From July 2009 we cycled from Macedonia to Croatia, crossing Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We start our tour on the Belgrade-Skopje train, and reached the MuM festival in Croatia on the 28th of August
To get an impression of our huge trip, you can watch pictures in the gallery on our site or at the (picture) blogs of several Biketour participants. See the basic route we followed on the biketour wiki.
This year, the biketour chose the theme of climate change and energy. In November, the biggest climate summit ever will be held in Copenhagen. The EU is negotiating its energy and climate package for this summit, which still will be far from sufficient to solve the climate crisis. Only, climate and energy policy in the Balkans is even worse! So now the risk is huge that non-EU South Eastern Europe will end up as the sink-hole for dirty energy production of the EU – with all their oil pipelines, nuclear- and coal-fired power, etc.
In the Balkans, national climate energy strategies are underdeveloped and still created in in-transparent ways. There’s low public awareness on environmental issues, generally weak civil society and many corrupt governments. The region urgently needs attention from all people who know about the issues of environment, especially climate change and energy, to raise awareness amongst the public and to governments.
A selection of the organisations which helped out with the Biketour 2009:
Issues
- Skopje: Bicycles for all
- Veleš (Macedonia): Action with Green power
- Dürres (Albania): More coal-fired shenanigans lie in store for Albania
- Shkoder (Albania): Zagreb to build nuclear plant
- Zenica and Prijedor (BiH): Dirty steel giant unites Bosnians (in Dutch, use translate function) with Eko Forum.
- Sisak (Croatia): Sisačka eko-akcija
- Zagreb: Green Action
- Bjelovar (Croatia) with NGO Priroda I društvo regarding Bjelovar’s transport policy
- Eko Omarska – Omarska Eco Movement is a response to the catastrophic state of the environment in the area of Omarska, which is caused by the activities of the company ArcelorMittal
- The natural river flow of river Drava is threatened. BT participated in a small action in Koprivnica, end of August. See http://www.uscemure.org
Documentation
- Balkan Energy Futures
- Renewable energy in Macedonia – Focus on ‘green’ electricity production
- Arrested Development – Energy Efficiency and Renewables in the Balkans
National coordination
- Serbia: Young researchers of Serbia, Yugo cycling and Young green of Serbia
- Macedonia: Ekosvest and Bojan Rantasa
- Albania: Eden NGO
- Montenegro: Volunteers and ic. Green home
- BiH: Centre for Environment
- Croatia: Volunteers @ Zelena Akcija
Participants’ blogs
Donations
- Soc. cult café Joe’s Garage, Amsterdam
- Collective café de Bijstand, Amsterdam
- Bookshop Fort van Sjakoo, Amsterdam
- independent action fund Zwart zaad, Utrecht
- EU Youth in Action (EVS funding)
Links
- Climate IMC
- CZZS
- EYFA
- MuM camp
- Ecotopia 2010 in Germany