Promoting a Sustainable Herbal Harvest in Bulgaria

Co-financed by: The European Commission’s financial instrument for the environment - Life+

This is the first Bulgarian project to be co-financed under the Information and Communication component of Life+. The project is an education and information campaign, which aims to improve public awareness about the sustainable and provitable methods of collection, cultivation and processing of medicinal plants. The campaign will be executed in cooperation with the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR). More than 200 broadcasts about herbal harvesting will be aired on the “Horizont” program of the BNR and its regional radio stations Plovdiv and Stara Zagora. The radio programmes, as well as publications in other media outlets, will deliver the messages of the project and the information collected during its course to the general public.

The activities are geared toward local communities living in close proximity to medicinal plant habitats, local government and its experts, and the regional structures of the Ministry of Environment and Water and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, non-governmental organisations, educational and scientific organisations, journalists from local and national media and the general public.

Objectives:
To promote the sustainable use of herbs in Bulgaria;
To develop the mindset and skills necessary to protect Bulgaria’s the rich resources, by establishing sustainable business initiatives.

Activities:
Organizing trainings for municipal ecologists, employees of local government and forrestry authorities charged with issuing permits for medicinal plant collection, herb processors and collectors.
Development and reproduction of materials for each target group: Posters, Leaflets, Training Manual, etc.
Production, launching and dissemination of a “Sustainable Herbal Harvests” video film about the benefits sustainable herb use can bring to the project region and the country at large.
Execution of a Medicinal Plant Fare in Plovdiv with the participation of business organisations from the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, which use medicinal plants as raw materials
Creation of a database of information and photographs about herbs, i.e. valuable medicinal plant species and the active biological constituents they contain, the rules for collection and processing, value adding technologies, ethnobotany (the traditions and customs of the Bulgarian people for using herbs), etc. This database will be available to anyone who needs it.

More information about this project at http://susherbsbg.eu

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