Campaign Save Latvian Dunes started with a new approach
To protect and save coastal nature, in the last three years the national campaign Save Latvian Dunes has focused on building an accessible nature infrastructure in dune areas and met unexpected support from the local communities and politicians.
Since 2007, when Latvian Green Movement (LaGM) launched the National Campaign Save Latvian Dunes, its focus has changed from active information and participation towards real planning of activities, helping to protect and save the Baltic Sea coastal nature values and dunes. In the first phase of the campaign, LaGM informed a wide range of society about the unique coastal nature and the existing regulations and rules of the state the organisation has to follow in order to save the dunes and biotopes for the future generations. The second phase started in 2017 when LaGM activated the campaign again, with putting a lot of effort in organising different public participation activities like clean-ups and pine tree plantings on illegal dune and forest roads.
The campaign’s third phase was dedicated to a real plan of actions to improve the conditions of the dunes, near popular tourism sites. Unregulated tourism flow is one of the most destroying elements in coastal areas of Latvia. Along the coast, there are magnificent boreal dune forests, grey and white dunes, fore dunes, rare biotopes, like sand carnation (Dianthus Arenarius) etc.. To protect the coastal nature, LaGM started upgrading and building new tourism infrastructure sites, using universal design principles, building accessible green toilets and making these nature sites accessible for all. Now, the local communities and politicians support our initiative of accessible infrastructure as a tool to protect nature and regulating the tourism flow.
The Campaign Save Latvian Dunes (2018 – 2021) and the accessible nature infrastructure buildings were financed by the Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation (BaltCF) in Germany.
Contact details: Janis Matulis, Chairperson of LaGM, Janis.matulis(at)zalie.lv