Volunteers take part in the Father Forest Plants a Forest project in 2018 to plant a new forest near Modra, western Slovakia (source: Dedoles)
After this summer’s news from Brazil, people tend to think of Amazonian forests when they hear of deforestation. The issue is not foreign to Slovakia, though.
Forests cover 41 percent of the area of the country that has been struggling to fight deforestation in its national parks for years, especially in the Lower Tatras. Environmental activists have regarded this third oldest national park, where forests cover 644.81 sq km, most of them falling into the category of protected forests, as an ecological disaster for several years now.
Plant a forest with Dedoles
Location: Látaná dolina in western Tatras – Roháče Mountains (TANAP)
GPS coordinates: N49.2515° E19.70402° (Hotel Primula)
Date: October 5-6
What time: from 9:00 until the last tree is planted
What to bring: solid shoes, older clothes, working gloves
Programme:
EcoTour with singer Thomas Puskailer
practical tips from professionals on how to plant trees correctly
educational trail around the lowest glacier lake in the Tatras: Pleso pod Zverovkou
creative workshops for kids
Hotel Primula provides a base camp for the whole event. Lesy SR ensures professional supervision so that trees are planted properly. More information on Facebook.
“Our national parks have long suffered for there are no clear rules for their management,” Martin Lakanda, head of the State Nature Conservancy (ŠOP) said before the parliament passed changes to the law on nature and landscape protection on September 12, 2019. It is meant to bring the uncontrolled logging in national parks to an end.
