Experiencing great Teamspirit in BElgrade!

Here is the all over report of our third URBforDAN Partner Meeting on Management and Utilization of Urban Forests as Natural Heritage in Danube Cities.

This time we met in beautiful Belgrade and we experienced great teamwork and teamspirit due to the fact, that we met the third time already all together. And once again, the meeting was really best organised by our serbian hosts, thanks for that! The photo above shows the representatives of all seven Partnercities Ljuljana, Belgrade, Zagreb, Vienna, Budapest, Cluj-Napoca and Ivano-Frankivsk on our field trip on Avala hill, which is the project target area of Belgrade.

The meeting started on the first evening with a guided tour around the city of Belgrade, organised by the Project Partner  and host, the City of Belgrade. Approximately 30 participants attended the guided city tour by an official tourist guide from the city center to the beautiful waterfront of the river Save.

INTRODUCTION AND PROJECT PROGRESS

Maja Jovanovič from the City of Belgrade greeted all partners on behalf of the hosts of the meeting and explained some facts about the project and what Serbian partners are working on at this stage. Leading partner Ljubljana with teamleader Luka Sešel jumped right in to report project progress followed by Simone Borelli from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations who presented the main conclusions from the World Forum on Urban Forests.

MANAGEMENT OF URBAN FOREST OF THE CITY OF CELJE

Tina Simončič from Slovenian Forest Service presented the Mapping of Ecosystem services in the strategic area in Ljubljana. All Partnercities gave a short report on their experiences on Ecosystem Mapping. Afterwards forest manager from Slovenia, Robert Hostnik, presented an almost historical pilot project, the management of the urban forest of the city of Celje. A project, that started 25 years ago, that is a real success and still ongoing.

FIELD TRIP TO AVALA MOUNTAIN

The second day all participants joined the field trip on Avala mountain, which is the target area of Belgrades URBforDAN project. We learned a lot on forest managment as well on serbian history and - thanks to the croatian team - on savory cuisine of Croatia.

TEAMWORK AND ICE-BREAKERS

Every good and productive teamwork needs an icebreaker before, at least, this is what our external expert Klemen Strmšnik always says - and does! If you have ever wondered what you prefer, either sex or chocolate, Klemen is the right man to ask you, and therefore provide the right attitude and stamina for a long workshop day.

LOOKING FORWARD TO IVANO-FRANKIVSK!

At the end of the project partner meeting great progress was achieved. Every project partner received last instructions regarding the integrated multi-use management and strategic plans.

We had a real productive and very funny time in Belgrade! Looking forward to our next partner meeting in June in Ivano-Frankivsk!