The joint Estonian-Polish-Belarusian project aimed to pool and share know-how and the respective best practices in the following areas of biodiversity protection and sustainable development entailing peculiarities of rural tourism development on environmentally sensitive and protected areas, emphasizing on cross birder cooperation (CBC) environmental spots and Natura 2000 Network.
The know-how dissemination seminars and project development workshops along other awareness raising activities were held in Estonia, with the participation of 5 Polish and Byelorussian participants, within CBC Summer School in Varska and in Poland, within Project Workshops organized in Strękowa Góra. Workshops covered variety of topic including:
- Community Driven Development (CDD) and Sustainable Growth: scaling up the local process. Local Engines of Growth.
- Integrated environment management and its tested governance tools. Observant insights into Water Framework Directive. Sewage, waste, pollution, energy efficiency, flood management and Flood Directive local implementation schemes were provided. Case studies offering the true local solutions, being embedded in acquis provisions and drawing intensively on current state of art and latest technology advancements were identified, investigated and adapted.
- Public participation in environment and development decision making: turning Arhus Agenda into grass-root public actions. Local and Micro Focus.
- Strategic and Spatial Planning versus Sustainable Development. Best avenues for co-operation, policy coordination and public consultations.
The project is implemented in 2010 within Trans-border Partnership Programme with financial support from Norway Grants and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, being managed by the Association Eastern European Democratic Centre in Poland in cooperation with the Development Policy Foundation, Peipsi CTC (Estonia) and Ecoproject (Belarus).