation and industrial plants, as well as exporting its material abroad. The mine has an estimated annual production of 1.5 million tonnes of coal and ranks fifth in Europe.
Banovići (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023.
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A woman from Obiliq with her grandson in the old part of town. After the death of her husband, the family decided to move to Pristina and now only visits occasionally. He passed away at sixty-one, from cancer that took him within thirteen months. "It’s strange, we didn’t understand why," says his daughter. "He was a fit man, a black belt in judo. I believe the stress from work brought it on."
In the neighborhood, several people have died or are suffering from cancer, and half of the houses are abandoned.
Obiliq, Kosovo, January 2025
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Alma Alić, in the village of Tetovo. "I came to Tetovo 43 years ago after getting married, at that time many people worked in factories, now there are very few left. Today the situation is terrible, within a 300 metre radius of my house everyone has cancer".
Alma has stomach cancer and was recently operated on.
Tetovo (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2022.
Zenica Bosnia and Herzegovina
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"This is colonization," are the words of Jovic, who is pictured observing a landslide within his fruit tree land, which he believes was caused by the irregular operations of the underground mine owned by the Chinese group Zijin Mining, which extracts gold and copper from the earth. Jovic is a farmer and is in a lawsuit with the Chinese company because his agricultural land was expropriated without his permission.
Slatina (Bor), Serbia, February 2025.
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Iva, 15 years old, portrayed in front of the Lazarevac coal mine. "My life in Lazarevac is like everyone else's. In Lazarevac we have the bishop's theater, galleries, and a lot of other institutions. Being a teenager in Lazarevac is quite interesting."
The Lazarevac mine represents the largest mining complex in Serbia, RB Kolubara (Rudarski Basen Kolubara), and is the largest division of the state-owned power utility company, Electric Power Industry of Serbia (Elektroprivreda Srbije - EPS). Lignite mining in the RB Kolubara has caused significant air, soil, and water pollution in the region, severely affecting human health. TE Kolubara in Veliki Crljeni, Lazarevac, occupies the third place pollutant in Europe by particulate matter (PM10) emissions, with 3,255 emitted tonnes.
Lazarevac, Serbia, December 2024
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A late 19th-century photograph inside a house in the village of Krivelj, located just a few hundred meters from the copper and gold mine owned by the Chinese Zijin Group. The village is slowly disappearing, with entire houses destroyed by the mine’s expansion. The residents, who have no alternative since the government has not planned for the village’s relocation, are forced to sell their homes to the Chinese company, losing their roots and the houses their families built centuries ago.
Krivelj (Bor), Serbia, September 2024.
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A swan at the 'Konjički klub SMET' animal rescue centre on Smetovi Mountain, outside the industrial city of Zenica. The private facility is home to many species rescued from all over Bosnia and brought to the sanctuary, where they live thanks to the help of private individuals and associations. The family that runs it left the city of Zenica because it was too polluted to live there and decided to move to the mountains surrounding the city.
Smetovi (Zenica), Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 2023.
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Workers at the Banovići coal mine carry out tests on a machine used to dig the ground and extract the coal.
Banovići (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023.
Banovići Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Two professional athletes from the arm wrestling school in Požarevac train. Serbia ranked as Europe’s 5th most polluted country out of 37 European countries and regions, according to IQAir’s 2019 World Air Quality Report, with an average PM2.5 concentration weighted by population of 23.3 μg/m³.
Požarevac, Serbia, August 2024.
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An old family photo inside a house in Krivelj, near the copper and gold mines owned by the Chinese company Zijin Mining. "Soon we will have to leave our home, we decided to sell it to the Chinese company. We will move far from here." For the locals, leaving their homes means losing the ties to their family past. This family has lived in these houses for generations, and the forced move is a time of great sadness for them.
Krivelj (Bor), Serbia, December 2024
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"One day, we’ll have a mine under our house," Miodrag, a farmer from the village of Slatina, stands in front of his agricultural land that has been expropriated by the Chinese company Zijin Mining. Miodrag is in a lawsuit with the company because he believes the land was unfairly expropriated. He and his family depended mostly on this agricultural activity, and now his land has been reduced to a few hectares.
Slatina (Bor), Serbia, December 2025
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The pipes used to transport waste material from the thermal power plant (TPP), owned by the state-owned Elektroprivreda Bosne i Hercegovine (EBiH), into the Jezero Dva reservoir. There are no official studies on the correlation between the plant's activity and public health. The only known research to date is the one sponsored by the Centre for Ecology and Energy (NGO), conducted by Professor Nurka Pranjic from the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tuzla. The study found a statistically significant association between negative health impacts and long-term exposure to heavy metals dispersed in the vicinity of the thermal power plant and landfills.
Bukinje (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, March 2023.
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Hotel Zlača, built by Tito for the employees of the Banovići mine. Famous throughout Tuzla County, it is located in the middle of a forest and has become a starting point for hikers visiting the mountains surrounding the town of Banovići.
Banovići (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 2023.
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Night view of the city of Zenica, considered one of the most polluted cities in the Balkans. The municipality advised the population living near the steel plant, owned by the Indian group ArcelorMittal, not to eat vegetables grown on the surface and to prefer those that grow underground.
Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2024
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Musicians inside the traditional dance and choir school *Kulturno Umjetničko Društvo "Željezara"* in Zenica. The school was established by steel mill workers in the 1970s and continues to operate today, but it is now accessible to people outside the factory workforce.
Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2024.
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A former miner from the Kostolac mine holds a painting depicting horses fleeing an industrial landscape. In 2023, Serbia’s NERP coal plants were again the highest SO₂ emitters in absolute terms, with 296,011 tonnes, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina with 181,807 tonnes. Serbia’s NERP plant SO₂ emissions increased compared to 2022, while Bosnia and Herzegovina’s stayed almost the same.
Požarevac, Serbia, September 2024.
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One of the buildings used as offices by the Chinese company in the town of Bor.
The Chinese presence is overwhelming but often invisible: the company has brought in thousands of workers from China, housing them in camps within the mining area and preventing them from integrating with the local population. China thus becomes a ghostly yet massive presence.
Bor, Serbia, February 2025
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Miodrag, a farmer from the village of Slatina, hunting near the land occupied by the Chinese mining company Zijin Mining. Miodrag is in a lawsuit with the company because he believes the land was unfairly expropriated. He and his family depended mostly on this agricultural activity, and now his land has been reduced to a few hectares. Additionally, he claims that hunting has become impossible due to the constant noise from the mine. "I can feel my house shake from the explosions."
Slatina (Bor), Serbia, December 2025
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Inside the offices of the NGO “Ne damo Jadar” in Majdanpek, activists have dressed a mannequin in the uniform and gear used by the private security forces that patrol the nearby mine. Over the years, several incidents of violence have occurred between the NGO’s members and these private guards. “Ne damo Jadar” was founded to demand that the Majdanpek mine comply with environmental regulations and to advocate for solutions for residents whose homes are threatened by the mine’s expansion.
Majdanpek (Bor), Serbia, December 10, 2024
“Air pollution knows no borders and is still an invisible killer in Europe. A significant amount of pollution from the Western Balkans travels into the EU. Pollution from the Western Balkans adds to the already poor air quality in the EU countries, making it harder especially for the adjacent EU neighbours to meet air quality standards.
It is high time that EU policy-makers step up efforts to clean up the air and decarbonise the power sector in the Southeastern European region”
It is high time that EU policy-makers step up efforts to clean up the air and decarbonise the power sector in the Southeastern European region”
Vlatka Matkovic Puljic, Senior Health and Energy Officer at HEAL
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A miner at the Banovići coal mine. According to the head of the miners' union, the mine has 40 years of coal left, but will probably have to close in 15 years to comply with agreements with the European Union.
Banovići (Tuzla), Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 2023.
Banovići Bosnia and Herzegovina
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An X-ray of the lungs of a woman from Krivelj, a village in northern Serbia near the town of Bor, who died of lung cancer at a young age. According to the family, who wished to remain anonymous, the cause was pollution from mining activities in the area adjacent to the village. The Bor area is considered one of the most polluted cities in Serbia, and air quality tests have found traces of sulfur dioxide, arsenic, iron, nickel, and cadmium, all of which severely affect air quality and the health of local residents. In 2018, China's Zijin Mining Group acquired 63 percent of the mining company’s land, while the remaining owners are unknown.
Krivelj (Bor), Serbia, September 2024.
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A local boy swims in Radinački Lake, with the Smederevo Steel Plant, owned by the Chinese HBIS Group, in the background. In 2023, total SO₂ emissions from plants included in the National Emissions Reduction Plans (NERPs) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia were 5.7 times as high as allowed – higher than in 2022 and only slightly lower than the annual emissions from 2018 to 2020, when they were six times as high as allowed.
Radinac (Smederevo), Serbia, September 2024.
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