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 - What do local people think about large carnivores in Hungary?
- 02-07-2020
Northern-Bükk region, Hungary. Students from the Hungarian Szent István University have developed a complex landscape protection and development plan, which focuses on the further development of 10 Hungarian villages in consideration of the...
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ConnectGREEN - Ecological corridors gain media attention in Slovakia
- 30-06-2020
Bratislava, Slovakia. June 30th, 2020. As the Slovakian ConnectGREEN taskforce has been undergoing intensive fieldwork for mapping ecological corridors and barriers, national media has kept an eye on their efforts. As a result, ecological...
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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...
