The ECO KARST project - Ecosystem services of karst protected areas – driving force of local sustainable development in the Danube Region – was officially launched at the three-day Kick-off event from 8-10th March 2017 in Ljubljana. The meeting took place at M-hotel in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

All project partners met in person for the first time at the Kick-off meeting, therefore we started with a short presentation of everybody present. Then the project manager outlined the overview of the project and pointed out important issues related to the project implementation. Each work package leader presented the content of their work packages, pointing out the main issues, which need to be taken into consideration for the successful implementation of the project. 

The public part of the Kick-off meeting was on Thursday, 9th March at the same location. The public event was dedicated to making connection between various topic related projects. The meeting started with the welcome speech by Mr. Živan Veselič, deputy director of Slovenia Forest Service, who presented the SFS as the lead partner in the project. Mr. Gustáv Csomor presented the Interreg Danube Transnational Institute.

One of the important topics in ECO KARST project are ecosystem services, therefore we invited Mr. Tadej Kogovšek from Institute of the Republic Slovenia for Nature Conservation to present the ongoing project AlpES - Alpine Ecosystem Services – mapping, maintenance and management. The next presenter, Mr. Anže Japelj from Slovenian Forestry Institute shared main results and outputs of the Star Tree project - Multipurpose trees and non-wood forest products: a challenge and opportunity - which is in many ways interlinked to ECO KARST project. The final presentation of the public part of the meeting was Mapping and assessment of forest functions in Slovenia, held by Mr. Dragan Matijašić, Slovenia Forest Service.

Friday morning, 10th March we started with 1st Steering committee meeting, where members agreed upon Statutory act and other important starting points for a successful project implementation. 

We concluded the Kick-off meeting by creating a ‘’To-do list’’ for the next steps of project implementation.

Pictures about the event are available in the 'Gallery' menu of our webpage.