Climate change adaptation in the digital world

In October of 2021, some members of the BioLiving team went to Albania to participate in a training course promoted by the Erasmus+ project "Digital Green Skills for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies".

This project led by the Albanian association "Build Green Group" has two main goals:

1) to understand which are the main climate change indicators in several European regions, in each of the partner countries;

2) to get to know and promote digital practices that contribute to climate change mitigation.

Besides Portugal, seven other countries were present, all from the Balkan region: Albania, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Romania. Representing the only country outside of Balkans, it was possible for our team to exchange many cultural experiences with the other participants, like gastronomy, music, dance, expressions and sayings of each language.

Besides the cultural exchanges, numerous professional experiences were also shared, as there was a wide range of professional areas in the course such as Biology, Education, Photography, Economy, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), among others.

The course took place in a small village called Tushemisht, in the Albanian south-east, next to the Ohrid lake, the biggest lake in the Balkans, and lasted one week. Several activities were developed there:

• The presentation of the work of each partner organisation (environmental, social, educational, cultural...) and of the indicators concerning climate change that most affect the regions where they are located;

• Contact with the local community in order to identify environmental problems existing in the village and possible ways of solving them;

• Group work to create proposals for projects and jobs that can contribute to mitigate and fight climate change;

• Use of tools compatible with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to facilitate the mapping of any variable by an ordinary citizen;

• Recreational and cultural programmes such as walks through Albanian towns and cities around Lake Ohrid, "Art Therapy" sessions and cultural dinners sharing the gastronomic culture of each partner country.

One of the main conclusions to be drawn from this training is the universality of the impact of climate change on human society, although it may be expressed in different ways in different areas of the planet.

Throughout this week it was possible to present the work of BioLiving Association to new entities from different European countries, being able to influence others to develop work more focused on environmental issues, but at the same time it was possible to learn new techniques and methodologies that can be used by the BioLiving team!