SmartBirds
The RESTORIVER project marked the end of its journey on 9 June 2026, with a final conference held at Hotel Riga in Ruse.
Led by BSPB/BirdLife Bulgaria as the lead partner, the project united 15 partners from Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine around a shared goal: restoring riverbanks and riparian zones across the Danube region and building their resilience to climate change. The project was funded under the INTERREG VI-B Danube Region Programme 2021–2027.
Project Manager Svilen Cheshmedzhiev from BSPB presented a full overview of the activities carried out and successfully completed throughout the project’s lifetime, offering partners and guests a comprehensive look at what was achieved across the region.
photo:Elitsa Ivanova
The conference welcomed representatives of the Danube Region Programme, partners from across the seven participating countries, and the Deputy Mayor of Ruse, Zlatomira Stefanova. Ms Stefanova spoke about the city’s pilot action — a rain garden in Prista West Park, planted with native species and designed to thrive without artificial maintenance. She also presented the inter-institutional working group “Water Future Ruse”, which is reshaping how the city thinks about rainwater: not as a problem to be managed away, but as a resource worth retaining.
photo: Elitsa Ivanova
An interactive StoryMap brought together all six pilot actions under one narrative — river restoration in Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania; participatory planning in Hungary; increased water retention capacity at Maksimir Park in Croatia; and the rain garden in Ruse.
A panel discussion with international experts from Romania, Danube Parks, the Rhine Basin Management Programme, and WWF Ukraine reaffirmed that climate adaptation calls for multidisciplinary thinking and the genuine sharing of experience across borders and river basins.
Closing reflections from Mr Gustav Csomor of the Danube Region Programme pointed to what comes next: securing the long-term sustainability of the results achieved. A key output in that direction is the project’s Takeup Strategy — a document setting out the practical and policy steps for embedding nature-based river management approaches into lasting regional practice.
