The IRIS project gathered more than 50 people from five countries in Sinjajevina and the nearby town of Kolašin between 19 and 21 October 2023.
During more than three years the Italian University of Genoa (Italy), the French National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS), the University of Toulouse (France), the University of Granada (Spain), the University of Durham (United Kingdom) and the University of Montenegro among others, worked together in a research about Rural Heritage and Sustainable practices of mountain landscapes in Europe, including commons, pastoralism and Sinjajevina, due to its unique and outstanding natural and cultural heritage.
The conference included a visit to key sites of the Sinjajevina highlands, including the heart of the military ground. This was then followed by a full day Workshop dedicated exclusively to Sinjajevina with the presence of over 20 international scientists, and nearly 30 public officers, political representatives and NGO members, as well as the opening of the exhibition “Future through tradition”.
Pablo Domínguez, Environmental Anthropology Senior Researcher at CNRS (France) and co-organizer of the conferences stated that “SCIENCE -with capital letters- has come to study and publicly reaffirm the natural and cultural values of Sinjajevina, while fully conscious that it is under the severe threat of a military ground creation, as well as of possible future massive tourism like in the neighboring Durmitor”.
Sinjajevina is one of the last places in Europe where traditional ecological farming continues to exist in equilibrium with the environment, and it holds some of the most extraordinary culinary products, which have anoutstanding quality, while assuring an expanded biodiversity which at it tour is directly dependent on local traditional pastoralism.
On his side, Milan Sekulovic, President of the Save Sinjajevina Civic Initiative -member of ILC and host of the conferences- also argued that it is very symbolic for them the fact that the conference is celebrated exactly three years after the beginning of the resistance camp that stopped military exercises at Sinjajevina in 2020 and that since then has not allowed any munition to be dropped on this territory.”
The conferences and field visits were also an opportunity for different international stakeholders to discover first-hand the biodiversity, landscape, and human value of the region. Moreover, Francesca Pasetti, Europe’s Chair for the UN’s International Year for Rangelands and Pastoralists, stated its intention to promote Montenegro “in joining the UNESCO’s declaration of Transhumance as part of its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage and protecting Sinjajevina”.