The City Environment Project, aiming at protecting and restoring the fauna types characteristic of the city environment and widely spread in the past is being implemented by IDEA Public Association in Baku.

On May 9, twenty squirrels were released into the green area located on the territory of Velopark of Baku, with participation of Vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, founder and head of IDEA Public Association Leyla Aliyeva.

As is well known, along with multilateral efforts made on preserving the wilderness, wide range of actions are being taken, following Leyla Aliyeva’s initiative, towards preserving species belonging to the city environment. The IDEA Care for Animals Centre is functioning in Baku, and special cabins are built in the city for cats and other works carried out. The City Environment Project aims at implementing systematic actions for enriching Baku city and surrounding public places with animal and bird species that can easily live and breed in the city environment, as well as protecting these species.

The objective of all these endeavours is to ensure the harmony between the people living in the city and the environment, and making sure that these relations are closer and healthier.

In the past, numerous squirrels and parrots used to inhabit Baku city and freely roam about parks and green areas among people. However, due to existing environmental issues at the end of the last century, sharp decrease in the number of these species was observed. Thanks to vast greenery planting and improvement works carried out recent years, especially by IDEA Public Association, and bringing down the cases of cutting down trees and planting numerous trees in the city, favourable conditions were created for the return of a number of fauna species.