May, 2019

concerning sustainable, nature-based tourism in the Wider Prespa Area in Albania and North Macedonia PONT has identified two topics among its funding priorities that are not being adequately addressed by its current grants or actions supported by other donors. The first concerns the Non-Timber Forest Products that was the topic of the call for grant proposals to Environmental Actors launched in May 2019 (see above). The second topic is …

On 24 May 2019, the European Day of Parks, the Prespa National Park in Albania offered a guided tour for the local schools “Dy Deshmoret” and “Rezidenca e Goricareve” of the Municipality of Pusteci. The 5th grade students learnt about the history, culture and nature of their environment. Vasil Male and Olsi Duma, chief specialists of the regional administration of protected areas of Korçë selected trail#4 of the hiking …

Germany’s Lower Saxon State Government has provided funds to the Alfred Toepfer Academy for Nature Conservation for a project that aims to assist the cross-border Prespa-Ohrid ecoregion to develop nature-based tourism activities, and to start building up capacities in this respect on a regional level. The project aims to accomplish two objectives: To develop initial nature-based tourism activities in the Prespa-Ohrid Ecoregion through a pilot project in which interested …

On 7 May 2019, PONT was honoured by the visit of Achim Mortier and Maren Kneller of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to the Prespa National Park in Albania. BMZ has provided tremendous support to PONT over the past years. In the presence of representatives of the National Agency for Protected Areas, KfW, GIZ and the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve Prespa Project – Albania (Phase …

PONT recently engaged the Connecting Natural Values and People Foundation (CNVP) to prepare a report that assesses the opportunities and challenges related to non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in the Wider Prespa Area. Contents of the report Fully endorsed by PONT, the report sets out a number of recommendations related to the collection, production, processing and marketing of NTFPs, taking into account input from a number of key stakeholders in …