CORA BARTOLO
As some of you know, I am working closely with another student from the program, Sherri Swanson. The general focus of her project is sustainable eco-tourism within wetlands but I encourage you to read her blogs for full details. The focus of my project was intended to be utilizing treatment wetlands (TW) to improve water quality along the Sava River Basin (SRB). In conjunction with this concept I’ve been studying how these TW can be utilized to remediate eutrophic water bodies and how they can be used to treat agricultural run-off and municipal waste water.
Shortly after I arrived (less than 24 hours as a matter of fact) we were in a meeting with top executives (the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary of Water Management) of the ISRBC to discuss the primary goal of the ISRBC at this time. This is the time I realized that was in the middle of an eco-tourism project with almost no study experience to lean on. Fortunately, I was able to discuss my research goals during this meeting and I was able to introduce the utilization of TW to improve water quality and treat waste, carefully framing my ideas within the context of eco-tourism. The ideas we met with mild interest, more so from the Secretary than the Deputy (both are Civil Engineers).
The following day we met with an NGO, seemingly in charge of the details of the upcoming regional conference on eco-tourism, the Croatian division of the Regional Environmental Center (REC), and with two representatives from the economic department of the US Embassy to Croatia. Here, participants discussed attendance, regional interest, and logistics of the conference. Once the topic turned to issues concerning eco-tourism, Sherri and I were able to interject with ideas of sustainability. I was also able to bring up the TW concept at this meeting. The ideas were met with some interest on a conceptual level.
Certainly it seems people are generally confused and perhaps irritated with the term sustainability. What does it mean, why is it used, it is so general it doesn’t make sense, etc.
On a personal note: I find the city exciting and interesting. In many ways it seems like a typical northern city where there are shops and restaurants lining the streets, except the buildings are much more interesting and the culture of the people is different. Many people walk here and public transportation is used widely in the city. They have trams that are still powered by above ground power lines. There are a good amount of cars on the road during rush hour as well, but far less than the typical American city. English is not really spoken here at all among the locals, but younger people do seem to be able to communicate adequately with us. If an older person cannot speak with us, they generally call a younger person to interpret. Also, most menus have English written below the native language so the language barrier has been not been horrible. The strangest culture clash has been the grocery and the food eaten here. The only way to really know what is on the grocery shelf is look at pictures. For instance, the dairy products, they will have a cow or sheep on them to indicate which animal the milk came from. Hmmm…. I eat the sausage here so I am sure that I have eaten some exotic meats but I do stay away from the strange meats as a general rule. Things served here include cuttlefish, octopus, squid, sheep, lamb, veal, meals with the ink of squid, to name a few.