On Danube Day – June 29, WWF announced the beginning of a series of projects for restoration of wetlands along the Danube. The projects will be implemented over the next 7 years. For a century and a half the longest river in the EU has lost 80 percent of its floodplains, experts say. Most of the problems have been created by diking along the river, extraction of aggregates from the river, building dams and hydroelectric power stations, which has taken place for a number of reasons including the need for hydroelectric power, shipping and to keep flood waters at bay. New projects to restore wetlands will include the territories of six countries - Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria and are very ambitious. They will increase the capacity of the river to 12 million m3 of water - the water contained in 4800 Olympic swimming pools and restore wetlands, the size of 7422 football fields. Restoration activities in Bulgaria will take place under the Lower Danube Green Corridor Project, which is said to be one of the most ambitious wetland projects in Europe, supported by the environment ministers of four countries. Six endangered fish species in the Bulgarian part of the Danube and its tributaries will be better protected after restoring 30 km. of river habitats.

 European Sustainable Energy Week was marked in Sofia with a campaign called "Solar Charging 2014". Visitors to the event in the Borissova Garden downtown Sofia had the opportunity to get acquainted with the benefits of renewable energy. A solar parking lot charging electric bicycles was shown. Citizens could also test electric means of transportation and recharge their smartphones using solar energy. WWF presented its project RePower Map – A map to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.This is the first ever interactive map of energy-efficient buildings and ecological power plants in Bulgaria and throughout the EU. Each producer of green energy, owners of energy-efficient businesses and municipalities can add their projects to the map. More than 500 projects have already been included in the map of Bulgaria, while in the whole of the EU they are more than 30,000. Recently, the European Commissioner for Climate Change Connie Hedegaard pointed out that everyday, the EU pays more than € 1 billion for import of energy sources. Bulgaria is among the most dependent countries in this respect, having also the most energy-inefficient economy. According to WWF expert Georgi Stefanov, Bulgaria has a unique opportunity to use the challenge of tackling climate change and focus on the development of green economy and creating new green jobs.  
 
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, Georg Kell and European Commissioner for Climate Change Connie Hedegaard have received t-shirts painted by Bulgarian children with inscriptions such as "Stop Climate Change" and "Save the Earth". Other 8shirtstraveled to Brussels, Kenya, USA, Switzerland, Finland, and Lebanon, with the goal to make people more courageous and responsible in their activities in order to stop the negative effects of climate change. Similar T-shirts were also given to the Ambassador of France in Bulgaria Laper Xavier de Cabanne and French MPs Bernard Deflesselles and Jerome Lambert, who recently visited Bulgariain preparation for the International Conference on Climate Change(COP21)in Paris next year.The children’s slogans were written on the occasion of June 5-WorldEnvironment Day.

English: Alexander Markov