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Tim Clancy was brought to the Balkans by a simple twist of fate in late 1992, when he hitched a ride from Germany to Croatia to join the grass-roots relief agency Suncokret (meaning 'sunflower'), which was involved in aid work in a refugee camp in western Herzegovina. His three-week stint turned into a two-decade commitment, and he now calls Bosnia home. Tim worked in refugee camps with women and children from all over Bosnia and Croatia and eventually saw out the end of the war as an active humanitarian in the besieged eastern quarters of Mostar. Driving aid convoys throughout the country had introduced him to its pristine nature and fabulous highlander traditions, a side of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) that few people know of and one he thought worth helping to protect and preserve. After several years of development work in BiH, Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo following the war, Tim spent a year hiking through the mountains and learning more about the highland cultures. In 2000 he and some friends formed Green Visions, the first ecotourism and environment protection group in the country. Since then he has been dedicated to environmental activism, ecologically responsible development of BiH's cultural, historical and natural heritage, and changing the widespread negative image of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a tourism and environment consultant for the EU, UNDP and local governments. He recently co-founded an NGO called Terra Dinarica dedicated to the sustainable development of the Via Dinarica mega-trail that stretches from Albania to Slovenia.
This edition has been updated by self-proclaimed Balkan 'connoisseur', Larissa Olenicoff, who first fell in love with the region after she visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2011, and to this day considers it to be one of her favourite places to travel through. She has worked on various tourism projects around the country over the past several years including the initial promotional campaign of Via Dinarica, the mega trail project through the Dinaric Alps co-initiated by this book's author, Tim Clancy. |
