14 September 2021
The Director of the “Sharri” National Park, Bajram Kafexholli, and the Director of the “Bjeshkët e Nemuna” National Park, Fatmir Morina, are participating in the Annual Conference of the Parks of the Dinaric Arc – (Network of Protected Areas of the Dinarics), which this year is being held in Bar, Montenegro.
This year the network conference is being held under the motto “Protected Areas for the New Decade – Future Challenges.” One of the main goals of the conference is to improve communication among network members and strengthen cooperation for the development of new plans and initiatives for the future.
The main topics of this year's conference are: the impact of the COVID pandemic on protected areas, the expansion of the Dinaric region with new protected areas, the prospects of protected areas in the context of European Union policies, visitor management in protected areas, monitoring of mammal species in the Dinaric region, as well as pressures on natural resources in the protected areas of this region. The members of the Network also had the opportunity to become acquainted in detail with the activities carried out in the previous two years. In accordance with the Statute of the Dinaric Parks, within the framework of the conference, the General Assembly of the network was also held, where the election of the members of the new Steering Board took place. In the process of electing new members for the Steering Board, Kosovo is represented with the position of vice-chairperson of this network and with one member in the Technical Council of the Board.
In addition to the representatives of the 'Bjeshkët e Nemuna' National Park and the 'Sharri' National Park, Kosovo in this network is also represented by the 'Gërmia' Nature Park.
The parks of Kosovo have been full members of the Dinaric Parks network since 2014. The Dinaric Parks network consists of 95 protected areas from Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia.