Some 3,600 volunteers from across the country collected 12 tons of waste at Bulgaria’s 11 nature parks in this year’s edition of the National Nature Parks Day initiative organized by GLOBUL and WWF. The highest number of volunteers, over 1600, was registered at the Vitosha, Sinite Kamuni and Strandzha nature parks.
Within the initiative, which was held on May 14, 2011, volunteers participated in cleaning, restoring signs and renovating the visitor infrastructure at some of the most popular tourist and recreation areas in Bulgaria. In comparison to the previous year, now the registered number of participants increased by 20 % and the collected garbage is 20 % less. These results support the already established trend towards residents becoming more responsible and engaged with preserving nature parks’ original state.
Bulgarian celebrities and diplomats also gave their lead and contribution to the cleaning of the parks. Vitosha Nature Park ambassadors were Simeon Kolev from BG Radio, TV host Niki Kunchev, the British Ambassador to Bulgaria Catherine Barber, bTV news anchor Venelin Petkov and weather reporter Hristina Baliiska. Gravity Co frontman Yavor Zahariev volunteered at Belasitza Nature Park and bTV weather reporter Stanislava Traikova was ambassador at the Rila Monastery Nature Park. The singer Toni Dimitrova headed volunteers in Strandzha Nature Park and the rapper Misho Shamara was ambassador at Zlatni Pyasatsi Nature Park. The Romanian Ambassador to Bulgaria Anton Pakuretsu participated in the cleaning of Persina Nature Park.
Over 100 GLOBUL and GERMANOS employees also joined the initiative and over 1,000 people registered to volunteer at www.globulgreen.bg. For a third consecutive year GLOBUL provided financial and logistic support to the WWF initiative as part of its long-term environmental sustainability strategy GLOBUL Green. As a result of all projects within the strategy, the operator reduced its carbon emissions by 7% on yearly basis, thus saving the environment 1,862 tons of greenhouse gases.
