The objective of the annual campaign, which ended in 2013, was the engagement of the Bulgarian public in activities for protection and cultivation of the largest protected area in the country – the natural parks. Every year thousands of volunteers from the whole country took part in the clearing and renovating of the infrastructure in the parks.
During the years a lot of illegal waste landfills were uncovered and cleared. The greatest quantity of waste for the whole period of the initiative was collected in the “Strandja”, “Golden sands” and “Rila monastery” natural parks, whilst the greatest number of participants was numbered in the “Vitosha” and “Rila monastery” parks. Within the initiative 12 bridges and new recreation sites were built up and more than 100 information boards were placed, which clarify the rules for responsible behavior to the visitors.
The huge annual awareness campaign to promote the initiative and the sustainable attitude to environment got the message across to millions of Bulgarians. To this end a lot of famous persons from the world of art, culture and media helped who supported the cause and participated in the cleaning itself. The last edition of the “National day of the natural parks” in 2013 reported an all-time high level of awareness and turned into one of the most popular “green” national initiatives in the country.
“The natural parks of Bulgaria keep invaluable treasure of animal and plant species, part of the last clean rivers and century-old forests”, commented the Programme Director of WWF Bulgaria Vesselina Kavrakova. “For several years we managed to take ten thousands of people among beautiful and valuable habitats and to make them committed to keeping the fragile natural balance in the parks”.
“As a main initiative partner we are happy that it accomplished its objective, namely – a tangible positive change in the ecology culture of our society. Indicative is the fact that during the years we reported more and more volunteers but less and less quantity collected waste. However, the end of this campaign does not mean that we abandon our efforts herein, on the contrary – we plan new long-term initiatives to upgrade the accomplished results so far and to assist the next steps of our society to the sustainable lifestyle”, stated Mr. Yassen Gruev, Director General of “Corporate policy” of GLOBUL.
13 000 participants and 68 tons of collected waste from the natural parks
