Adrion 1273 Sustainable management and tourist promotion of natural and archaeological heritage in the Adriatic Caves PLUS.

During the past few years Lipa cave has been a project partner of the Adriaticaves project. The main objective of the project was to establish and promote natural and archaeological heritage in caves of the ADRION as an alternative all year long tourism product. Key aspects were sharing best practices in cave management through collaboration and creating a common network of caves falling into the Adriatic basin for the development of cross-border tourism.

The lead partner is Majella National Park, located in the central Apennines. Project partners are protected landscape “Bijambare” in the northeastern slopes of the Canton Sarajevo; Velebit Nature Park – the largest and most complex protected area in Croatia (200,000 ha); The Authority for the Management of Parks and biodiversity – Romagna (public institution for entitled for the management of protected natural areas of the “Romagna Macroarea”); City of Čačak, Serbia – between steep slopes of Ovčar and Kablar mountains, there is a gorge formed by the West Morava River. This area is know for its Kađenica and Turčinovac caves; and the Associate partner Regional Council of Shkodra, famous for Dhenve, Moho, Perkali, and Arapi cave in the Albanian part of the Dinaric Alps. You can read more about our partners here.

One of the outputs of the project was the Charter of Caves, an international agreement to be signed by cave operators, with a discipline to ensure the sustainable tourism use of visitable caves, respect for the natural and historical heritage in them and the implementation of visits of high educational and cultural value.

Another significant output within the project was the informative catalogue “From cave to cave”, a broad choice of cave tours along the countries facing the Adriatic Sea. Different countries, different languages, different caves all linked together by a European Project: the Interreg Adrion – Adriaticaves. For the trip of a lifetime exploring the wonderful cave network of the Adriatic region all information is available here.

As of January 2022, Lipa cave continues to take part in the Adriaticaves plus project. The overall aim of ADRIATICAVES PLUS project is to enhance and enlarge the impact of the ADRIATICAVES project and to introduce a pilot action to evaluate how the digital innovation can be a support to the valorization of historical and natural sites. The most important innovation of Adriaticaves Plus is a pilot action about the potentialities of the digital innovation and, namely, the 3D reconstructions of sites as an innovative tool to overcome the travel and movements restrictions derived by the pandemic Covid19. This concept should be also applied to other situation further the pandemic, to allow the knowledge of interesting naturalistic sites to people who cannot accede directly to those sites, for whatever reasons.

Within the ADRIATICAVES PLUS, Lipa cave will organize four workshops with the aim to further familiarize stakeholders with the Charter of Caves and Tourism packages. Moreover, Lipa cave will host a conference. Stay tuned for further updates on the successful story of the Adriaticaves.