Sava Day 2020

Due to the pandemic of virus COVID 19 the celebration of 1st of June, which has been declared as a Sava day by the Parties to the Framework Agreement on the Sava River Basin, was significantly more modest than the previous years. International Sava River Basin Commission participated on two events which had been organized in Slovenia and Croatia.

The first event was organized by Slovenian Environment Agency in cooperation with Association of Slovenian Geographers and Town Museum Krško in Krško (Slovenia). As part of the event, a high water mark was installed next to the museum, aiming to raise awareness and educate the public about floods as a natural process to which we should adapt. The flooding is a natural process which happens occasionally and the adaptation measures should be foreseen during the spatial planning and not only after the folds happens. Beside of the organizers, the mayor of the municipality of Krško, Mr. Miran Stanko, representatives of the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, firefighters and students from the Krško Primary School participated at the event. The installation of high water marks takes place since 2014 and during that period more than 55 marks have already been installed.
More information is available on the ARSO website.

The second event was organized by the Sports Gymnasium from Zagreb (Croatia) in the form of a virtual public tribune within the project "Unknown river- life of the Sava upstream and downstream from Zagreb", funded by the European Union from the small financial support programme "Students' actions against climate change".

The project aims to activate the young generations to recognize and accept the European Green Plan in order to maintain the quality of life in a unpolluted, healthy and safe environment. Beside the students and professors representatives of Croatian Waters, the Sava Commission and as a project partner the Brod Ecological Society participated at the event. The students presented the results of the survey, which was conducted in the frame of virtual lessons of geography of the first and second grades. The Sava Commission presented its achievements, activities related to climate change, water protection and biodiversity conservation, and stressed the importance of international cooperation in solving common challenges of the countries in the Sava River Basin. Students were also invited to take part in Sava Youth Parliament scheduled for September 2020. The tribune was broadcasted on a Facebook page accessible to the general public.

Unfortunately, the main traditional event celebrating the Sava River Day - the Youth Parliament of the Sava River Basin, was not held as originally planned on 30 and 31 May this year, due to measures being implemented as part of protection against the spread of the pandemic caused by the COVID 19 virus. The ninth meeting of the Youth Parliament has been postponed to the autum of 2020. If the circumstances allow, the Parliament will be held in Banja Luka (BA), with the main topic "Let's protect our cultural heritage".