Press conference and kick-off meeting of project LIKE

 

At the press conference held on Tuesday, September 26th, 2017 at the Polytechnic Pula – College of applied sciences, project LIKE – Living on the Karst Edge was presented. The project was approved within the second deadline of the Open call of the Cooperation Programme Interreg V-A Slovenia-Croatia for the period 2014-2020.

The conference was organized by the Region of Istria as the lead partner of the project. The project was presented to the gathered journalists and guests by the President of the Region Valter Flego, representative of the Republic of Slovenia’s Office for Nature Protection Tjaša Djokić and project manager Bruno Kostelić, Head of the Department for Nature and Environmental Protection at the Administrative Department for Sustainable Development of the Region of Istria.

Project LIKE focuses on the karst border area as a series of steep rocks and limestone slopes where the long-lasting interaction of man and nature produced distinctive biological, cultural and aesthetic values, and maintaining that relationship is necessary for their preservation.

On the same day, the Kick-off meeting of project partners was held. The main topics were establishment of project management structure, co-ordination between the partners and a communication plan. The communication plan will play a very important role in the project, as it will transmit a message on the need to jointly manage the karst edge and further encourage the public to actively engage in the conservation of natural resources in this area.

Representatives of partner institutions presented work packages they are responsible for and the activities they plan to implement in the first implementation period. The meeting was also attended by a representative of the Joint Secretariat of the Programme, who provided direct answers to the questions about Programme rules in project implementation.

In addition to the Region of Istria, the project includes 7 other partners: Institute of the Republic of Slovenia for Nature Conservation, University of Primorska from Koper, Municipality of Koper, Natural History Museum Rijeka, Association BIOM from Zagreb, DOPPS – BirdLife Slovenia and Public Institution Natura Histrica. Associates in the project are Croatian Agency for Environment and Nature, Učka Nature Park and Rural agri-tourism Cooperative Bržanija.

Total value of the project LIKE is 1,528,377.29 €, and the implementation lasts for 30 months, from September 2017 to February 2020.