On the first day, the participants of the event already traditionally cleaned up garbage on the banks of the Vilshan Reservoir. During the cleaning, all the garbage is sorted and most of the plastic and glass is taken away by volunteers for recycling, a smaller part goes to the landfill. Volunteers from Uzhhorod, Mukachevo, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Kamianets-Podilskyi and many other cities of the western regions, as well as from Mykolaiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa, Mariupol, Kharkiv, came to the 18th eco-picnic in Transcarpathia and Starobilska.
This time, during the day of cleaning on the shore, volunteers collected a ton of plastic, almost 1.8 tons of glass, which went for recycling. 150 bags with things that can no longer be recycled were taken to the solid household waste landfill.
The orchestra of the 128th separate mountain assault brigade of the Transcarpathian Sea, in which Roman Zhuk, one of the founders of the Chysto.de movement, served as a scout, came to the shore of the Transcarpathian Sea to support the volunteers. 34-year-old Roman who died in battle in Zaporizhzhia in May 2022.
The volunteers spent the second day of the eco-picnic in the Valley of Narcissus: they arranged the beds so that the area was moistened and more favorable for the further germination of flowers. Under the guidance of scientists of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and experts of the “Danube-Carpathian Program”, volunteers cleaned up wet meadows after cutting down bushes on an area of about 20 hectares, made dams on reclamation channels, and also prepared dozens of ties from pre-cut branches, which will also be used for of construction
“These works are designed to hold back as much water as possible during the wet season to support narrow-leaved narcissus meadows during the dry season. This will help to restore the water regime of the most valuable areas of the Valley, and therefore to preserve unique groups dominated by narrow-leaved narcissus and about 20 other plant species of the Red Book of Ukraine, which also grow in this territory and require a high level of moisture, – explained in “Danuisk-Karpatska” program”.
It should be noted that the public initiative Chysto.de was founded by the couple Roman and Lena Zhukiv from Mukachevo in 2020. Together, they created a movement whose goal is to clean the Vilshan Reservoir of garbage, involve as many local residents as possible in the idea of sorting, and preserve the natural beauty of this place. “Clean up the Carpathians, as if they were near your house,” urge eco-activists.
In addition, thanks to the public initiative Chysto.de with the support of nature protection organizations, in December 2022, a landscape reserve “The Coast of the Transcarpathian Sea” was created on the territory of the Vilshan Reservoir. These are precisely the territories that have been cleaned by volunteers from different parts of Ukraine for two years, and which are adjacent to the Synevyr National Park. The topic of protection of these areas was actively discussed by the public due to news about the possible development of the banks of the reservoir. The decision to create a nature reserve was made by deputies of the Transcarpathian Regional Council after appeals from environmentalists.
