On Thursday 27th of May 21, first stakeholders workshop was held in the village Kovilj, located in the Special nature reserve Koviljsko-petrovaradinski rit. Workshop was organized by the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Novi Sad, in the frame of IDES project. Participants came from different sectors (water management, agriculture, forestry, nature conservation) and target groups (NGO, administration, farmers association, research, civil society, media).

Both organizers and participants were happy to have face to face meeting, which helped in creating very constructive and productive atmosphere. First part of the Workshop was used to present concept of ecosystem services, IDES project and results of the online questionnaire related to the assessment of ecosystem services and DPSIR in the Serbian Pilot area.

Second part was used to define fuzzy cognitive model of the relationship between ten most important ES and five high impact pressures in the area identified through the questionnaire. Finally, potential measures for pressures reduction are discussed and five most important were identified and imported to the model.

The Workshop provided valuable insight to the pressures recognized by the local people and many constructive ideas for developing water quality management scenarios and IDES tool. Most importantly, participants expressed strong willingness to continue working together with the IDES team from the Faculty of Agriculture in the implementation of the IDES project.