ConnectGREEN Restoring and managing ecological corridors in mountains as the green infrastructure in the Danube basin
The Danube-Carpathian region is one of Europe´s last remaining strongholds for the large carnivore species: gray wolf, Eurasian lynx and brown bear, protected under EU law. Unfortunately, the planned infrastructure developments threaten to cut through the movement corridors of large carnivores and increase the fragmentation of their habitats.
Photo © Thomas Hulik/WWF
Very few spatial planners have the knowledge and experience to ensure that conflicts between development and nature conservation are minimized as they develop new plans. More importantly, legally binding mechanisms taking into consideration the requirements of functioning ecological corridors is poorly implemented, mainly because of the lack of reliable data. These effects require a coherent transnational approach as the large carnivores frequently move across state borders in search of food, mates or other needs.
Thorough ConnectGREEN project, partners from different countries and various fields of activity (spatial planning, research, government, biodiversity conservation) joined forces to increase the capacity of ecological corridors identification and management and to overcome the conflict between infrastructure development and wildlife conservation. Valuable knowledge and experience will be made available to spatial planners and vice versa for finding the best ways to develop infrastructure and other plans in order secure ecological connectivity in the Carpathians.
Read project objectives from here
Long term solutions for wildlife movements
The ecological corridors will be identified in more detail by using the new Carpathian-wide methodology in 4 transnationally relevant pilot sites: 1. Piatra Craiului National Park (Romania); 2. Apuseni-SW Carpathians (Romania)/ National Park Djerdap (Serbia); 3. Western Carpathians (Czech Republic - Slovakia) and 4. Bükk National Park (Hungary)/ Cerová vrchovina Protected Landscape Area (Slovakia).
Maintaining or restoring ecological corridors will secure a viable population of large carnivores in the Carpathians and maintain one of the largest biodiversity hotspots and functioning ecosystems on the continent. Moreover, this new joint approach is meant to accelerate the implementation processes and put into practice much-awaited infrastructure developments that faces the risk of being delayed due to non-conformity with safety and environmental standards.
You can support this process by prioritizing biodiversity in the list of environmental criteria, by participating in consultations and by sharing the knowledge.
- Start date
- 01-06-2018
- End date
- 31-05-2021
- Budget in Euro
- Overall: 2462923,53
- ERDF Contribution: 1920592,41
- IPA Contribution: 172892,55
- ENI Contribution: 0
- Call number
- Call 2
- Priority
- Environment and culture responsible Danube region
- Specific objective
- Foster the restoration and management of ecological corridors
Library
Project Partners
| Name | Type | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| WWF DCP Romania | Lead partner | cpapp@wwfdcp.ro | ROMANIA |
| WWF International Danube-Carpathian Programme | ERDF partner | hmeyer@wwfdcp.org | AUSTRIA |
| Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic | ERDF partner | martin.strnad@nature.cz | CZECH REPUBLIC |
| Silva Tarouca Research Institute for Landscape and Ornamental Gardening | ERDF partner | romportl@vukoz.cz | CZECH REPUBLIC |
| Szent Istvan University | ERDF partner | kollanyi.laszlo@tajk.szie.hu | HUNGARY |
Project News
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ConnectGREEN - Ecological corridors workshop brings together Romanian authorities, academia, PAs, experts, NGOs
- 30-04-2020
Romania. April 2020. The virtual workshop focusing on next steps for ecological corridors in Romania brought together 30 participants from Romanian authorities (three ministries: Environment, Spatial Planning and, respectively, Transportation, as...
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ConnectGREEN - From e-corridors to eco-corridors
- 30-04-2020
Serbia, 15th April 2020: Work on the ConnectGREEN project continues as the Second National Workshop on the Strategy of Ecological Corridors for the Carpathian countries turned online to move discussions further. As the song goes, the show...
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ConnectGREEN - A1 Motorway: Romanian Road Authority accepts environmentalists' solution
- 28-04-2020
Romania. April 2020. For the last kilometers that are still to be built as part of A1 Motorway, also known as the Lugoj-Deva Highway, the Romanian road authorities (CNAIR – National Company for the Management of Road Infrastructure) support the...
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ConnectGREEN - News from before COVID-19 lockdown - Zoological Days Conference in Olomouc
- 23-04-2020
Ecological corridor model presented at the Zoological Days Conference in Olomouc, Czech Republic, 6-7 February 2020. Representatives of the ConnectGREEN Project Partner Silva Tarouca Research Institute for Landscape and Ornamental Gardening...
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ConnectGREEN - The story of a survivor: "Tripod" the three-legged wolf
- 16-04-2020
April 2020. Slovakia, Muranska Planina National Park. Tripod is one of Slovakia's 300-600 wolves, but he is one who not only survived a car crash where he lost one leg, but continued life in the wilderness thanks to his pack, a pack which did not...
