Apiary

Apiary, Image Katerina Ivanovsk


Thursday 28 April at 18:00 CET

This webinar will cover the topic of how cultural and natural heritage interpretation is helping us to preserve our very own bee, the indigenous melliferra macedonica.

The challenges that we were facing in the past in our efforts to protect and promote sustainable beekeeping were mainly due to the fact that we were not telling our story to people outside our immediate surroundings. While we were using scientific language, full of factual information, analysis, statistics and data, the local population spoke the demotic language of their everyday life. Over the years, we all learned to tell the same story in a common, understandable language that reached beyond the eyes and ears of the audience. We found ways to help the local population to become the bees’ biggest ambassadors. The webinar will cover some of the tools used in the process, important milestones and an overview of how the interpretation of cultural and natural heritage helped to change the mindset of a whole community.

Katerina Ivanovska is a programme officer with the Nature Conservation Programme in North Macedonia, a project funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), implemented by Farmahem Skopje. The project’s duration is from 2011 to 2024 and is currently within the exit phase of the implementing activities. Katerina Ivanovska holds a master’s degree in economics and a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Food in Skopje, North Macedonia. Her professional background includes research and analysis of subsidy policies in agriculture, rural development, sustainable use of resources in agriculture, stakeholder management and behavioral economics.