Are Mountain Pastures Essential Parts of the Beskid Mountains Landscape?

Yet another Project Activity has just come to an end! Since the beginning of September we have been publicizing the idea of the Project Life+ ’Beskidy’ among the local community during the educational workshops conducted by the staff members of the Project. The workshops were conducted within the framework of the Activity E8 ‘Workshops for the local stakeholders’, during which the children, young people and other concerned parties had the chance to learn about the protection of the habitats and what kinds of actions are undertaken within the area of the Beskids Landscape Parks.  

The educational offer was dedicated to every age group: primary schools, secondary schools, as well as post secondary schools, and even adults. The workshops were comprised of two parts, i.e.: the indoor and outdoor part.

Having reached the meeting place – the Office of the Landscape Parks Complex [Polish: Oddział Zespołu Parków Krajobrazowych] in Żywiec, the group was divided into two teams. Two blocks of workshops were held in two rooms at the same time. During the workshops the participants were striving to answer the question whether the mountain pastures constitute essential parts of the landscape of the Beskid Mountains.

The first block of classes encompassed the topics related to the protection of the Nardetalia grasslands. The lecturer presented the characteristics of the grasslands in an interesting way, enumerating the species of plants crucial for this habitat and the participants discussed the necessity of providing these areas with active protection.

During the workshops, every participant had the chance to use the systems and atlases for marking the plants in order to be able to identify the protected species on their own in the field.

During the second block of workshops the group faced the problem of pasturing the sheep in the mountains and considered the advantages and disadvantages of such a type of pasturing. The participants of the workshops played the roles of a commune governor, an ecologist, a resident and a tourist in a village in the Beskid Mountains striving for thoughtful decisions concerning pasturing within their region in order to both support their local economy and protect the flora of the pastures, grasslands and meadows.