IBC-M has organized the second forum under the “Mitrovica Environmental Forum and Research Platform” on 22nd of April, as a part of the UNDP/Healthier Kosovo Grant. Due to the situation with Covid-19 and restrictions of movement in place, it was decided for the forum to be held online, through a learning platform “BlueJeans”. IBC-M IT department instructed all the participants beforehand on how to install this platform and sent a scheduled calendar invitation to all of them, making sure that they all understood the installation process.
The forum, in general promotes dialogue between stakeholders (local and governmental authorities, NGOs, the business community, farmers etc.) and IBC-M students and professors, on environmental issues troubling Mitrovica and the region and recommendations and proposals stakeholders might have regarding the follow-up activities.
Professor and IBC-M academic director Jelena Djokic opened the forum by providing basic project information to participants, discussing project achievements and future plans. Prof. Djokic also expressed IBC-M’s strong commitment to make Mitrovica a cleaner and healthier place through the implementation of this and other similar projects in the past. Prof. Djokic was actively involved in the project implementation herself.
College director Mihone Kerolli welcomed all the participants, expressing her gratitude for a high number of people who showed their interest and wanted to get involved and find out more about IBC-M and its projects. She emphasized the importance of this project and how important it will be for future generations. Director Mihone said that even though the project ends in May, IBC-M shall continue with established project activates and thanked to UNDP for their support and understanding.
Junior researcher Behare Mlinaku discussed the Earth Day, whose anniversary is today. The first Earth Day took place 50 years ago, on 22nd of April 1970. Behare reminded the participants that nature nowadays is in crisis and that it requires protection and solidarity from all of us, despite religion, race or nationality and that we must act urgently in order to protect our environment. She also presented IBC-M achievements in the field of soil testing and encouraged the participants, especially farmers who need their soil to be tested, to approach IBC-M and seek for assistance.
Next presenter was Damir Gashi, who joined the INFORM project team since its very beginning and who is leading IBC-M Research Center. Damir presented the hydrology measurements conducted by a team that consisted of IBC-M professors and students. These types of measurements are being conducted on open waters and are very important for the water quality, living organisms and habitats in the stream, but also for the identification of climate change trends in the world. Location of the measurements was 2 km away from the starting point (IBC-M Riverside campus), in between the residential area known as “Three towers” in North Mitrovica and the old stadium located in South Mitrovica, at coordinates 42°53’20″N, 20°51’32″E. The hydrology exercise was successful and a team obtained interesting and useful results for further research on water flow velocity and discharge, available on our Inform website.
Gressa Ferri presented the results on two environmental parameters: air quality and electromagnetic radiation. Gresa provided detailed instructions to participants on how they can access the INFORM web platform and check the air quality situation in Mitrovica in real-time. She pointed out the positive changes in air quality since the lockdown measures were introduced and the nature experiences less negative effects from the human activity.
Snapshot of the air quality sensors parameters for the last 90 days.
She has also presented the electromagnetic radiation measurements of mobile providers base stations and explained how many of them were inspected, their locations and plans for the future.
Lastly, forum moderator prof. Jelena Djokic invited the participants to have their say about the project and express their views, ideas and proposals.
Miodrag Milicevic/Activ Executive Director complimented the students’ initiative and in addition to the environmental issues being tackled by the project, suggested that IBC-M also works on the problem of waste management, as Mitrovica faces lots of challenges with this. And stated that we are all responsible for the environment.
Magbule Hyseni, representative from Ecokos NGO, agronomist herself was very interested to connect IBC-M students to farmers, so IBC-M could provide soil testing and advice on fertilization. We look forward to it and will be happy to work on this.
Representatives from Leposavic and Zvecan municipalities expressed interested to have air sensors in their locations as well as high interest in having water flow measurements.
We thank all those who attended our forum, for their participation, encouragement to our students and their suggestions on how to improve the environment in Mitrovica. We hope to present more findings in our last Forum planned in May. Looking forward.
