As part of our project we organized a scything tournament, which took place in the Narew village on 11th July 2015. The purpose of this event was to preserve the hundreds-of-years-old tradition of scything riverine meadows and to promote the concept of active nature protection. The art of manual scything turned out to be very helpful in preserving the natural diversity of protected areas in Europe, as scything of flooded meadows stimulates the occurrence of rare bird and plant species.

During the tournament we tried to bring back the atmosphere of a social event and the sort of rivalry between scythers that used to be part of traditional scything. We enriched it also with aspects of ecological education and true sport competition. “Scything by the Narew River” made the public aware how important is the role of meadow scything in protecting the great snipe. Seventeen scythers took place in the tournament; their task was to scythe a plot the size of 4x25 m. It was by no means easy as the meadows were covered with sedge tufts and their surface was rugged. The winner of the tournament was Adrian Siemieniuk. Jerzy Pawluczuk took the second place, and Edward Kotowicz – the third one. We were pleased that among the competitors was Agnieszka Łęczycka, who won the fifth place with flying colours. In spite of unfavourable weather, inhabitants of villages by the Narew River appeared in great numbers to encourage the scythers and enjoy numerous attractions provided by the PTOP and the Narew community council.