Interreg – IPA CBC Bulgaria – Serbia Programme CCI Number 2014TC16I5CB007
After a break due to the pandemic situation, the project “For everyone saved a tree” (FOREST) resumed its activities and as an autumn crocus blossomed cheerfully in late September with the smiles of Serbian and Bulgarian youth…Autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale)… Brownray knapweed (Centaurea jacea)… Maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes), Common liverwort (Marchantia polymorpba)… this is only part of the autumn aspect of the flowering herbaceous plants, ferns and mosses which the youngsters from Botevgrad and Nis had to collect from their local mountains and to prepare from them herbarium materials. In the period September 25-27, 2020, the Serbian youth visited the mountainous areas near the town of Niska Banya, famous for its healing water, while their Bulgarian peers wandered the paths full of spiritual energy around the Etropole monastery “St. Trinity ”and the captivating as a picture of Juan Miró park “The Sky pastures” near the village of Osikovitsa.
On the 20th
of February, 2020 in Forest Research Institute was held an educational course
for the Institute’s employees for working with the Joint Database on the
project “For everyone saved a tree” (FOREST), co-funded by the European Union
through the Interreg-IPA Bulgaria-Serbia Cross-Border Cooperation Program
2014-2020. The course contained three modules:
What characteristics differentiate the most important representatives of conifers and deciduous trees in our country? What are ecosystem services about? Why was NATURA 2000 created? How to understand and put into practice the concepts of “environmental management” and “sustainable management of natural resources”? These are These are just some of the knowledge that the FOREST project’s young participants have gained last weekend (6th-8th of December 2019) on the “International Youth Training Course on Nature Protection and Sustainable Use of Forest Resources” in the city of Etropole.
On November 10, 2019, one of the hills along the road to the Serbian village of Lipovac dawned with hundreds of sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) saplings. Fifty Serbian and Bulgarian youths readily participated in the Afforestation campaign, which took place on November 8th-10th, 2019, as part of the implementation of the activities for the project “For Everyone Saved a Tree” (FOREST). The event was attended by representatives of the coordination teams of the three partner organisations: Youth movement for development of the rural areas in Bulgaria (YMDRAB), Society Innovation Center, NIIT and the Forest Research Institute, BAS. For the purpose of the training, the Leading and the Serbian partner ensured the participation of three Bulgarian and three Serbian foresters and two experts youth workers. The representative of SmartXMedia, contractor under №1-FOREST/27.09.2019 ‘Development of FOREST project’s electronic Joint Database and Website’was invited by the Forest Research Institute to train and assist young people in publishing their photos and texts on the program website and in the Joint Database (https://cbc-forest.org/).
