Goals
The Balatonalmádi ’Together for Our Town’ Association in cooperation with the neighboring town’s community (Lovas Harbour), between May and October 2024 conducted a campaign - partly scientific, partly educational - on the effective and nature-friendly of mosquito control in Balaton.
One of the primary aims of our Local Action in Hungary was to raise awareness and disseminate scientific and professional views on mosquito control and eradication in Lake Balaton, but also to identify disinformation. Another important aim was to build on the scientific material to produce public information materials that would help to educate the "lay" citizens of the town, who would then be able to understand what "flying" mosquito control and "car-smoking" mosquito control mean; what the real and exaggerated dangers are, and what the possibilities are for individual, micro-environmental prevention and control. Our primary target group was the population of Balatonalmádi and local decision-makers.
As a broader effect, we also aimed to spread gained knowledge beyond the local environment, to the regional level, mainly through other NGOs along the Lake Balaton shore, who will be eager and prepared to pass it on to their local communities.
Our long-term goal is to build up a lobbying activity towards the decision-making institutional system, which tries to minimize the practice of chemical eradication, which is harmful to wildlife at the municipal, sub-regional and, from the point of view of Lake Balaton, at the level of the entire region. At the same time, more emphasis and resources should be allocated to well-targeted biological control.
Results
● 20 June 2024 - Professional and open conference in Balatonalmádi with the participation of experts from the University of Pécs, Balaton-Highlands National Park, Balaton Association, University of Pécs and with nearly 80 participants in the audience. The video of the conference was viewed by more than 600 people on Youtube. 3,500 copies of the conference article were read by the local residents in the Új Almádi Újság, and 2,500 summary leaflets and numerous posters were produced.
● 11 September 2024 - Online workshop on "best practice" with representatives of the University of Pécs, Danube Bend Environmental Protection Association, Greenpeace Hungary, Székesfehérvár Municipality, Green Civil Szentendre Association, University of Debrecen.
● 5 October 2024 - Joint workshop with NGOs from around Lake Balaton: civil representatives from Örvényes, Csopak, Zamárdi, Women for Lake Balaton Association, Balatonhenye, Balatonaliga met in person, where we passed on the knowledge from the previous professional conference and the online workshop at the regional level.
● Online communication campaigns (Google, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram), which continuously accompanied the competition, achieved more than 30,000 unique hits with materials on professional programs and information leaflets on how to control mosquitoes in our homes. These campaigns were run in Balatonalmádi and surrounding regional targeting.
● After the end of the application phase, we continued our communication in the "offline" space: we held school seminars for students over 14 years old in local schools, with a reach of a few hundred people, until the end of December 2024.
The implementers
The ’Together for Our Town’ Association was founded in February 2019 by people who are committed to creating a civil dialogue among the people of Balatonalmadi about the affairs of our city. We included young, middle-aged and retired people, entrepreneurs, employees, former civil servants, farmers, coaches, doctors, and company directors. Our association is non-partisan and we do not intend to change this in the future. However, we consider it natural that people interested in public life usually have some sort of political sympathies, and so naturally do our founding members. Just as our ages and professions are different, so are our values and party sympathies. "Conservative, social democrat, liberal, green", believers and atheists are all among us. What is more, we are efficient in talking to each other and enthusiastic about working together for common goals. Proving that even people with the most diverse world views can work together if they seek what unites rather than what divides.
The initial aim of the „Lovas Harbour” Community is to raise awareness among the local community and holiday-home owners of the landscape, natural and built heritage of the village. Last year, this vision was complemented with the idea of "Value Saving Communities", where legal and organizational development training was provided to like-minded NGOs and organizations in the area. In order to maintain and extend the cooperation, the Civilians for the Protection of the Values of Lake Balaton forum series was launched, in which the Zamárdi Association for the Protection of Values was also involved.
'More harm than good' is a nature conservation and health-related topic, which is also of interest to all civil society organizations that consider nature conservation important, thus providing an opportunity for further networking and cooperation in the Lake Balaton region. At the final event, the results of the project were presented to this group, with representatives of 6 other municipalities presenting the disinformation on mosquito control and the possibilities for action.
Target groups
Under the auspices of the project, we focused on two important target groups:
The older generation, over 60+, for whom the sight and experience of the big yellow plane flying and spraying over the reed beds and settlements on the shores of Lake Balaton in spring and summer has been practically a familiar sight and experience since the 1970s and 1980s. They didn't know the results of the spraying then, nor do they know now, but it gave them a kind of reassurance that if the planes came, there would be fewer mosquitoes.
The other is the young generation born after the year 2000 (16-24), who are beginning to develop a new kind of environmental awareness, partly linked to the "climate crisis" and partly along the gradual spread of sustainability narratives.
Quotes from the participants:
Erzsébet T. (67 years old, permanent resident of Balatonalmádi): 'Thank you for the very interesting professional presentations, I will apply the information on home prevention myself. The next time I am going to do chemical wiping in the car, I will spread a sheet in the garden so that I can see for myself how many mosquitoes and other insects are destroyed."
Zs. Milos (18 years old, Balatonalmádi, high school student about to graduate): "I didn't really notice that there was mosquito control in the city, but now I will also be watching for biological or chemical extermination advertised on social media. We think it's important to keep the swallows and bats that can be seen around the high school dormitory in Almadi at sunset with us."
Results
We consider our most important achievement to be that we have managed to make the issue of mosquito control in Balatonalmád known and partly thematized in the 2024 summer season. A professional and social discussion has developed about the short- and long-term effects of the techniques, and methods of control and prevention.
We want to continue to work on this issue in 2025 and beyond, so that local residents, the city and the region can take timely and well-informed action to control mosquitoes. We should not only see these insects as an "enemy" to be destroyed but rather understand their place in the ecosystem.
The Local Action Plans are part of the Empowering Europeans Against Disinformation (EEAD) project, implemented within TechSoup’s #DigitalActivismProgram, funded by the European Union.
