"Cities are complex systems, it's not like trying to preserve a natural land park or cleaning up a waste site, there are many issues and forces involved," said Stefanova. Ecological planning for urban areas requires a significant degree of cooperation among all concerned interests, and such efforts have typically been quite poor in Bulgaria.
As one of the goals of the Senior Fellow Program is to promote this kind of cooperation among various groups and across boundaries, Stefanova met with a number of key environmental policymakers at the local and national levels as well as academics and opinion leaders during her fellowship. Her work comparing three area capitals - Bratislava, Budapest, and Vienna - examined urban development plans, methods for impact assessment, public participation, and the missing links between environmental management and urban planning.
Upon her return to Sofia, Stefanova plans to organize a seminar to open discussion about urban ecology and environmental management which will incorporate examples of other programs from her experiences during the REC fellowship.
Stefanova also hopes to help define the role of the Ministry of Environment in urban planning. Her strategy for the department includes according priority to conservation before development of use. "It is particularly important that the issue be addressed at the planning stage, instead of post factum, when the living environment can be irreversibly degraded" she said.