From 1 to 10 September, volunteers are repairing dry-stone walls and working on a historic plot. This World Heritage landscape on Hvar is not a frozen museum but farmland used for 24 centuries.
Ten days of work on a landscape
International volunteers are working in the Stari Grad Plain on Hvar from 1 to 10 September 2026. According to the culture ministry, the Croatian Commission for UNESCO is organising the project for the sixth consecutive year with support from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
This is not a symbolic photo opportunity. The programme includes practical conservation, discussion of the plain’s history and the sharing of traditional crafts and Mediterranean crops. Croatia’s 4 Grada Dragodid initiative is the dry-stone-wall partner.
Greek settlers laid out the grid in the 4th century BC
When Greek colonists settled the island in the 4th century BC, they divided the plain into geometric plots. Roads and dry-stone walls formed a clear grid whose basic structure remains legible today.
The culture ministry describes 75 historic plots. More important than the number alone is their visibility in the landscape: boundaries, paths and use together show how agriculture was organised in a space that is still farmed.
World Heritage here is not a single building
UNESCO added the plain to the World Heritage List in 2008. The protected site is a cultural landscape where the ancient plot system and agricultural use are linked. Vines and olives still shape the fields.
Its continued use is precisely what makes it exceptional. A landscape does not survive under glass; it needs cultivated soil, open paths, maintained walls and people who pass on knowledge of care and repair.
Dry-stone walls stand without mortar
A dry-stone wall is held not by binder but by careful stone selection and layering. Good contact distributes weight, while small stones stabilise gaps. A quick layer of cement would not be a traditional repair and would alter the material and water balance.
The walls mark plots, remove stones from cultivated ground and slow erosion. Together with cisterns and channels they form a historic system that made scarce rainfall useful in a Mediterranean agricultural landscape.
The volunteers are also restoring a striga
Alongside wall repairs, the UNESCO project sheet lists restoration of a ‘striga’, a long historic field plot. The work connects one place in the grid with the wider aim of keeping the agricultural structure visible and usable.
No figure has been published for how many metres of wall will be completed in ten days. Conservation is not measured only in length: traditional technique, shared learning and local responsibility are part of the result.
Visiting does not automatically mean joining in
The Stari Grad Plain can be experienced as a landscape, but the current notice is not an open workshop registration or a promise of a public tour. Visitors who see the volunteers should not interrupt the work or join a group without agreement.
Stay on existing paths, do not climb the walls, and treat vines, olive trees and plots as what they are: working land. A UNESCO sign does not turn private or agricultural land into a freely available backdrop.
The best view reveals the connections
Up close you see individual limestone blocks, vines and vehicle tracks. Only with some distance does the old grid of long lines become clear. Allow more time than for a brief stop between Stari Grad and Vrboska.
The volunteer work provides the right key: World Heritage is not a prize awarded once. It is a commitment in which repair, agriculture and knowledge must repeatedly come together.
Evidence
Sources & date
Sources support the facts. Planning notes and recommendations are Golden Beach editorial assessments.
- Internationales UNESCO-Freiwilligenprojekt im Starogradsko poljeKroatisches Ministerium für Kultur und Medien · 4. September 2026, geprüft am 5. September 2026Projektzeitraum, sechste Ausgabe, Organisation, historische Parzellen und Vermittlungsziele
- World Heritage Volunteers 2026 – Starogradsko poljeUNESCO World Heritage Centre · Projektblatt 2026, geprüft am 5. September 2026Arbeitsprogramm, Trockenmauern, Striga, Regenwassersystem, Landwirtschaft und Projektpartner
- Stari Grad PlainUNESCO World Heritage Centre · Welterbeeintrag seit 2008, geprüft am 5. September 2026Welterbestatus, Entstehung im 4. Jahrhundert vor Christus und Erhalt des griechischen Parzellensystems
