Breaking the Borders: Nature Discovery Trails to Eastern Carpathians

The project produced 12 travel products (tour packages) based around the Carpathian nature themes for Ukrainian and Romanian target areas.

A Nature Based Tourism Strategy for the Eastern Carpathians was prepared as a result of four strategic planning meetings. The strategy was adopted by project partners as a future action framework and joint implementation committee was set up to observe the strategy implementation. A new brand of Nature Tourism in Eastern Carpathian was elaborated. Public consultations were held in project target locations in Ukraine and Romania for discussion of the draft of the Nature Based Tourism Strategy for the Eastern Carpathians with total participation of 186 local stakeholders and counterparts.

The project has planned and constructed the numerous nature tourism facilities in the Carpathian national nature park (Ukraine) and Maramures Mountain nature park (Romania): bird watching and mammal watching towers, boardwalks over the wetlands, steps and rails in the mountain areas, information boards and sign posts along the trails etc. This was achieved by developing trails with associated infrastructures appropriate to the landscape and nature resource to be viewed, and through the upgrading of existing infrastructure, provision of maps, guides and interpretation / education boards and materials. The infrastructure upgrading needs, locations and themes were identified alongside the planned trails and infrastructure facilities improved/developed accordingly.

Specifically, on the Ukrainian side 4 hiking trails were explored (total length of 48.9 km) and selected for the project activities on the territory of the Carpathian National Nature Park, direction signs were produced and installed alongside these hiking trails; 20 single sides and 20 double sided information/interpretation/map boards were installed in the settlements of Yaremche city council; 6 picnic sites (a table, two benches and a roof) were installed along nature trails; 2 eco-toilets were built; 102 meters of boardwalk were installed on a wetland location; 150 items of stairs and 402 meters of rails were installed in the steep areas along the routes. 2 bird watching towers and 1 mammal watching tower were built.

On the Romanian side uniform for 14 forest rangers (Maramures Mountains Nature Park) procured. 4 bird and mammal watching towers in Maramures Mountains Nature Park rehabilitated. The total length of planned and researched trails reaches 172 km for the general trail network, and 31 km for a themed trail network in Maramures Mountain Nature Park.

Project conducted a number of extensive promotion initiatives to improve the system of ‘nature tourism’ promotion by such. The Beneficiary and Project Partners produced and disseminated a number of promotional and guidance materials in various languages: Joint Nature Tourism Guide to Eastern Carpathians, activity maps, posters and brand souvenir items. The new nature tourism brand was developed for Eastern Carpathians and applied in the promotional literature, brand souvenir items produced and disseminated within the project.

Familiarization visit for tour operators from Romania and Ukraine to the Eastern Carpathians (10 participants) was conducted in Maramures county and Yaremche region presenting the new nature based tourist opportunities. 43 publications about the project and the holiday opportunities in the area were publicized in local, regional, national and international Internet media and on the partners’ web sites.

The International conference was conducted on April 25-26, 2014 in Yaremche (Ukraine) and new nature based opportunities were presented to the wider audience (in total the conference was attended by 236 participants). The conference theme was ‘Eco- and nature-based tourism: fostering cooperation between nature protection establishments, tourism business and local communities’. This event attracted high amount of attention from the target audiences, mostly representing small local businesses, nature protection areas and local governments.

Project built capacity and establish cooperation initiatives between Romanian and Ukrainian counterparts for the present and future development of nature and culture based tourism within the Central Carpathian.

A close cooperation between the Carpathian National Nature Park and Maramures Mountains Nature Park was deepened; representatives from both institutions and the local counterparts actively participated in the project management structures (coordination boards) and jointly developed the nature tourism strategy for Eastern Carpathians (strategic planning committee). The partners and their local counterparts set up a joint strategy implementation monitoring committee.

Representatives of tourism industry and NGOs have actively participated in project activities in the reporting period, particularly in the meetings of Coordination Board, Strategic Planning Committee and International conference. They have also worked on the nature tourism strategy and content of promotional literature.

The best practices of innovations in regard to nature tourism in Ukraine, Romania and Europe were studied; nature tourism guidelines (manual) was developed and disseminated amongst the local counterparts in order to reveal the nature based tourism opportunities and themes. The manual includes the description of the project best practices including the nature tourism infrastructure planning and development.