A transboundary Balkan reserve - a way to protect oak and beech mountain woods

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     Serbisn mountains are waiting for snow. Their oak and beech forests are leaveless and wet, and covered with a thick fog,  Even in this gloomy days the Balkan nature is beautiful and romantic. 

    As any mountain ecosystem it is unique and fragile and needs particular protection. Unfortunatly the oak and beech woods are cut down, slopes became deforested which increase risk of erosion and damages the hydrological regime. 

   Modern practice of international cooperation developed reliable forms of protection of ecosystem in a transboundary context. There are several international treaties on this account: Convention on protection of Alpes, Framework convention on the protection and sustainable development of the Carpathians are among effective international legal instruments. 

     The Balkan mountains and the Carpathians are the one big ecosysytem and it'd be logical to cover the whole ecosystem with a conventional protective regime. All the Balkanian countries coould create a net of protected areas, harmonize national standards of protection regime and conduct joint monitoring, regulate activities in the area in such a way as to find balance of economic, social and environmetal dimensions.