Eco Nord Forum a strong voice in advocating environmental issues in north Albania
- 30-Oct-2017
- Anida Zebi
Description
Lezhe, 31 October- The Eco Nord Project regional conference with
the theme: Environment and Sustainable Development-challenges and opportunities
for Eco Nord Forum” gathered participants from the 27 civil society organizations operating in
north Albania. The project:” Leveraging
the capacities of CSOs in the North of Albania- Eco Nord Project, financed by
the European Union and implemented by the Albanian Local Capacity Development
Foundation (ALCDF) has entered its final stage after three years of successfully raising the capacities of the
CSOs in the North Albania to deal with environmental and biodiversity
issues.
The ECO-Nord
Forum was created on October 10, 2016 to serve as a tool to better
impelement projects that creates the conditions
for a sustainable environment.
The
vicemayor of Lezha municipality, Enver Hafizi as well as representatives of the
Agency of the Protected Areas participated in the event. Mr. Hafizi said that
the local government is engaged to support the socio-economic development of
the region by implementing environmental friendly policies.
The Executive Director of ALCDF, Mrs.
Lindita Manga welcomed the participants and pinpointed that Eco Nord Project has been successful in creating capacity
development facilities as a platform of knowledge, mentoring and networking of
environmental CSOs in the North of Albania.
Mr.Besnik Alku, Fund Manager at
ALCDF made an expose of the difficulties faced by the project up to now as well
as the challenges for the future emphasizing the importance of Eco Nord Forum
as an important tool to raise environmental and biodiversity issues. He also
stressed that thanks to this project the technical, administrative and
financial capacities of CSOs in Lezhe, Kukes, Diber and Shkoder, have been
increased remarkably to the point that they are now capable to implement bigger
projects.
Mr. Zef Imeraj, Director of
Environmental Center situated in Lezhe, in charge to implement the project:
”Conservation of habitats of special importance The Project Conservation of Conservation of habitats of special
importance use, through methods that promote their sustainable development
summarized the project achievements stressed that Eco Nord Forum can have a foundamental
role in raising environmental issues by strengthening the cooperation and knowledge
sharing among its members. "We succeed in the establishment of
hotspots and conducting direct interventions by applying the most advanced
technologies; improvement of damaged values of oak
zones; improvement of specific types of medicinal plant (sage-salvia
officinalis) of economic importance as well as of a plant species threatened at
a national and global level by setting
up a hotspot indicator on land protection from erosion using up-to date biological methods. A handy Manual
with all the project results was also produced as well as digital maps for the
three hotspots, using contemporary
technologies," said Mr. Imeraj.
Mrs. Djana Bejko, Executive
Director of Shkoder Lake Forum focused her presentation on the challenges that
Eco Nord Forum faces in order to become an important factor to raise at a local
and central level concerns regarding the environment and biodiversity
degradation. She stressed that through hard work, innovative ideas, forging collaboration between all its members
this Forum will have an important impact in the
protection and preservation of environment and biodiversity in Albania. She stressed that the binomial advocacy and
lobbing will be the key to success.
Mr. Bukurosh Onuzi, head of
Ecologist of Kukes Region NGO that implemented the projet “Kukes region
Eco-School network” presented the project achievements designed to promote environmental friendly and
participatory management practices of nine primary schools in Kukes region. He
stressed that the project succeeded in
promoting environmentally friendly behaviors at school through comprehensive public awareness
campaigns. Another tangible success of the project was that the students of the
nine primary schools have already initiate to implement environmentally
friendly initiatives. Mr.Onuzi engaged the audience in discussing the timing
when the Albanian society will become
environmentally literate. In his
presentation he pinpointed the importance of the public awareness campaign to
address environmental and biodiversity issues for the future in the frame of
Eco Nord Forum.
Mr. Sabah Djaloshi, director of
Agropuka association which implemented the project” Protecting the Biodiversity
of Puka mountains” presented the main results of the project starting from the main achievement - Inventory of
non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in the areas of the areas of Puka
municipality. The last inventory was performed in 1988. The second main result was the rehabilitation
of a surface of 10.000 m² in Terbuni mountain by cleaning and
cultivating 23.000 sampling of different herbs and berries. During his presentation Mr.Djaloshi stressed
the importance of organizing joint
activities by Eco Nord Forum members for the sake of continuity and
sustainability of this important Forum. He said that the study tours in the
region organized by ALCDF helped the Eco Nord Forum members to gain in-depth
insights into current functioning and networking of their counterparts in the region.
The last part of the Conference
was an open forum where all the participants exchanged interesting ideas on how
to move forward in the frame of Eco Nord Forum to better address and resolve
environmental issues. The importance of networking to pursue common
inspirations was also pinpointed. An
Action Platform was approved after fruitful inputs of the participants. The Platform will focus on sharing information, experience between ECO-Forum
members; Facilitate the collaboration between the ECO-Forum members for matters
regarding projects, activities and other initiatives undertaken in North
Albania on environmental and biodiversity issues; Increase the already existing
channels of communication between ECO-Forum members; Increase the possibility
of fund-raising in order to manage funds that serve the purpose of ECO-Nord
Forum; Increase visibility in media;
Undertake steps to make the local and central government more
responsible in addressing and resolving these issues through legislative
measures and supporting the sustainable
eco-social development in full respect of environment.
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