Growing Montenegro into Europe’s Garden
Before the day’s meetings, calls and field visits begin, Vuk Vujišić is in his garden, watering young trees. In summer, the seedlings need care every morning. Some will find a home in schoolyards, others at Montenegro’s Clinical Centre or on land damaged by wildfire.
For Vuk, each seedling is part of a much longer commitment. He loves Montenegro’s rivers, forests and open spaces, and he wants future generations to inherit a country that has cared for them. Through Ozelenimo Crnu Goru (Let’s Green Montenegro), he brings people together to plant trees and restore green spaces. The work is practical, often slow, and deeply personal.
One tree he often chooses for schoolyards is the plane tree. It grows quickly and gives generous shade. Vuk can already picture children gathering beneath branches that are still small enough to fit in his hands.
His days also take him far beyond the garden. Before founding the organisation, Vuk worked in investigative journalism and challenged environmental crime. He wanted to create something that would unite people around positive action: planting, reforestation and seeing what they could achieve together. But protecting nature also means confronting the damage being done to it.
At his computer, Vuk reviews reports submitted through Čuvaj da te čuva (Protect it, so it protects you), actually via cuvaj.me app that allows citizens to report environmental violations. Reports of illegal dumping, wastewater and unlawful extraction of natural resources are directed to the relevant authorities. When a case remains unresolved, Vuk and his team go to the site to establish what is happening.
One of those sites is Ćemovsko polje. Eighteen months ago, trucks regularly dumped waste there. Today, cameras help prevent illegal disposal, and young trees are growing in the area. It is the kind of change that keeps Vuk going: a place once treated as a dumping ground can be protected and given a different future.
Other cases are harder. Along rivers and at extraction sites, Vuk documents suspected environmental crime and works to establish the facts. The determination that brings him to these places also brings him back, again and again, when a problem has yet to be resolved.
But at the Clinical Centre of Montenegro, his work has taken another form. Over nearly two years, the Let’s Green the Clinical Centre initiative has planted hundreds of trees and perennial plants and added benches to the grounds. Vuk says the effort will continue until every green area has been cared for.
His vision reaches across the country. Vuk believes Montenegro’s extraordinary natural diversity could make it “Europe’s garden.” To him, its landscapes and biodiversity are a source of pride for Montenegrins and a value the country will bring to the European Union.
There is always another report to follow up, another damaged site to visit, another tree to water. What sustains Vuk is the ability to imagine how a place could look once the work is done.
“When you start working on something, you take on the responsibility to see it through,” he says.
As the day ends, Vuk returns to the garden and waters the young trees once more. A greener Montenegro will take years of care and persistence. Tomorrow morning, he will begin again.
