The last joint CICPA project event took place in suburb of Gdansk in the last days of February 2020, just when the first information about the spread of the new coronavirus in our part of Europe reached us. Luckily, CICPA team could say good bye till another joint activity ingeniously. In two weeks, the quarantine in both partner countries was announced.

With the closure of most of the schools, offices and public gathering places in Lithuania, some of social initiatives were rapidly moved to alternative spaces. One of such initiatives was a creation of traditional nursery of plants.

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The Administration of Seaside Regional Park implementing the activities of the CICPA project, in 2019 established two plant expositions near Visitor Center of Seaside Regional Park.

The first is a traditional nursery of plants and herbs typical for the western region of Lithuania, which from old times not only decorated homesteads, but also provided practical benefits – growing herbs.

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The second plant exposition is the sand dune plants typical of coastal dunes, which are still found in the Seaside Regional Park. These plants, in addition to their natural beauty, also perform another important function, trapping wind-blown sand, which reduces dune erosion.

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This idea for a plant exposition aims to encourage local inhabitants to choose local, typical and traditional plant species when planting gardens in their homesteads.

During the implementation of this initiative, the employees of the Botanical Garden of Klaipėda University used the introduced species of coastal dune plants so that the locals could use them for planting not only in the sand. These plant expositions attract a lot of visitors’ attention and camera “shots”, more information about the project and plant species can be found in the information stands installed near the nurseries.

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This initiative shows that CICPA project ideas haven’t been just stopped due to pandemic factors. Participants of the Polish-Lithuanian project feel a sense of belonging to a group that has become friends and is willing to further develop joint initiatives.