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17.12.2008 | Study Tour From Baikal, Siberia
EPSD hosted a seven day study tour for members of the Great Baikal Trail, Siberia on trail building and promoting ecotourism. The tour visited EPSD partners and project sites including Greenways and national parks in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. The study tour, which focused on public outreach and developing relations with various stakeholders, techniques and design approaches for building trails, methods for attracting and training volunteers and sustainable ecotourism. The tour was also designed to create links and future cooperation between the Great Baikal Trail and European and International NGOs and other groups, especially Greenways, including more exchanges, joint fundraising and joint projects.
The group included of Elena Chubakova, GBT Director, Natasha Lushkova, GBT Project coordinator, Irkutsk and Michail Ivanov, GBT Project coordinator, Ulan-Ude, David Murphy, EPSD Director and Daniel Mourek, CEG coordinator. During the week they visited the Prague - Vienna Greenway in Prague, Brno and Mikulov in the Czech Republic and Wolkerdorf, north of Vienna in Austria, the Environmental Partnership office in Brno for a public presentation, the Iron Curtain Greenway in Slovakia, the Neusederler See National Park in Hungary and Austria and the World Wildlife Fund in Vienna. There was also a public presentation in Wolkerdorf hosted by EPSD partner Future base Weinviertel. The Baikal representatives ended their tour at the Polish Environmental Partnership Office in Krakow.
The Great Baikal Trail Association is an international, volunteer-driven, non-profit organization that works to develop, maintain, promote, and protect Russia’s first network of hiking trails, and thereby advocate for the sustainable development of Lake Baikal.
For more information about the Great Baikal Trail go to: http://www.greatbaikaltrail.org/index_en.html