“Sustainable Development in Vevchani: Nurturing Nature, Strengthening Communities”

Vevchani is a small municipality located in the southwestern part of North Macedonia, situated under the slopes of the stunning Jablanica Mountain. Despite its small size, Vevchani boasts unique ecological and geological features, as well as a strong cultural heritage. The Jablanica Mountain has forests that are of significant conservation value, thanks to their cultural-historical, bio-ecological, socio-economic, and scientific importance.

The municipality of Vevchani is responsible for managing the protected area Monument of Nature “Vevchani Springs”. They developed and adopted a management plan in 2019, however, lack of funding has made it challenging to fully implement it. Fortunately, various donors operate in the area, such as PONT, who have enabled a significant part of the planned activities and measures to be carried out.

The Management Plan (2019-2029) for the Monument of Nature “Vevchani Springs”, requires the manager to implement the activities in it. The manager and municipality adopted the Annual Program for Nature Protection and a variety of activities were delivered under the PONT grant based on the aforementioned document. Despite limited resources and expertise, the PONT grant enabled significant progress to be made by strengthening the municipality’s management and organisational capacities:

• Equipment installed in the protected area was used for monitoring and provided valuable data on the species and habitats present in the area. More recently, a drone was acquired to enhance the monitoring process.
• The visitor management officers regularly attended training sessions, which were crucial to their job performance. One training session was a cross-border workshop on monitoring and intervention for a bear in Lemos-Greece. This was part of the Trilateral project for the brown bear and was attended by both Eco-Svest and the visitor’s management service of the Monument of Nature “Vevchani Springs”.

The municipality has also worked on improving the tourist infrastructure with a particular emphasis on developing sustainable tourism which promotes environmental protection and economic development. Projects implemented to improve active tourism included – supporting mountaineering and environmental organisations, as well as promoting Vevchani Municipality and Vevchani Springs Monument of Nature as green destinations.

The project, called Vevchani Green, involves the municipality’s becoming a certified green destination. Through various activities, Vevchani and the Protected Area have gained significant publicity. This has led to an increase in visitor and media interest. Though no mechanism has been established to measure the exact number of tourists and visitors to Vevchani, we do have an idea of the approximate number of visitors from the entrance fee payment at the Monument of Nature. Entrance fees at Vevchani Springs showed an increase in visitors of more than 10% last year.

The general goal of the previous grant was the sustainable management of the protected area “Monument of Nature Vevchani Springs”. The activities – strengthening of management and administrative capacities, improvement of monitoring activities (biodiversity conservation), and development of sustainable tourism in the direction of local economic development – have all successfully been achieved. Cumulatively, the activities contribute to the protection and improvement of the hydrological, geomorphological, and biological characteristics of the Monument of Nature “Vevchani Springs” which help to promote the protected area as an attractive and discernible green destination.

Additionally last year, the visitor management officers’ team, along with representatives of the municipality and the Eco-Svest team, worked on the METT assessment for the Monument of Nature “Vevchani Springs” – this scored 60 points.

By: Vevcani Municipality