On June 26, 2021, everyone interested in improving the way we currently use the landscape and land in connection with mitigation and adaptation to climate change was invited to the Bioclimatic Park. The event brought together people from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, who brought experience with solutions for the renewal of the rural landscape. The experts from various environmental organizations emphasized not only the importance of water retention in the country, but also the cultivation of crops without chemicals, the protection of biodiversity and farming, which is in harmony with nature.
Why land matters in the fight against climate change
The fight against climate change often centers on shifting to renewable energy sources and reducing carbon pollution—two essential actions to keep our planet’s temperature in check. But another crucial element often gets overlooked: changing the way we use land.
We’ve altered entire landscapes to produce everything from food and clothing to paper and fuel. And when we slash and burn forests, drain mangroves, or plow up grasslands, we release into the atmosphere heat-trapping carbon dioxide that plants, trees, and soil once captured and stored safely in the ground. Keeping these natural storage systems intact—and restoring those that have been degraded—can help us prevent global temperatures from increasing more than 1.5°C above historical levels.
There is no viable global solution to the climate crisis without improving the ways we use land.
But by working together, we can prevent some of the worst impacts of climate change while still meeting the needs of people, wildlife, and wild places. Here’s what we’re doing in Bioclimatic park to help—and what you can do.
The goal of the festival
The event had a Visegrad, international, multicultural and ecumenical character. The participants of the festival were small farmers, ecological institutions and land users from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Upon entering the area the registration took place with control against pandemic measures, visitors received a leaflet with a map of the Bioclimatic park and the program was acquainted with the festival program board.
The festival began with an invitation at the bell tower where the project, its goals, outputs and partners were presented. During the International Ecumenical Meeting, the speakers focused on the main theme of the project and that is our relationship with the country we live in and the soil that feeds us as a key parameter for the biggest current problem of life on Earth – climate change. Despite the pandemic and the measures that visitors had to follow, attendance at the festival was very high. We were also visited by participants from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
During the event, interesting workshops were prepared for the participants of the event and the atmosphere was made very pleasant by the folklore ensemble Studničky z Rajca.
Throughout the day, the Veronica Center from Hostětín addressed visitors with a workshop focused on the importance of fruit trees for the landscape and climate. They also attracted children’s visitors, who tried pressing the must from homemade apples and finally tasted it.
After a joint lunch made from local ingredients, visitors were refreshed with refreshing homemade lemonades and goodies from local producers. As is customary during the events in the Bioclimatic Park, we have always used exclusively recyclable and natural packaging, we do not waste anything and sort properly. We also educate our visitors.
The workshop of beekeepers at the beehouse was very popular, where visitors tried a bee sting as a healing therapy, looked into bee hives, learned about the rearing of queen bees and heard a lecture on the careful handling of soil associated with water retention in the country, planting insects, especially bees, the elimination of chemical poisoning of the soil with fertilizers, herbicides and other „cids“, the creation of wetlands and a number of other simple steps that are the way to restore the land.
The third workshop was focused on the presentation of water retention measures in the Bioclimatic Park – lakes, dikes, collecting ponds, channels for rainwater retention. A project partner from the TRIANON association had an interesting discussion paper on the retention of rainwater on the roofs of buildings.
The event is one of the outputs of the project „Love of land– key to climate change in Visegrad countries“, supported by International Visegrad Fund.
