The project's Czech partners bring communities together for a special day...
In June 2023, we shared that a new biodiversity pathway within FRAMEwork’s Velke Hosteradky Farmer Cluster had been approved for funding:
The path is designed to illustrate the relationship between farming and the landscape to the wide public, such as families with children, those interested in organic food production, or people interested in biodiversity. Visitors will learn about organic farming and some of its superstructures in which local farmers participate.
We can now report that, after almost a year of hard work, the path opened to the public on 18th May with a large-scale event termed Clover Day and hosted by the Czech FRAMEwork partner, Czech University of Life Sciences (CULS) in collaboration with the farms Ekofarma Probio and Sociální Podnik Jasan and our friends at Czech Organics.
The 7 km trail offers breathtaking views of the agricultural landscape and its fields, forests, vineyards. Most importantly, it makes the beautiful local biodiversity - all manner of birds, insects, and vegetation - accessible to the community.
On Clover Day, a 300 strong crowd of enthusiastic visitors were invited to walk along the path, starting at Ekofarma Probio where organisers helped them to install and use the iNaturalist biodiversity monitoring app. Along the path, representatives of CULS spoke to visitors about the FRAMEwork project and our environmental research, plus organic farming methods. NGO representatives from organisations like Czech Birdlife were also present, either as visitors or with stands along the path.
Plenty of organic produce was on offer to restore hungry walkers: Jasan provided their own delicious produce as catering for the event and the Cluster's own Veritas Winery had a stall selling locally grown organic wine with over 15 varieties available to taste.
There was also the opportunity to see a fascinating demonstration by EarthBridge of the potential for Earth Observation methods like drones, spectrometers and thermal cameras to enhance our understanding of the environment and help traditional ecologists with biodiversity monitoring.
We caught up with CULS who said:
“We were able to attract 300 people, thanks to the superb network of friends and supporters of Jasan and Ecofarma Probio”
The event was a fantastic example of what local networks of biodiversity-conscious actors and audiences can achieve by coming together, and a great opportunity for a positive celebration of one of the project’s achievements.
Over 40 participants of all ages recorded more than 500 observations with 90 new species spotted during the course of walking the path. FRAMEwork participants from Czech Organics and Eko Farm Probio handed out prizes to the those who had recorded the most in a prize giving session with visitors.
Taskscape was in attendance to capture interviews and footage - so keep an eye out for videos featuring this event!
You can read additional coverage of the path from the Farmer Cluster here.
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