The project "Young Local Guardians of Bug Valley Nature" (acronym BugGuardians) is an effect of six years' cooperation of the Association "Local Action Group – Bug Valley Melting Pot" (PL) with the Local Agency of Economic Development of Kamyanka-Buzka District (UA). The main objective of the project is to preserve and promote natural heritage and conscious use of nature to improve the diversity and quality of tourist services in the Bug River Valley.

A general description of the BugGuardians project can be found in the "Projects" section of our website.

The partners in the project have primarily undertaken promotional and educational activities, whose main recipients are young people, tourists and inhabitants of the Bug River Valley communes.
In the West Bug River Valley, a nature protection platform was created, which is a place of nature education where, among others, the youth takes lessons in the open air and where swans are observed and fed. Part of the dammed Bug river at the level of Dobrotwór settlement near Lviv is a wintering place for mute swans. The water there never freezes because it is heated by a nearby combined heat and power plant. The swans noticed the comfortable conditions and decided to spend the cold winters in the heated water. Each winter, residents and tourists from nearby Lviv feed the birds, helping them to survive this difficult time. The platform makes it possible to observe and safely feed these beautiful birds. The Ukrainian partner also marked out a 3 km long nature trail with educational boards in the area and installed a swan-shaped photo board where people can take photos.

An important activity in the project was the organisation of on-line workshops attended by 30 teachers from schools in the partner area. They were led by nature educators. During the workshops the potential of protected areas of the Bug River Valley, flora and fauna were discussed, as well as possibilities to use nature for development of sustainable tourism. After the workshops, the experts prepared scenarios of nature lessons about environmentally valuable objects, which were given to teachers.

Three educational outdoor games have been created in environmentally valuable sites - in Drohiczyn (PL), the Głogi Natural Landscape Complex in Mielnik (PL) and Dobrotvir (UA) . They are supported by a mobile application, and leaflets about them can be downloaded at tourist information points, among others. Nearby schools organise stationary nature lessons in them - children take part in the games, gaining knowledge about protected species at the same time.

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Due to the pandemic, the project partners could not organise cross-border youth camps. Instead, they have planned to publish educational aids, i.e. educational games "Vertebrates of the Bug River Valley", Bird Atlas, Plant Atlas, educational puzzles "Get to know the Bug River Valley". The educational aids will be distributed to schools participating in the project.

The competition "Why do we need to protect local nature?" was very popular among children. The motto

"Let's create a trend to protect the local nature"

was chosen from among 83 works submitted.

We encourage you to watch a film, produced within the project, which promotes the region and encourages residents and tourists to engage in active recreation.

The project ended with an international on-line conference, in which experts presented to participants, among other things, the scope of local education of children and youth based on the natural potential of the Bug River Valley and the possibilities of using the natural potential to develop tourism.

You can find many interesting information on project partners' websites:
PL website
UA website

Gallery

Project of the week - BugGuardians