Sofia's 'New Forest' — Volunteer-Planted Oak Green Belt Near Negovan, Without Published Survival Data

Sofia's 'New Forest' (Novata gora na Sofia) is a municipal afforestation initiative that creates a green belt around the capital, relying largely on volunteers while the municipality supplies saplings and tools and municipal forestry staff handle later care.
BTA reported that on one Sunday in October 2022 over 200 volunteers and municipal employees planted 4,500 saplings near Negovan, part of a plan for 15,000 oak saplings at that site. The municipality has said it is planting larger saplings with a better chance of taking root and watering more frequently in the hottest months; a 2022 BTA report notes oak is slow-growing and needs consistent care.
Reported totals differ across sources and dates (for example a Sofia Municipality statement of some 56,000 saplings at Negovan, and later accounts of well over 100,000 across the belt), and the area planted is not consistently stated.
Caveat: no sapling survival rate, canopy, carbon, cooling or biodiversity measurement has been published in the sources found; the claims come from municipal announcements and press coverage. It is included as a transparent, replicable volunteer model whose outcomes remain unverified.

Read the full analysis: https://www.bta.bg/en/news/348409-autumn-afforestation-in-sofia-s-new-forest-sofia-near-negovan-begins