ONE OF THE BEST EXPERIENCE EVER!

Living in a park means obviously being all the time surrounded by nature. But to get closer to it, there is something else that you can do as a volunteer: you can take part in the monitoring of the wildlife! You may now wonder what this means: in spring and summer the staff of the nature department controls the presence of some species in the territory of the park. They want to know how many individuals there are and where they are. Each species is monitored every few years so you can be there for the monitoring of one species or another depending on their long-term plan. This activity is very important for a park as it allows to understand if the conservation efferts are effective and to act accordingly.

Therefore this year I could take part in the monitoring of nesting gulls and terns. We went on small protected islands in different lakes and counted the nests and the eggs. It was amazing! There were dozens of nests and hundreds of birds flying around!

Actually this is not the main task of the volunteer here but still, when monitorings are organized and you are not busy, you can ask to join! And if you are passionate about birds and nature as I am, you always try to take part...=)

This experience affected me greatly as it is a way to understand how here environmental protection works and to see what I belive in put into practice.

But to realize how beautiful nature is and how much important it is to protect our environment – you can do it in your work, by volunteering and in your everyday life-, you can easily walk or travel around and explore our wonderful nature, Lithuania and the Baltic States will give you plenty of this opportunities!

Events!!

The park is an instituiton that promotes many cultural events and volunteers are very lucky: they can help in the organisation and...take part in them! So that’s what I do: I join every event, I take pictures and I am ready to help if needed.

The 1st of May was the case: the park, together with the library, organised an excursion along the border between Lithuania and Poland during the period 1919-1939 to remind and talk about that hard moment in the lithuanian history. The borderline was passing trough villages, dividing families and friends

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Crossing the line was very difficult, but some lithuanians found a smart strategy: as Polish were very religious, they would have never doubt the good intentions of men of faith. Lithuanian traders dressed therefore as a priest and his driver! This way they could pass from Lithuania to Poland and were able to sell theri goods.

The event worked very well: a good walk in the nature, with some stops to remember the past. I enjoyed the day, the nature, taking pictures and the company. Indeed there was the park staff and also some volunteers I met at the on-arrival training. Because, yes, the Evs gives you also the chance to meet many great people!

MALONU

Dear Lithuania and Lithuanians, nice to meet you!

I am Stefania, from Italy, the new EVS* volunteer in the Aukštaitija National Park and I will write this blog about my experience.

I arrived in this marvellous place some weeks ago, when the lakes where still frozen and trees were still sleeping. Got off the plane in the late afternoon I found a sunny weather accompanied by a pretty crazy wind. Not too warm but still not what you expect travelling towards North!

Already from the plane I could discern the typical landscape, but after landed I could appreciate it totally: villages, towns and fields are alternate with woods… although it is a flat country, approximately 33% of Lithuanian territory is covered by forests! That’s a lot!!

But this should not surprise: it seems that Lithuanians have a good attitude to the environment. Because of their past and pagan traditions, they have developed a special relation with nature. This topic is very interesting, it deserves more attention...Volunteering in the national park is a good starting point for it, I’ll try to find out more!

* EVS: the European Voluntary Service is part of the Erasmus+ Programme.

The European Week for Waste Reduction

European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR) is an initiative aiming to promote the implementation of awareness-raising actions about sustainable resource and waste management during a single week.

The Thematic Focus for 2017 will focus on one of the easiest but very important ways to prevent waste: reuse with a twist of repair!

I made a presentation about pollution, climate change, waste management and 3R's in Vidisku high school. My aim to encourage students how become ECO friendly student in the school and at home as well. I shared my personal experiences what I learned in the nature school how to reduce, reuse and recycle the waste. Besides I read a lot about waste management and sustainable lifestyle because I very interested this issue. I hope after the presentation they start to do something for our environment and save the planet.

http://www.ewwr.eu/en

Halloween event

We celebrated the Halloween event with kids so firstly we went to the fishing and hunting museum.
They could learn about the animals all over the world and informed how to fish in the past. Secondly we went up to the Labanoras viewtower, the weather was pretty windy and cloudy and Labanoras visitor center as well. After that we visited the Paluse cemetery and we burned the candles. The cemetery was full of candles therefore it't was quite beautiful and peaceful.
Finally me and with the kids made the Halloween decoration  in the nature school and than we watched movie (hotel Transylvania), listened music and so on... It was a quite nice day for me, I really enjoyed the programs :)