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 - The National Ecological Network and its important role in Hungarian spatial planning
- 06-06-2019
Conservation of ecologically valuable habitats can only be achieved as a result of the effective cooperation of nature conservation and spatial planning. In Hungary, this joint work is guided by the National Spatial Plan and the related Act,...
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ConnectGREEN - Western Carpathians pilot area: Czech-Slovak partners meeting
- 29-04-2019
On 26th of March 2019, ConnectGREEN project partners from the Czech Republic and Slovakia met to discuss in detail the methodology and plan for activities in the project pilot area. The meeting followed the national meeting in Vsetín, Czech...
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ConnectGREEN - Interview: Wolves are returning to their former territories, but human infrastructures cause problems
- 17-04-2019
Wolves and all of the species returning to their old territories face the same problem – the rapidly expanding human infrastructure such as roads, railways and settlements which criss-cross their migration corridors. Barriers can affect the...
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ConnectGREEN - How to explain the ecological connectivity in a colorful way
- 03-04-2019
Are the ecological connectivity and the wildlife movement corridors concepts that can be understood by children? Yes, they surely are, and now we have a very nice and colorful proof of that. Led by the idea that early learning to respect...
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ConnectGREEN - Identifying ecological corridors - new methodology introduced to key stakeholders in the Czech Republic
- 13-03-2019
Incorporating significant migration areas for wildlife into the spatial plans is crucial for a better protection of large mammals, as well as for reducing the human-wildlife conflicts. This was one of the main premises of the first national...
