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Progress Report - Save the Beaver!

Thanks to the support of the Upper Mohawk Valley Model United Nations from New York State, USA, last year ($840 USD) we were able to print our leaflets and journals and to use them to organize public meetings. Public participation is a very important tradition to establish and act upon, in Czech Republic as well as everywhere else.

Our Completed Activities Over the Past Nine Months:

• Meetings with public in towns on the Elbe (Labe) river – Usti nad Labem - 3 meetings - and Decin - 1 meeting. (Labe is the Czech name for the river, which is named Elbe in German and English.)
• 13 press releases about beavers, their habitats and related topics.
• Open letter to Mr. Zaoralek, chairman of Czech Parliament
• Some TV (both regional and national TV) and radio entrances
• 2 numbers of Friends of Elbe Association Newspaper were issued. There were 2500 copies, given to people who signed our petition: “ For consequent protection of beaver”
• Taking part on ”pre-referendum” public meeting to EU-membership with members of Parliament. The Elbe protection was only one of many topics.
• Discussion with mayor of Usti nad Labem, with head of environmental department of Litomerice municipality and with director of department of nature conservation of Ministry of Environment
• Meeting with activists protecting Elbe in other Czech regions.
• Running information-stall at Litomerice music festival.
• Common swimming in Elbe in 13 places along the river.
• Taking part in administration processing of problems related to beavers and Elbe river, according to law 114/92.
• Running of Virtual exhibition on www.prateleprirody.cz

Our “Save the Beaver” project funded by the Virtual Foundation enabled us to carry out the above activities. We have such a good start that we also plan future activities (to be supported mainly from other sources):

Plan of future activities
We are presently working to get out several leaflets to be inserted into journals:

• leaflets on private nature reservations on banks of Elbe
• leaflets on Elbe-river natural values
• leaflets with enquiry to mailing
• explanation and publicity about Elbe-river natural values in journals

Other activities, that we plan, are:

• Elbe 2020 Conference in middle of November 2003
• training of activists in December
• negotiation with owners of grounds on Elbe River banks

Those activities will be supported mainly from other sources.

Finance
Virtual foundation support we used mainly to print our leaflets and journals. Details will be contained in final report.