Prehistoric hillforts and ethnobotany for sustainable tourism and rural development – from the Karst (via Brkini, Čičarija, and Istria) to Kvarner. The Kaštelir project aims to re-establish the ancient connection between people’s lives and plants and present it in a modern way to be used for sustainable tourism and ecological environment management.
The main theme of the project are the remains of hillforts that were erected in the area in the Bronze Age and prospered in the Iron Age. Today, they are overgrown with shrubs and forests. With emigration, overgrowth, the loss of tradition and connections with the ancient past, we also lose knowledge about the plants that grow in the area and their use. That is why we want to revive this knowledge, promote it and spark interest among tourists but also the locals, who could (again) manufacture traditional products using old methods and recipes and offer them to tourists.