Latvia–Lithuania Cross Border Cooperation Programme 2007–2013
Summary of the Thematic Capitalisation Report ent Clean Environm Sustainable and tion through Coopera
2014
Summary of the Thematic Capitalisation Report
“Sustainable and Clean Environment through Cooperation” The field includes 30 projects with a total ERDF grant 21.5 million euros. The projects are divided into four thematic pools – “More Attractive Living Environment” (10 projects), “Public Services and Natural Resources - Common Responsibility” (11 projects), “Development of Environmental Infrastructure” (six projects) and “Studies for Future Development” (three projects). Innovative approaches in the project pool “More Attractive Living Environment” focus on diversification of a cultural environment and using a historical heritage for the creation of new, innovative tourism products. Projects combined the contemporary and traditional culture, used modern technologies and approaches to promote it and to increase attractiveness among the tourists (‘Mid-Baltic Crafts”, “Clay Tour”). Several projects demonstrated good practices and know-how that could be used to solve similar problems in other municipalities by using existing traditional values and skills of local inhabitants in a creative way. The results of the projects are exploited and having an impact after the finalisation of projects. The projects were focused on different target groups: municipalities, public institutions, NGOs, arts and crafts representatives, tourists, entrepreneurs, youth, children, people with disabilities and local inhabitants. Numerous projects have focused also on more narrow direct target groups, such as: youth and students (“Cultural Cooperation”, “Museum Access”, “Mid-Baltic Crafts”); children (‘Museum Access”); artists (“Mid-Baltic Crafts”, ‘Clay Tour”, “Cultural cooperation”); disabled people (“Museum Access”); children with special needs (‘Museum Access’). Different innovative approaches and good practices are introduced with the projects. The project “New Quality Image” shall be highlighted as it attempts to improve the image of the remote towns taking into consideration the strong and the weak points. The project “E-Accessibility” shows a good practice and an innovative approach by using ITC for the provision of tourism services. Within the project “Clay Tour” two Clay Art Centres were established in Utena and Daugavpils providing innovative cultural services to visitors and tourists, for instance, new educational programmes about the ceramics, the creative exhibition that is presented to tourists and visitors in an attractive way.” The project “Mid-Baltic Crafts” promoted attractiveness and competitiveness of the traditional applied art and craft, ten craft and art centres have been established. The projects of the pool “Public Services and Natural Resources – Common Responsibility” applied innovative methods and activities in order to prevent and liquidate the ecological catastrophes, and to reduce pollution in the border area (“Lielupe ECO”, “HOTRISK”, “GRANDERIO”). These innovative approaches applied could be adapted and used also in the management of other river basins with similar problems. Since the environmental impact and pollution does not have borders, as well the solutions provided
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on the local level make impacts globally. There are several river management projects, which include researches, the public awareness raising and an education of specialists and inhabitants. Projects have a focus on the environmental institutions, municipalities, government institutions, spatial development planners, entrepreneurs and the society, in general. The project “GRANDERIO” prepared the research on seasonal fluctuations in a quality of water, organised a practical training of the local society; set up the recreation sites and also clean-up the river and a lake in the project area. The project “Lakes for Future” introduced an innovative tool for the monitoring of lakes ‘Lake Watch’. Projects in the pool “Development of Environmental Infrastructure” focus on the development of water management systems in the regions where the cross border pollution is a potential problem, the underdevelopment and underuse of e-services for the management of a water supply and the reduction of the CO2 emissions by developing LED lighting systems. These projects address following target groups: local municipalities and their institutions, researchers of the higher education institutions, entrepreneurs, policy makers and local inhabits. Projects in the pool “Studies for Future Development” have researched the adaptability of the renewable energy resources of solar, wind and a geothermal energy. Projects analysed positive examples and studies regarding clever usage of local renewable energy resources in rural regions. Projects mainly focus on policy makers deciding on the energy matters on national and regional level, industry professionals, entrepreneurs and public organizations. Within the project “Renewable energy” the geothermal heating systems and the sun collector systems for the running water reheating in some public buildings were installed. The innovative poster stands were constructed with the solar panels, as well as with the LED lighting poles with solar panels and wind turbines. Innovative approach to be transferred to other regions was the development of the technical projects for the installation of the geothermal heating system for different series of apartment houses, schools and other public buildings. New web pages were developed (www.greenbuildings. lv and www.zalienami.lv) providing useful information about the project activities. Synergy of projects should be considered as an important criterion for future projects in order to achieve cumulative effect and added value at the Programme level. Majority of the projects show a synergy with other projects and EU programmes within the programme regions. Due to the limited local and national resources for project implementation, the project promoters actively use options to attract financing from various sources. Latvia–Lithuania Programme continues the cooperation tradition that began under the LV– LT–BY INTEREG III A Priority within the Baltic Sea Regions INTEREG III B Neighbourhood Programme 2004–2006. Established network, known partners and common problems to be solved bring successful and valuable projects such as “Clay Tour”.
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The projects under the Latvia–Lithuania Programme often supplemented each other and established new common partnerships for next projects within this programme. The project “GRANDERIO” was followed by the project “Lakes for Future” and “E-Accessibility”. The project “Lakes for Future” used also the experience gained in the project “Live Venta”. Often the synergy between the projects depends on how active and interested partners are in the continuation of the partnership established. All projects of this field contribute to the fulfilment of the EUSBSR objectives. Majority of projects comprising 57% of the ERDF grant correspond to the EUSBSR objective “Save the Sea”, 10 projects with 33% of the ERDF grant – to the objective “Increase Prosperity” and 3 projects with 3% of ERDF grant – to the objective “Connect the Region”. Cross border cooperation for environmental protection projects always gives high added value. There are several problems that were solved taking into account experience of both countries related to the water protection and management. Moreover, the projects developed activities related to the awareness rising on environmental issues recognised not just in the regional level, but also in a wider scale. Municipalities in both countries are facing similar problems related to the quality of public water services in rural settlements with a low number of inhabitants. The exchange of experience and joint work contributed towards environmentally sound and cost-efficient solutions to ensure safe drinking water for such communities. The sharing of an experience on monitoring of the water supply systems through the common platform created for e-services (“E-Water”, “E-utilities”) ensured the most efficient solutions. The cross-border cooperation was advantage for the development of the joint strategy on usage of the geothermal energy resources and other tools equally applicable for any rural municipality on both sides of the border since the deep geothermal energy resources stretch across the Lithuanian and Latvian border.
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