Cleaning Lake Kerkini... and what we found there!

Today it was a great day for the fight against pollution!
Together with a lot of Greek pupils the Serres-Volunteers cleaned only hours ago the Kerkini-Wetland-Area.
The lake is Greece’s third biggest storage lake and has a surface area of 37 and a half square kilometers. But  Kerkini Lake is also one of the most important damp biotopes of Greece. The area is under protection of the RAMSAR-Convention and part of European NATURA-2000-Programme. But a lot more important is: Believe it or not, 30 types of sweet-water fishes as well as 300 types of birds .

 The pupils and us, the volunteers, arrived there by busses and by cars; after every participant had arrived at the meeting point everybody  fitted out with white t-shirts, white rain jackets and white caps, sponsored by the Coca-Cola-Company. Coca-Cola also sponsored refreshing drinks and something to eat so that everyone could collect some energy before the great cleaning-project started. This is the reason why not participated walkers had could see an army of white dressed environmentalists in the Kerkini-wetland, digging in the earth for garbage-bags and picking up cans, bottles, bags, plastic garbage and a lot of other curios. Who – for instance – had suggested that we would find underwear in the wetland? We not – maybe you? Yeah… maybe it was your underwear we dug out today’s morning… you have already read the right words, so stop being astonished. Okay – I’m going to stop being daffy now but although I’m just joked around in the last sentences there is a serious message in it, too. The message is: Protect the environment. When we cleaned up the lake this morning, we wondered why the people throw their garbage just next to them into the nature. Maybe it is because there are no garbage cans as far as you can see. So here is our demand to you: Please don’t throw your garbage into the nature, please don’t “forget” your garbage after you have made a pick-nick with your friends in the green. Garbage like cans or bottles are very dangerous for the animals which are living there; they could cut themselves for example. Even textiles – like the underwear we found – can be dangerous because birds – or other animals – can entangle themselves in it.

I’m not a ridiculous environmentalist but I like the nature. I like to see wide green willows and untouched landscapes and I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who likes this. So let’s throw our garbage into garbage cans, let’s do this little fussiness more and protect on this way the environment – relating to the results it’s not really heavy work to throw the packing of our juice into a garbage can.

For more information about Lake Kerkini follow this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Kerkini