News

“Stop draining Wetlands!” - on the occasion of the World Wetlands Day 2019 the 20th International Hike at Mura river at the border between Austria and Slovenia will take place on 3 February 2019.

The international conference was organized in Bratislava (Slovakia) as a public kick-off event of the “D2C - DaRe to Connect” project. 11 partners from 8 countries are working in the project focussing on the closure of gaps in the ecological corridors of the European Green Belt in the Danube Region. The D2C project is co-funded by the European Union's ERDF and IPA funds through the Danube Transnational Program. The two-day conference was organized by BUND Bavaria, Department Green Belt the project leader, with support of the Slovak partner Ekopolis Foundation.

To mark the 29th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Germany, the Thuringian parliament passed a very forward-looking law on 9th November: the European Green Belt in Thuringia was designated as a National Nature Monument.

On the occasion of the European Green Belt Days 2018, more than 50 people went hiking in the mountains. Their destination was the Three Countries Peak of Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo, one of the austere beauties of the Balkan Green Belt.

Good news for Central Europe's largest river landscape: UNESCO has acknowledged 29,000 hectares of floodplain of the Slovenian Mur river as a biosphere reserve. This is a further important step towards the trans-border nature protection of the "Amazon of Europe".

"Green and vital" is the motto of the community of Peja in Western Kosovo * (in accordance with UNSCR 1244 and opinion of ICJ). And that’s not hot air at all. Peja has recently been decorated as "Model municipality of the European Green Belt".

Every year between the 18-24 September the "European Green Belt Days" are celebrated with various events and activities in all four regions of the European Green Belt. This year several actions took place at the Central European and the Balkan Green Belt, like a work camp for international and local volunteers at the border between Austria and Czech Republic.

The project „DaRe to Connect - Supporting Danube Region’s ecological connectivity by linking Natura 2000 areas along the Green Belt“ (D2C) has started on 1 June 2018 under the Lead-Partnership of BUND Department Green Belt. It aims to further improve the transnational ecological connectivity between protected areas along the Green Belt, to enhance the Green Belt partner network and to implement the strategic vision “Green Belt in the Danube Region 2030”.

The Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences arranges the international workshop “Development of the Green Belt of Fennoscandia: Environment, Economy, Education”, to be held at Ladozhskaya Usadba resort (Republic of Karelia, Russia).

In the framework of the European Cultural Heritage Year (ECHY) 2018 the international conference “Iron Curtain and Green Belt – Networks and Opportunities for cooperation in a European border landscape” took place from 17 to 19 June 2018 in Berlin (Germany).