Spring is very good season for specific field works. Thus, Croatian project partners PI VPC in Virovitica Podravina County spent first two weeks of March by monitoring of a very rare spring flower, Fritillaria meleagris, present on 5 continual plots in the region. Besides that important plant species, they conducted also monitoring of Dryocopus martius and other birds specific to old forests of Virovitica-Podravina County. Ongoing activities integrated all results of activities done so far and prepared all the necessary documentation for submission of the report. Analysis of results obtained from the University of Vienna (ESS, functionality and connectivity) was and still is in progress too. Research of the Green Belt area in VPC continues. Our Croatian colleagues continue to publish texts and photographs of PI VPC on the occasion of celebrating important dates in ecology like International Forrest Day, World Water Day and Earth Day. Texts and photograph published on the official website of PI VPC (virovitica-nature.hr) are shared on the PI's official Facebook page (Dravska priča), County's official website (vpz.hr) and local news portal (icv.hr) - it all contributes to environmental awareness raising among general public. 

PI VPC participated in the ONLINE Landscape Forum Bratislava on April 22nd 2020.Presentation of projects and activities of experts and students showed a lot about the strategy making, cross-border spatial planning initiative, importance of ecological corridors and connectivity through pilot actions for indicator species, habitat revitalization (back to nature), behavioural changes, awareness raising and etc. It was very valuable event for Dare to Connect project implementation in Croatia. 

In addition, a celebration of the Earth Day 2020 was organized and was very successful. PI VPC has sent an invitation to local kindergarten Cvrčak to create artworks on this occasion. The Limači Group, with their kindergarten teachers, also accepted the invitation. Hardworking and creative children have shown an enviable awareness of nature protection and desirable human behaviour. They expressed their ideas with a number of impressive drawings, messages, paintings, scale models and other. On the official web site of the PI VPC we published children art works with text on the occasion of the celebration of 50th anniversary Earth Day. Find more about the event here: http://virovitica-nature.hr/2020/04/21/dan-planeta-zemlje/#more-10938.