But the protection of this area and its flora were just part of the project. In the course of the ECU 8820 Nature Conservation earmarked project, the NHA also renovated a house, built a camping ground, and created a 30-km long educational footpath. The facilities will be used for scientific research, environmental camps, and other environmental work in the area. The unexpected discovery of the rare Menyanthes trifoliata and other endangered plants, which the NHA discovered in the same area, adds to its list of accomplishments.

It was in 1960 that Zoltan Kakas, an ethnographer at the National Szekely Museum, read about Trientalis europaea.

Attracted by the flower, he tried for almost 30 years to find it in the Nemere Mountains, which are part of Romania's Eastern Carpathian Mountains. It was only in 1989, however, that he succeeded in finding the flower by using a map from the Romanian Academy.

Here is how the educational center looked this spring before the NHA renovated it...

Realizing that this rare flower was endangered, Kakas began work to save it. He wrote articles for the local newspaper and tried to obtain support from the local authorities in order to protect the area. This second effort, unfortunately, was in vain.

But when the REC announced the nature conservation earmarked grants topic early this year Urbanovici and Kakas, who is now president of the NHA, which started its activity in 1975 and officially registered as an NGO in 1993, decided to apply for a grant. The NHA proposal was approved, providing the funding to start work to protect the flower. Intense activity followed. The NHA held meetings with local townspeople to inform them about its project. It hired skilled local townspeople to perform technical tasks related to the renovation of the building and land loaned from the village of Poian. It organized students and other volunteers from several surrounding towns to do other labor. This way, the NHA finalized its project.

...and here is how the center looks now. It is the starting and finishing point for a 30-kilometer nature path.

The success of the project has brought a certain fame to the NHA, says Urbanovici. Now, citizens and local authorities from Sfantu Gheorghe and surrounding villages contact it when an environmental problem, such as accidental pollution, occurs. And the NHA is planning more projects. In the near future it hopes to get Poian's local council to declare the Apa Lina stream region as a nature reserve. It also plans to edit, with a local foundation from the village of Estelnic, a Hungarian and Romanian language environmental newsletter. Says Urbanovici, "Since we proved able to overcome the difficult organizational problems [of this project], everyone takes us much more seriously than before."

Contributed by Alexandru R. Savulescu