Posted on August, 03 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 restore 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.

For further information:
Andreas Beckmann, Deputy Director
WWF Danube Carpathian Programme
Tel: +43 1 524 54 70-21
Email: abeckmann@wwfdcp.org