CIRAN Focus Group in the naturally protected area White Carpathians in the Czech Republic

On 21^st June, the CIRAN Project organised a focus group with citizens living near the White Carpathians, a naturally protected area in the Czech Republic. The discussion took place in the town of Veselí nad Moravou and was arranged in collaboration with a local organisation.

The objective of the focus group was to gather insights and opinions from local residents regarding the extraction of Critical Raw Materials in environmentally protected areas. This event forms part of CIRAN’s dialogues about mining with communities leaving in sensitive ecological zones.

This Focus Group is one from a series of activities of the project involving citizens from five European communities located near environmentally protected areas, in total 5 focus groups and 5 public discussions will be organized.

The goal of these civic participation activities is to help to reconcile two, sometimes conflicting, societal objectives and needs of our society: protecting the environment and securing economic, social, and technological development. To meet this aim, it is very important to involve all relevant stakeholders and provide space for dialogue and cooperation among them; which is why general guidelines and recommendations for future public engagement and dialogue about mining in environmentally protected areas will be designed based on the results of all activities involving the public within the CIRAN project.