site.btaEC Grants Funding for Three Bulgarian Projects under LIFE Programme for Environment and Climate Action

The European Commission announced Monday that it has granted over EUR 380 million to 133 new projects across Europe under the LIFE Programme for environment and climate action. Among the projects are three in Bulgaria: for vulture protection, for cleaner wastewater and for training for decarbonization

The allocated amount represents more than half of the EUR 574 million total investment needs for these projects - the remainder coming from national, regional and local governments, public-private partnerships, businesses, and civil society organizations.

LIFE projects are among the instruments for helping the EU become climate-neutral by 2050 and to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. 

The first of three Bulgarian projects is titled Bringing the Eurasian black vulture back from the brink (LIFE Rhodope Vulture). It has a total eligible budget of EUR 4,160,118, including EU contribution of EUR 3,120,053. The project synopsis says that the small population of the cinereous vulture in the Balkans still experiences high mortality, which threatens its long-term survival. In the project, conservation organizations, foresters and hunters in Bulgaria and Greece will collaborate to reduce human-wildlife conflict by focusing on anti-poisoning actions, increasing the natural food base, mitigating the effect of the forest fires in Greece, and establishing a new breeding colony.  

The second project, Reducing Cadmium Concentrations in Industrial Wastewater (LIFE RECAD), has a total eligible budget of EUR 3,487,997, including EU contribution of EUR 2,092,798. Under this project, Bulgaria's largest producer of lead and zinc, KCM, will introduce new techniques to retrieve metals from industrial wastewater at its plant in Plovdiv to prevent zinc, cadmium and lead from polluting a nearby Natura 2000 site on the Chepelare River. 

The third project is for Development of Training Schemes with Application of Virtual Reality towards Implementation of Decarbonized New and Existing Buildings. It has a total eligible budget of EUR 1,249,057, including EUR 1,186,604 in EU contribution. The project will help students and construction professionals to use virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) to learn new skills for decarbonizing the built environment. Training schemes will be delivered in five countries, in English, across eight selected topics identified in the national BUILD UP Skills qualification roadmaps. Future uptake in VR upskilling will be established through training programmes for teachers and free materials.