Armeniș and Teregova Schools Project
In 2015 we travelled to Armeniș in Romania to see student conservation projects — and every single one won support to become reality.
At the beginning of June 2015, GTT members travelled to the town of Armeniș in Caraș-Severin County, western Romania — a beautiful corner of the Southern Carpathians, and a region famous in conservation circles for the pioneering work to bring wildlife back to Europe’s landscapes.
The reason for the visit? A presentation of conservation projects created by the local students themselves. The trip was awesome. The students’ projects were amazing — so amazing, in fact, that it was decided on the spot that not only would every one of them win a prize, but every project would be supported to be implemented over the coming year.
That decision captures something GTT believes in completely: young people don’t just have opinions about conservation, they have genuinely brilliant ideas — and the best thing adults can do is back them properly. Rather than choosing one winner and sending everyone else home, the whole group got the support to turn their plans into reality.
The project was run in collaboration with WWF Romania, Rewilding Europe and Parco Natura Viva — three organisations doing remarkable work for European wildlife — and it remains one of our favourite examples of what happens when you trust students with real responsibility for the natural world around them.