The Izera Dark Sky Park, which straddles the Polish-Czech border, is one of Europe's first "darkness reserves." The project, launched in 2009 in the Izerskie Mountains, aims to highlight the issue of light pollution, which is increasingly being acknowledged as an environmental problem. Darkness reserves and dark sky parks are a relatively new idea. The first such park was established in 1999 in Canada. Today there are 20 such projects worldwide. Read more