Twenty-five founders from Nis and Trupal spent last weekend in Niska Banja, where they learned about different types of forest herbaceous plants, ferns and mosses, along with lectures by botanists and experts in the field of forest protection.

In addition to online lectures by Serbian and Bulgarian experts on the most widespread plants, mosses and plants in the Serbian-Bulgarian cross-border region, the focus of the activity was the creation of a herbarium of herbaceous plants collected by primary school children during the activity.

Collecting plants in Niška Banja, as well as a tour of the Jelašnica and Sićevačka gorges are a unique opportunity to show young people the natural habitat of endemic plant species such as Ramonda serbica and Ramonda Natalija, about which they do not know much today.

“At a time when Covid brings general alienation and the inability to be far from his hometown, we organized an activity in which children had the opportunity to stay in nature and return to the original values ​​of the planet and learning about plants. At the same time, they learned something “I was most impressed by the opportunity to share their experiences online with Bulgarian partners, at a virtual conference that, in addition to acting like a SF film, proves that information travel and nature know no boundaries,” explains Nikola Markovic, project coordinator. .

This activity was organized within the EU cross-border cooperation project, in which the partners are NIIT Center, YMDRAB from Botevgrad, as well as the Forest Institute from Sofia.