Volunteers clean up wild area in Bucharest, Municipality to decide protection

The Municipal Council of Bucharest will vote on Thursday on the administrative area of the protected Natural Park of Vacaresti, Mayor Sorin Oprescu announced on Saturday.

Mayor Sorin Oprescu (left), Environment Minister Gratiela Leocadia Gavrilescu (second from left), an unidentified man and former Olympic champion Ivan Patzaichin (right) in the Vacaresti wild area
Photo credit: (c) Ilie BUMBAC / AGERPRES PHOTO

He participated in a clean-up action organized by Let's Do It Romania and the Vacaresti Natural Park Association on the European Day of Parks.

'I thank the people of Bucharest, the volunteers who join their hands in support of this project. This is what today's greening action proves,' Oprescu is quoted in a release of the Bucharest Municipality.

The natural park of Vacaresti, called by some the Delta of Lake Vacaresti, evolved over an abandoned area of over 200 hectares in southern Bucharest, where Communist authorities intended to develop a part of the city's flood defence system. Works there started in 1986 and halted after 1989. Since then, reed and young trees grew wildly and a complex ecosystem formed, including fish, birds, reptiles and small mammals. AGERPRES