The European final stage of the contest “Young People in European Forests 2010/2011 took place in Poland in the beautiful region of Masuria on 28 – 29^th of September 2011. The participants were accommodated in the resort "Devils mountain" just by the shore of picturesque Lake Guzianka.

 The final officially started at 8 o’clock 28^th of September with welcome ceremony with speeches of invited guests. Among the guests were: Senator of Republic of Poland – Mr. Marek Konopka, Member of Parliament of Republic of Poland – Mr. Andrzej Orzechowski, Mayor of the town Ruciane Nida – Mr. Zbigniew Opalach, Prefect of county Pisz – Mr. Andrzej Nowicki, Hosts of the Final Stage  - Deputy Director of Regional Directorate of State Forests in Białystok – Mr. Marek Masłowski and Forest Inspector of Maskulińskie Forest Inspectorate – Mr. Piotr Czyżyk.

During the ceremony the hunting signalers from Maskulińskie Forest Inspectorate played hunting songs.   

After the official welcome ceremony the participants of the final of the first edition of YPEF contest started the first part of the final which was a knowledge quiz. The test consisted of 50 questions. There were 4 answers for each question, 1 of them correct. Twelve questions referred to forests and forestry of Europe as a whole, the rest referred to nineteen European countries, two questions for each country: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia,  Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine.

The teams participating in the final were:

1.     Austria - Jürgen Gasser,   Michael Pusterhofer,  Johanna Köttstorfer, and Johanna Steinberger (substitute) from Technical Forestry High School Bruck an der Mur (Styria); 

2.    Czech Republic - Lenka Čurnová , Leona Veselá and Václav Nuc from Gymnasium České Budějovice;

3.    Estonia - M. Pilliroog, L. Halvin and T. Hemits from Polva Gymnaasium; 

4.    Germany - Adrian Bielefeldt and Jessica Hoffmann from Alexander-von-Humboldt-Gymnasium in Eberswalde;

5.    Hungary - Anna Kemenes, Zsolt Pásztori and  Gergely Ujvári from Baár-Madas Református Gimnázium; 

6.    Latvia - Edgars Lecelnieks, Nils Fridriksons and Arturs Mikelens from Ogres Meža Tehnikums;

7.    Lithuania - Marius Macijauskas, Vytas Navickas and Vytenis  Sabaliauskas from Viešintai Secondary School;

8.    Poland - Monika Ciupak, Karol Rokita and Maciej Turek from Zespół Szkół Ogólnokształcących Nr 2 im. F.D. Kniaźnina in Puławy; 

9.    Portugal - Ana Filipa M. F. Marques, Inês S. Solino Oliveira and Joana Vaz Barbosa from  Penafiel’s High School ;

10.    Romania - Turcu Bogdan, Badale Oana and Aromanesei Răzvan from Bucovina  Forestry High School  in Câmpulung Moldovenesc;

11.    Slovenia - Anja Kovič Kocjančič and Mojca Plot from Gimnazija Ledina School;

After finishing the tests came time for some fun. All participants participated in a study tour. They had a cruise by the ship on beautiful surrounding lakes.

           

The ship arrived to forester house "Pranie", where the participants walked on forest educational trails guided by forest educators from forest inspectorate Maskulińskie.

During this study tour participants had a chance to give interviews to Polish Television that prepared a tv coverage about the YPEF contest final.

  

After coming back from the study tour there was lunch, and after that in the afternoon the participants were taken to the forest education center in the nearby seed husking mill where the second part of the YPEF Final took place – that is presentations of the teams’ countries forests and forestry.

We must admit, we had not expected such interesting approach to the presentations and such high level of finalists preparation. The multimedia presentations sometimes including singing, playing instruments or even a form of theatre were simply astonishing. Congratulations to all team for such a fantastic work!

Poland

Latvia

Slovenia

Hungary

Romania

Lithuania

Germany

Czech Republic

Portugal

Estonia

Austria

During the presentations we were visited by Vice-minister of Environment of Poland –  Undersecretary of State – Mr. Janusz Zaleski. Mr. Minister made a short speech to the participants and watched some of the presentations.

After all the presentations were finished the participants came back to the hotel where they had an official dinner and after that a disco where the young people could finally relax, party and get to know each other better.
At the same time all members of The International YPEF Commission worked hard all evening to count all the points and find out who was the 2011 YPEF Final winner.

The next day everybody met in the conference room of Diabla Góra hotel at 9:00 o’clock for an official summary of the contest. Members of the International Contest Commission presented the final official results. And so:

1^st place: Hungary
2^nd place: Poland
3^rd place: Latvia
4^th place: Austria

The exact results we are presenting below in the excerpt from the ICC protocol.

The highlight of the day was the official award ceremony at the Ryn Castle Hotel.

The ceremony was attended by representatives of Polish parliament and local authorities. The awards were handed to the laureates by Dr. Marian Pigan – General Director of Polish State Forests who also welcomed the participants.

Austria – 4th place

Latvia – 3^rd place

Poland – 2^nd place

and the winners - Hungary

The special award for the best presentation was handed to the team from Portugal.
Everybody was really astonished by their presentation made in form of a theatre performance.

We would like to give our thanks to the hunting signallers from Forest Inspectorate Maskulińskie, who were with us and wonderfully played during the ceremony.

During  lunch young people had opportunity to meet participants of conference of ministers of environment and directors of departments for forestry from European Union countries.
The final closing ceremony took place after lunch in one of the most representative rooms of Hotel Caste Ryn.

A good-by photo of all of us made in front of Ryn Castle

We invite everyone to take part in the second edition of YPEF contest in 2012 !
See you next year!