Hundreds of municipalities, businesses, authorities and media supported the Earth Hour in Bulgaria

For ninth consecutive year, on the last March Saturday, from 20.30 till 21.30 millions of people all over the world switched off the lights and spent time for environmentalist messages and initiatives. Symbolically were darkened the lights of a number of sign buildings such as the Sydney Opera House, Eifel Tower, Taj Mohall, Kremlin, Brandenburg Gate, Big Ben, Empire State Building and a lot more. In Sofia were switched off the lights of the buildings of the National Assembly, the Presidency, the National Museum Complex, Alexander Nevski Cathedral, the Russian Church, the National Theatre, the Bulgarian National Bank, the Council of Ministers and separate Ministries.

The river conservation was this year accent in Bulgaria for the Earth Hour. In March WWF organized film screenings and discussions on the rivers in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Bourgas, Rousse and Berkovitsa, where they brought together representatives of fishermen’s associations and groups for water sports, with which the environmentalist organization joins efforts for quality and transparent river management.

Over 1000 people participated in the traditional meeting of the Earth Hour in front of the National Theatre in Sofia, where they drew with lights the silhouette of the critically endangered Danube species – beluga on the whole area in front of the theatre and enjoyed the show of clubs for fire arts.

In Gotse Delchev the municipality joined to this year initiative with cleaning the bed of Gradska River and with the switch-off of the lights of monuments and buildings in the town centre.

In Dupnitsa the municipality organized educational lecture on river conservation at all municipality schools and at 20.30 in front of the building of the municipality were released flying lanterns.

In Nessebar were organized children’s exhibitions, cleaning-ups and open lectures on nature keeping.

In Svishtov, Rousse, Varna, Bourgas, Sliven, Razgrad, besides the switch-off of the buildings of authorities, there was sports events, fire show, live music and campaign activities in support of local environmentalist actions.

“More than 10 000 people supported our petition for river conservation , where we identify 7 major problems: massive, illegal cutting-off of riverside forests; building-up of non-functional fish passages; obstruction of rivers and stopping the migration of river inhabitants; ruthless excavation of inert materials of the rivers; river channeling; river draining; destroying of Danube sturgeons. And we proposed ways for their long-term solving to the public and authorities”, added Ivan Hristov, manager of WWF “Waters” programme.