03 Aug
2006 - Backi Monostor, Serbia – In efforts to
conserve one of central Europe’s most important
wetland sites, WWF is working on the ground in
Serbia for the first time to promote sustainable
tourism and forestry practices.
In particular, the global conservation
organization has been focusing its conservation
activities in and around Serbia’s Gornje Podunavlje
nature reserve, trying to improve habitat protection
and restoration of the country’s biodiversity-rich
floodplain forests.
Gornje Podunavlje is situated
in northwest Serbia along the left bank of the
Danube River, which borders Hungary’s Danube-Drava
National Park to the north and Croatia’s Kopacki
Rit Nature Park to the west. Like most floodplains,
the nature reserve area is home to many bird species,
including a high concentration of white-tailed
eagles, great white egrets, black storks, and
grey herons. The area contrasts with other parts
of the region, where the once very spacious and
productive riverine forests are now mostly replaced
with uniform and sterile monocultures of poplar
trees.
“Serbia is undergoing a profound
socio-political transition and traditional forestry
practice is still seen as profitable and a means
to provide jobs,” said David Reeder, a senior
technical advisor with WWF’s Danube-Carpathian
Programme. “As a result, nature is suffering from
intensive exploitation of forest resources.”
Working with local Serbian NGO
Propeler, with support from USAID and the European
Centre for Eco-Agri Tourism (ECEAT), WWF recently
organized a workshop to help local communities
improve the protection of this highly valuable
area of floodplain forests through the introduction
of better forest management, as well as ecotourism
activities to improve local livelihoods.
“We want to widen the stakeholder
base by involving local communities in nature
protection and decision-making, a process very
new in Serbia,” Reeder added.
“If ecotourism is successful
in a community, the benefits are not only economic.
People also gain a renewed sense of their social
significance.”
WWF is currently involved in
a sustainable tourism project in the village of
Backi Monostor, on the edge of Gornje Podunavlje.
The project aims to promote ecotourism, through
training and marketing, and to ensure that tourism
service providers understand that well-managed
nature is an economic asset, and to encourage
them to take an active part in ensuring that it
is effective. Another benefit of such a project
will be to improve cross-border cooperation in
the floodplains.
“These lands represent a single
ecological unit and there should be a unified
ecosystem management in order to protect, preserve
and restore this unique European natural heritage,”
Reeder said.
Andreas Beckmann
