#itisnottoolate River Bijela - eco action

We are very proud to say that we participated as volunteers on this beautiful project called "#itisnottoolate - River Bijela".

Project was started by NGO Lončari, small association from a tiny village near Zadar where only 10 people live. Near the village, there's a canyon called River Bijela Canyon, where local eco-activists, rock-climbers and outdoor enthusiasts love to spend their days. It sounds nice, doesn't it?

The ugly side of the story is that this canyon is being used as illegal waste disposal place for years already, and someone was throwing so much shattered glass there that the people started to call it "The Glass Path". This problem was faced with certain activities in the project - for example, there were few eco-actions where volunteers from all over the region were collecting shattered glass and trash they found. After years of collecting, there was more than 3 tons of glass, countless trucks full of trash, and lots of full hearts who did something good for mother nature. 

Final activity of the project was to build a traditional circular stonewall made from disposed stone with a mosaic surface made of collected glass. Believe it or not, an artist came all the way from America and became an 11th person living in this small village, just to create this artistic piece in the middle of nowhere. He imagined this as turning trash into art, which is why the stonewall is also filled with shattered glass, to symbolize how humans can turn the worse into a good purpose. The circular installation has a purpose of being a place of gathering, where people will sit in the circle and talk with eachother, and the layer of mosaic represents an eel, because locals used to put them into their wells. Eels used to make the water in the wells cleaner, which is why this artist also chose to put it here. What a beautiful concept, huh?

Our volunteers participated for two weekends - they built a stonewall with other participants, and next weekend they cleaned the paths, helped the artist with the mosaic and joined the presentations about protecting the nature. We cannot be more proud of being invited to participate in this. Knowing we left our trace, positive trace, in one of the most beautiful parts of Croatia is something we cannot describe.

More on this can be heard in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tChEbIQCaEY

On their website: https://morskelivade.com/en/built-part-of-the-installation-see-glass-again/

Aaand their FB page: https://www.facebook.com/morskelivade