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Sakar Mountain is one of the Pearls in the Balkan Green Belt, located in the border area of Bulgaria with Turkey and Greece. The area encompasses one of the largest overlapping Natura 2000 sites in Bulgaria. Here, the NGO Green Balkans have traditionally worked for over 15 years to protect rare species of birds of prey and their habitats. How domestic animals help to conserve these species can now be observed with the concept of transhumance.

The untouched nature, beauty, and inaccessibility of the Prokletije Mountains in the southernmost of the Dinaric Alps - one of the pearls of the European Green Belt - are main reasons why this place has become a favourite destination for an increasing number of tourists, especially mountaineers and alpinists. To improve the service quality to tourists, a project has just been launched in Montenegro.

On this year’s World Wetlands Day, February 2nd, many conservationists and the interested public joined the 21st International Hike along the Mura River. The newly established Mura-Drava-Danube UNESCO Biosphere Reserve shines in its best light and let many people experience such significant river landscape in the heart of Europe.

Aim of the BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany) project "Cross-linking Green Belt" (10/2019-09/2025) is to connect the Green Belt with significant state- and nationwide as well as European ecological axes. Starting from the Green Belt as an ecological backbone, “ribs” will serve as surrounding landscapes. The question is: How can we work together with farmers, land care associations, municipalities and nature reserve administrations to develop landscape elements for an ecological network and preserve them permanently?

How interesting is research on the European Green Belt? On the occasion of this year’s World Wetlands Day, primary school children took chances to discover this question. Their curiosity seemed endless.

On 25th of November 2019, the vice chair organisation of the European Green Belt Association, Rete Italiana, together with the autonomous region Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italian National Focal Point) invited institutions to strengthen the collaboration among local stakeholders being active in the Italian-Slovenian section of the European Green Belt. Actors are ready to make a step forward.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the EGBA discussed the many opportunities, but also challenges that arise with the conservation of the European Green Belt in the context of Green Infrastructure. A lively breakfast debate was held on 19 November 2019 in Brussels under the theme: Bridging boundaries to protect Europe’s longest green network – 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall - Transforming the Iron Curtain into the European Green Belt (EGB) as a significant part of European Green Infrastructure.

The German Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt für Naturschutz - BfN) are supporting an extensive project to cross-link the inner-German Green Belt with 4.36 million Euros. The Department Green Belt of BUND (Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland e.V. - Friends of the Earth Germany) successfully submitted a project application to the German Federal Programme on Biological Diversity (administrated by the BfN): „Cross-linking Green Belt”.

On Friday, 20 September 2019, the Public Institution for the management of protected Areas of nature and the ecological network of Virovitica-Podravina County, in cooperation with regional and cross-border partners, celebrated with many others this year’s European Green Belt Days and the 30th anniversary of the proclamation of the European Green Belt - a day full of actions!

On September 21 2019, Ecocentrum and Friends of the Baltic celebrated this year’s 30th anniversary of the European Green Belt with an exciting Ecotrip along the Southern shore of the Gulf of Finland.