29 June, 2006 Danube Day in Ukraine

29 June 2006 in Vylkove, Оdesa oblast the celebration of the International Danube Day was held by activists of 3 Danube Clubs from Vylkove, Izmail and Odesa. Actions were organized by All-Ukrainian Environmental NGO "MAMA-86" and "MAMA-86-Odesa" under the support of the Ministry for Environmental Protection of Ukraine, in partnership with Coca-Cola HBC, Austria and with financial support of Coca-Cola Beverages Ukraine Ltd. 114 children from Danube clubs in Vylkove, Izmail and Odesa during June, 15—28 participated in the wide range of interesting educational and cleaning up activities.

June 15—16, 2006 — Danube club of Vylkove under the leadership of the Danube Biosphere Reserve staff carried out the ichthyologic expedition "Live Silver of the Danube". 5 children from Vylkove Danube club took part in expedition. The expedition was target at studying the Danube rare and disappearing species of fishes. During 2 days children trained to trail the young sturgeon fishes in Solomon and Оchakiv branches, to research the young fishes in shallow water along sea spits in the Shidnyy Branch of Danube delta.  Instead of the young sturgeon 4 crayfishes were found because of the cold spring and late spawning of fishes accordingly. The catches of the young fishes by net were very successful. The biggest fish harvest was 634 young fishes of the Carp Family. Young fishes were defined, measured and weighed, and finally released back to water. There were breams, schraesters and other species of fish in the catch. The report of this expedition was delivered to the Danube biosphere reserve. Children presented the results of ichthyologic expedition at the press-conference on 29th June in Vylkove.

Photos: the Ichthyologic Expedition "Live Silver of the Danube" in Danube Biosphere Reserve

June 20—26—youth group of 20 participants from Izmail and Vylkove took part in the research expedition to the lakes Kugurluy and Kartal. The expedition target was to study the flora and fauna of these lakes and the status of them. The biodiversity of the lakes is very rich and not researched yet. The childrenresearch expedition aimed to study the biodiversity of the lakes and to prepare the case studies on it. During 7 days children together with teachers and specialists undertook the botanical research (gathering the different plants for herbarium and for definition of the species, recognizing the "Red Book" plants, herbs and the poisonous plants); held a study of the fishes, birds and animals of the lakes, took trainings on hydrobiological investigations and hydrological analysis of water. After excursions, lectures and trainings children organized the festivals and concerts, singing songs near the fire. Children prepared the reports on each of the research fields and results of the studies of flora and fauna of the lakes. The results of the expedition were presented at the press-conference on 29th June in Vylkove.

June 22—24 the action to clean the "yeryks" along the Тolstogo and Оktyabrska Revolution streets in Vylkove — the old town called "the Ukrainian Venice" in the Danube delta near Black Sea. Children from Vylkove initiated the "yeryks cleanup" action. The members of the Danube clubs from Іzmail (17 representatives), Оdesa (11 representatives) and Vylkove (15 representatives) took part in 3 days action. As the result of the action 3 tractors took away the garbage collected by children from the bottom of the canals. Near 800 m of the yeryks were cleaned up. On behalf of all the participants of action the Vylkove Danube club wrote and disseminated among the town dwellers the appeal to take care about the yeryks.

Photos: the Action of the "yeryks" clean up along theТolstogo and Оktyabrska Revolution streets in Vylkove, Odesa oblast.

June 29 — Danube Daywas celebrated in Vylkove, Odesa oblast. The day began with Press-conference in the Information centre of Danube Biosphere Reserve. Representatives of NGO "МАМА–86-Оdesa", Coca-Cola HBC, Austria and Coca-Cola Beverages Ukraine Ltd; Danube biosphere reserve and 40 boys and girls took part in it. Children from Vylkove, Izmail and Odesa Danube clubs presented their activities during project "Аctions for the Danube Day": presentations of the results of the "yeryks" cleaning in Vylkove (June 22—24), the results of the ichthyologic expedition "Live silver of Danube" (June 14—15) and the results of lakeKartal and Kugurluy expedition (June 20—26).

During press-conference in the yard of the Information centre of Danube Biosphere Reserve the youngest participants of the celebration took part in picture on the ground contest "Fairy World of Danube" and "Coca-Cola" company representatives awarded the most talented artists.

The participants of the celebration carried out the exciting voyage to the "Danube Delta -"0" km". During the voyage children from the Danube clubs created a slogan "Danube day 2006" decorated with children hand prints and a great variety of fishes-stickers on it. While being on the "0" km, the 3 teams of Danube clubs cleaned up the area around "0" km and gathered 77 bags of garbage. The team from Vylkove won in the competition by gathering 31 bags of wastes, mainly the plastic bottles. On the way back to Vylkove all participants of Danube Clubs received the presents from Coca-Cola, posters about Danube fishers in Ukrainian published by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Nature in Ukraine and stickers with Danube fishes from ICPDR.

Photos: Danube DayCelebration in Vylkove, Odesa oblast.

Prepared by Tsvietkova Ganna
Coordinator of "Water and Sanitation" program, NGO "MAMA-86", NC of PP on Danube
Tel.: +380-44-278-77-49, Fax: +380-44-279-55-14