While Romania has a diverse ecosystem (24% of plant and animal species in Europe), the country has suffered a continuous decline of biodiversity as a consequence of human activity, especially because of agriculture, industrial development and the expansion of cities. Wildlife particularly has been seriously affected.

Conservation efforts have been obstructed by systemic corruption. Romania is ranked by Transparency International as the fifth most corrupt country in the EU. Environmental programs have taken a back-seat to special interests and widespread indifference to conservation by the state.

Even so, there is growing interest by regular citizens to preserve the environment. Recent protests against a mining project that would employ cyanide compounds in the Carpathian Mountains and against continuous deforestation have mobilized large numbers of people.

The national context favored a crowd sourced effort to protect wildlife. Also, storks have a special significance to Romanians, as the country serves as nesting grounds for over ten thousand of them. Storks also play an important role in the balance of the ecosystem, having an influence on many plant and animal species.

In its effort to prevent loss of wildlife and build a sustainable infrastructure, Enel created The Nest Address, in collaboration with the Ornithological Society of Romania. It is a geolocation app that people can use to send GPS coordinates of any stork nest they see, so Enel crews can find and secure nests against electrocution.

The campaign is the first mobile crowd-sourced initiative to keep storks safe. Anyone with a smartphone can now send locations of nests, that will even receive real physical addresses, to highlight storks’ importance for local communities and the environment.

The app also provides valuable information for The Ornithological Society, to help their conservation efforts. They receive all nest locations, together with other data submitted by the user: number of storks, nest condition etc. Also, at the end of every season, they have an accurate count of the total stork population in the country.

Enel and the Ornithological Society of Romania launched the app in a press event, inviting journalists and influencers.

We also convinced local authorities to give out real-life addresses to stork nests in their area. As the story broke, national news outlets reported on the initiative.

People started downloading the app on Google Play and App Store (Romanian name: Uite barza!) and new nest locations started coming in every day, during the first season of the campaign (spring-summer of 2017).

Enel crews secured the hazardous nests, keeping the storks safe from electrocution.

This was just the first flight of the campaign. The app will stay on in the future as a long-term solution for Enel, helping protect storks for seasons to come.

The campaign was a success for Enel and the Ornithological Society. More than 2.800 nests were identified, amounting to over 8.200 storks. This means that 80% of the estimated stork population of Romania (10.000 birds) was located - data from the Ornithological Society.

Alarmingly, we found that 54% of the nests put the storks in danger of electrocution. But, based on locations sent, 93% of all nests were secured by Enel crews with special non-conductive frames.

The results are even more valuable as storks return to the same nests. Conservation experts can now continuously monitor stork population.

The issue of stork deaths caused by electrocution was almost unknown before the campaign. The generated media interest has made Romanians aware of the dangers faced by storks.

With the platform in place, the app will remain a tool to protect storks, preserving their numbers and having a positive impact on biodiversity.

With smartphone penetration in Romania growing by 400% between 2012-2016, we realized that the best instrument to locate nests is already in everyone’s pocket: the smartphone. We created an app so anyone could take part in our effort to keep storks safe.

The Ornithological Society of Romania was involved in designing the app, so the data collected could also help their conservation efforts.

We targeted smartphone users through a mobile advertising campaign. The initiative reached an even greater audience, once local authorities got involved. Mayors granted official addresses to stork nests, and the initiative quickly made prime-time news.

Present in 30 countries, Enel is also the number one energy company in Romania. It has adopted the UN Sustainable Development Goals, that were integrated into its business strategies. One of the company’s top priorities are building a more sustainable infrastructure and protecting life on land, having also signed an agreement with the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The second largest bird migration route in the world passes over Romania, where over ten thousand storks return home each spring. But, because they build their nests on power lines, thousands of storks die of electrocution. With the continent’s biodiversity already in decline, this little-known issue is more serious than ever.

Enel wanted to make their powerlines safe for storks. But, with an energy grid consisting of 90.000 km of cable and a quarter of a million utility poles, the challenge was locating all the nests scattered around the country, so Enel crews could secure them against electrocution.