{"id":482,"date":"2021-07-07T15:36:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T13:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpm.osupytheas.fr\/?page_id=482"},"modified":"2021-08-24T15:19:35","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T13:19:35","slug":"montenegro","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cpm.osupytheas.fr\/index.php\/en\/montenegro\/","title":{"rendered":"Montenegro"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Title: Friction <\/strong> Year: 2019 Place: Sinja(je)vina (Montenegro) Author & Copyright: From top to bottom: Wake Up Films, Dragana \u0160\u0106EPANOVI\u0106<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A TALE OF BEAUTY AND CORRUPTION:<\/strong>Sinja(je)vina, From a Territory of Life to a Territory of Destruction? Northern Montenegro<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sinja(je)vina is a huge limestone plateau, over 400 km2 in area, which together with Durmitor makes up more than 1,000 km2 of continuous mountain pastures, the largest in the Balkans and one of the biggest in Europe, that provides home and livelihood to over 250 families of mobile pastoralists and small farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For hundreds of years, if not thousands, the herders and farmers of Sinja(je)vina, which is known by both names (with and without the \u2018je\u2019 between parenthesis), have governed, protected and cared for their grasslands, as one would protect one\u2019s own family. Organized as a cluster of different pastoral commons, they are responsible for the conservation of a landscape whose special value and unique biodiversity has been recognized as a UNESCO Biosphere reserve<\/a> among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Title: Position of Sinjajevina and its main transhumant roads <\/strong>
Year: 2021
Place: Sinja(je)vina (Montenegro)
Author & Copyright: Sandra Kapetanovic and Pablo Dom\u00ednguez (inset courtesy of Google Earth Engine).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Purity<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Title: Purity<\/strong>
Year: 2019
Place: Sinja(je)vina (Montenegro)
Author & Copyright: Wake Up Films<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On some days in Sinja(je)vina, it looks as if no one has ever been there. Unspoiled slopes as far as the eye can see, gloriously green during summer, and dazzlingly white during winter! No footprints visible to the non-expert eye, no sign of human destruction. And yet, humans have lived there for millennia. It is just that we are not used to witnessing such a delicate human touch, one that nourishes instead of depriving\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This purity must be what care looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Care<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Title: Care<\/strong>
Year: 2019
Place: Sinja(je)vina (Montenegro)
Author & Copyright: Wake Up Films<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sinja(je)vina is a huge limestone plateau, over 400 km2 in area, which together with Durmitor makes up more than 1,000 km2 of continuous mountain pastures, the largest in the Balkans and one of the biggest in Europe, that provides home and livelihood to over 250 families of mobile pastoralists and small farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For hundreds of years, the herders and farmers of Sinja(je)vina) have governed, protected and cared for their grasslands, as one would protect one\u2019s own family. Organized as a cluster of different pastoral commons, they are responsible for the conservation of a landscape whose special value and unique biodiversity has been recognized as a UNESCO Biosphere reserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Connection<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Title: Connection<\/strong>
Year: 2019
Place: Sinja(je)vina (Montenegro)
Author & Copyright: Nikola LU\u010cI\u0106<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On some days in Sinja(je)vina, it looks as if no one has ever been there. No footprints, no sign of human destruction. And yet, humans have lived here for centuries and even millennia. It is just that we are not used to witnessing such a delicate human touch, one that nourishes instead of depriving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cliffs watch over practices passed on from generation to generation.
The people of Sinja(je)vina live to the rhythms of sheep chewing the cud, the daily milking, the passing clouds. They periodically give thanks that all of this is part of their lives through different rituals: Sinja(je)vina is one of those rare places where people haven\u2019t forgotten that they are one with the land they live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Destruction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Title: Shapes of an apple<\/strong>
Year: 2019
Place: Sinja(je)vina (Montenegro)
Author & Copyright: Ministry of the Defense of Montenegro<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But it has always happened though that someone sees heaven and feels like eating the apple. In 2019, the government of Montenegro decided to officially decree a military training ground in a great part of Sinja(je)vina with the support of important NATO members, apparently unconcerned about the immeasurable damage that this would bring upon its unique people and ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pollution, the noise, the danger and the interdicted access to their pastoral lands, would ruin local communities’ traditional ways of life, and that of their ecosystems, which depend directly on their practices of pastoralism. There can be no peaceful coexistence between protectors and destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Title: Destruction<\/strong>
Year: 2019
Place: Sinja(je)vina (Montenegro)
Author & Copyright: Dragana \u0160\u0106EPANOVI\u0106<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Local communities\u2019 protection<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Title: Protectors<\/strong>
Year: 2018
Place: Sinja(je)vina (Montenegro)
Author & Copyright: Wake Up Films<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Local communities decided not to sit and wait in silence, to see their millennia-old way of life erased from the face of the earth by just one State decree. They peacefully fought with diplomacy and activism and they managed to protect for now the beauty of Sinja(je)vina from bombing and shelling by artillery. A heritage of immense natural and cultural value, that is part of the UNESCO Tara Biosphere Reserve, and took thousands of years to evolve across hundreds of generations of herders, may be destroyed in just a few years. The members of the community want to be involved in decisions concerning their territory, they want clear guarantees from the government that the region would be\u00a0non-militarized and that they would not be alienated from their traditional way of life and their way of conserving nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More even \u2026  they want their way of life to be supported and enhanced!  With such a goal they seek powerful allies, and a chorus of voices to speak up for them, and save this unique place that up to present they have cared for from devastation or simply gradual disappearance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Title: Living testimony (Ljiljana \u0160aranovi\u0107 and Novak Dragovi\u0107).<\/strong>
Year: 2020
Place: Sinja(je)vina, Montenegro
Author & Copyright: Wake Up Films<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In November 2019 an international research team informed UNESCO in Paris, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission in Brussels, about the case. In February 2020 the EU Parliamentary Committee for Stabilization and Association with Montenegro visited the country\u2019s capital, Podgorica, and its President met with the local communities, experts, NGOs and politicians supporting Sinja(je)vinans, to get a first-hand account of their pain, their complaints and their claims. This was a crucial step for them; having the EU express itself and compel Montenegro to meet specific criteria, in order for Montenegro to be accepted as part of the Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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