Excursion to the Protected Habitat Tišina Marks World Wetlands Day

(Patria) - The Center for the Environment marked 2 February, World Wetlands Day, with an excursion to the Protected Habitat Tišina, as it did last year. This date is a kind of wetland holiday first observed in 1971, and regularly celebrated since 1997. The goal is to educate and draw public attention to the importance of these exceptionally complex and significant ecosystems, and it is marked under a slogan that changes each year; for 2025, the slogan is “Protecting wetlands for our common future”.

Igor Kalaba, coordinator of the Biodiversity and Protected Areas programme at the Center for the Environment, emphasised that these habitats are of immeasurable importance for all forms of life, including humans.

“Wetlands sustain a range of processes: from depositing greenhouse gases, providing habitats for numerous animal and plant species, to filtering and, when necessary, absorbing water and mitigating the consequences of floods. They also regulate climate change – this list is endless. Besides their biological significance, they also have cultural importance for humans, like all ecosystems where people live; for centuries, wetlands have shaped us and our culture as much as we have shaped them,” Kalaba pointed out.

The initiator of the protection of the Tišina wetland habitat, which was declared in 2019, is the Society for Biodiversity Research. Jovica Sjeničić, president of this Society, emphasises that they plan to thoroughly explore these areas in order to assess future revitalisation measures:

“In one part, we will also carry out trial habitat restoration measures, as well as create tourist facilities such as a cycling or walking trail, thereby putting these wetland habitats to use for tourism. As before, this year we continue cooperation with the Municipality of Šamac and the local population regarding the improvement of the ecosystem at Tišina, and we also plan to further mark the boundaries of the area, supplement research, publish the first photo-monograph on Tišina, and present the activities carried out so far on the revitalisation and research of this area. In addition, in partnership with the Municipality of Modriča, within the DaWetRest programme, over the next two years we will implement the project of the Restoration Plan for the Tolisa River, which, until it was drained for the purpose of creating arable land, was the lifeline of the Middle Posavina region, and today only disconnected fragments of small wetland habitats exist along its former course.”

The leader of today's trip to Tišina was ornithologist Draško Adamović, who, in addition to providing participants with more information about the wetland itself, also shared a portion of his extensive knowledge about the birds that inhabit it, and ornithofauna in general. The excursion participants were citizens of Banja Luka and Šamac who applied via the social media channels of the Center for the Environment, and the condition for participation was providing correct answers to several questions about the wetlands of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In previous years, the Center for the Environment also marked World Wetlands Day at the former Bardača wetland complex. Unfortunately, the Center's struggle to preserve this Ramsar site has so far not borne fruit, but after a long series of years, a positive shift has occurred.

According to Dr. Dragana Šnjegota, associate professor at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Banja Luka and executive director of the Center for Biodiversity Research, the Municipality of Srbac has signed a contract for the implementation of a biodiversity restoration project in the Bardača area with representatives of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, who are coordinators of the DaWetRest programme, within which Bardača was selected as an associate member.

“The Center for Biodiversity Research is the main bearer of activities, and the entire project is based on scientific expertise with the aim of analysing the current state of biodiversity. In addition, work will be done on restoring a small part of the complex, which will serve as a test area that should show whether it is possible to restore biodiversity after the applied revitalisation measures. The goal is that after two and a half years, the duration of the project, we will develop an action plan in which we will present all our findings on the possibilities of returning Bardača to its original state. We have examples where this is absolutely possible, and we will be guided by those examples. We will go in that direction to show that if Bardača returns to its pre-degradation state, there are certainly preconditions for economic gain, and thus for improving the quality of life of the local population, as well as the wider community.”

Bardača once encompassed 11 lakes and was recognised as an important habitat for many species of birds and other organisms. However, due to drainage and inadequate management, there has been a significant reduction in biodiversity and habitat degradation.

For decades, wetlands were stigmatised solely as sources of infection and other problems, but after the destruction of these and other ecosystems, we have finally begun to realise their irreplaceability for us and the planet.

“In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we have a whole range of landscapes that should be protected as soon as possible; many of them are unique on our continent, and even in the world. Among them is the Livanjsko Polje, which is the largest floodplain karst field in the world. An additional reason for protection is the increasingly developed tourism that brings nature lovers to our country, and tourism is at the same time a reason for protection, because tourists are interested in protected nature, and at the same time the protection regime regulates tourist behaviour so that their presence does not disturb the balance of the ecosystem,” concluded Igor Kalaba.