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NEWS
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Unfortunately,
there is nothing to brag about.
The negative impact that people have on the environment is so great
that rare positive changes and actions go virtually unnoticed. |
GARBAGE |
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It is amazing where
and how much garbage people leave in nature. It is especially
stupefying today when garbage disposal is so well organized.
However, people do not take those options, but rather, sometimes
with extra work and transport, take it into nature, as if it will
magically disappear.
It is thrown mostly near
trails and crossroads, around springs and wells, into ravines and
thickets. It is depressing that that is also done by people who
should be taking better care of nature, and they are hikers and
forest workers.
SEE
THE PICTURES !
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WATER |
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Once clean natural
springs that flow into the vilage haven't been for drinking for
several years now. To blame are garbage, lack of a sewage system and
chemicals in farming.
SEE
THE PICTURES !
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CLEARING
OF LAND |
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Because of the
construction of houses, vacation cottages and paths land is being
mercylessly cleared.
September 2006.
I went for a walk and I came to the crossroad of paths towards Lipa,
Vugrovec and the top of Bedenik (from Vugrovec) and experienced the
greatest shock in my life. The path has been widened and the
surrounding trees have been DESTROYED! There is no more shade along
the entire path, no bird could be heard (all fled because of the
work, otherwise there would've been tens of them every metre)! An
old tree stump in which water collected for deer (which I cleaned
every year) is destroyed! The cut trees around the path look like
a battlefield and the workers even left behind their garbage!
SEE THE PICTURES !
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FIRE |
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Once every couple
of years firemen have to intervene in the near area because of fires
that have gone out of control (burning of weeds on meadows).
Example of the consequences of
one such unintentionally caused fire, caused by carelessness and
ignorance.
SEE
THE PICTURES ! |
HUNTING |
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Sadly, these
shooting stands aren't used for photography, but by hunters. We can
often hear shots fired in the distance and we find the remains of
the shot animals. Based on the feeders, with wich they lure their
innocent victims, hunters here hunt deer, pheasants and wild boars. We
do not understand how is it possible that in the 21st century it is
legal for people to walk around the hills with rifles and shoot. We
are worried for us, our dog, for our friends and neighbours and
especially for the animals and we condemn this in its entirety.
People that are ready to kill
a living being for sport or fun are people with dangerous
intentions.
SEE
THE PICTURES !
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LIGHTING
AND NOISE |
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Electricity is
slowly being introduced, and with it street lights, and that
disrupts a lot of night time animals, for example: fireflies,
moths,...
People use massively a lot of
noisy machinery: mowers, generators, sprayers, cars, tractors. That
disruts the animals in their normal comunication, calling, hunts,
and bothers nature lovers in their experience and relaxation. |
In the last 30/40 (from the '70-ies onwards) a great change in the flora
and fauna is observed.
In the floral world, nature is
taking back what was taken on the plots where no one has come for several
years and haven't been maintained. These plots slowly become meadows with
bushes, then thickets and forests.
The fauna world the biggest changes
that happened (and are still happening!) are in the frequency and places
some animals are encountered and to the complete cessation of encountering
certain species (extinct?).
Amphibians
probably suffer the most. I remember that when I was 3 or 4 years old I
"chased" tadpoles in a stream that flowed under our cottage.
Closing that spring for the village water suply, the stream stoped. The
tadpoles were no more. When I was 5 or 6, I "jumped" after a
Green Tree Frog (it got away in some crab grass, it's the only one that I
ever saw there). Somwhere around 2001. we saw the first and only Agile
Frog. In 2004. we found 4 Fire
Salamanders, in 2005. only 2.
Concerning reptiles,
the number of snakes has fallen greatly from the '70-ies to today). I
talked to the people there in regards to that and they
said:"...before there were a lot more of 'em and there were animals 2
m in length...". Number of snakes decreased in the last 30 years.
Older people often mention the snakes were often bigger then today. Currently there are 4 species here: Aesculapian
Snake, Grass
Snake, Smooth
Snake and the Nose-horned
Viper. There is a small chance that there were also Dice Snakes
(Natrix tessellata tessellata- one neighbour claimed he killed an
"Adder" (there are none there, not even in the whole NP
Medvednica!) which had a broken up zig-zag and that he measured it. It was
over a meter, and Adders reach a maximum of 80 cm!), but I haven't been
able to confirm that.
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