During the last week of August we hosted an international youth camp on the Molpír hill near Smolenice. It was organized by the Tree of Life association and nearly 30 young people from Slovakia, Finland, the Netherlands and Greece came to participate. Together we managed to clear more than a kilometre of corridor, where we also started to prepare an electric fence for the goats. In addition, we collected several bags of rubbish, raked out the cut grass under the fence and started to expand and connect the overgrown meadows above the cherry orchard. These host a population of the rare clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne), whose caterpillars develop in the surrounding open forest-steppes with a lot of light. Thanks to the volunteer help of young people from different parts of Europe, we are significantly closer to the goal of returning the hooves of farm animals to this naturalistically, but also historically, very valuable area. Without them, the slopes of Molpír, which were inhabited in the Iron Age, would have become overgrown with invasive and woody vegetation.
Within the project LIFE Endemic PANALP we are cooperating with the municipality of Smolenice, which is the owner of the land, and the local farmer Mr. Matiašovič, whom we would like to thank for providing facilities for the participants of the camp. And last but not least, of course, many thanks to all the camp participants and its organizers!
Photos: Martin Šopinec, Jakub Cíbik
