Subject and goals of the project

In Romania, forest pasture systems (hute or hud forests) that are still significant throughout Europe can be found today, which result from an extensive form of forest management and belong to the highly biodiverse cultural landscapes. They fulfil a multitude of ecosystem services in the areas of biodiversity protection, water protection (seepage and evaporation areas), agriculture (extensive animal husbandry with climate-friendly meat production) as well as recreation and tourism, among others. These outstanding habitats have been destroyed so far because European and Romanian agricultural policy does not sufficiently recognise these ecosystems, especially since no or hardly any premiums from the first pillar of the CAP can be activated here and thus a land use change is triggered by wrong incentive systems.

The overall objective of this project is a comprehensive inventory of Romanian forest pastures in Transylvania with its good practice examples and the derivation of recommendations for the management of these ecosystems taking into account nature conservation aspects on this basis. The focus of all project measures is on the sustainable management of Romanian forest pastures and their anchoring as an integral part of rural regional development, especially with regard to the bioeconomy of farms.

The project has three target groups: Farmers (at individual farm level), nature conservationists and local public administrations such as mayors in the two pilot regions. Hunters, landowners and local action groups (development of regional tourism) are also informed about the project and can participate if they are interested.

The following work packages will be implemented in the project:

• Approximately 100 forest pastures in Transylvania will be recorded, characterised and assessed with regard to their socio-ecological or cultural character and state of conservation.
• Local initiatives for the conservation and use of forest pastures in Romania are analysed: Social and economic framework data as well as the challenges and opportunities for local actors such as land managers are the focus in order to generate an understanding of the genesis of these landscape elements and to enable conclusions to be drawn about careful further development. This is followed by good practice recommendations and the testing of feasibilities in practice.
• New options or the development of new ideas for sustainable management of hute forests are identified: Together with pioneers from the field, the collected data from the agricultural analyses are supplemented with perspectives from new methods (holistic pasture management, cultivation concepts). The focus is on extensive and economically viable concepts, including the establishment of new agroforestry systems and new utilisation and/or marketing systems.
• A network "Future Initiatives for Forest Pastures" is to be developed and expanded: Through networking and capacity building (especially training), different actors from practice, economy, science and professional associations such as farmers' associations, nature conservation organisations and politics/administration are to be supported and their efforts bundled.
• Practice manual, video channel & database on forest pastures in Romania are to be published: The information, references, analysis results and local examples serve as an action-oriented guide and inspiration for the conservation and revitalisation of forest pastures – also for less experienced people. Forest pastures or large old trees in forest pastures are furthermore documented in an open-access database and are thus transparently perceivable also by the public.
• Recommendations to policy-makers and administrations at national and European level are intended to
  contribute to the reduction of obstacles to the recognition and use of silvopastoral agroforestry systems as landscapes worthy of protection. The recommendations include technical justifications on basic cultural services (cultural heritage), ecosystem services (agricultural services, biodiversity, climate protection/change, identity, tourism) and future services of forest pastures, especially as a gene pool of European importance.

Innovation and exemplary nature of the project

Hute forests are highly diverse cultural landscapes that have evolved over centuries and are of outstanding importance in times of climate change and necessary adaptation strategies. For the first time in Transylvania, where a comparatively high number of hute forest systems in good condition (still) exist, a linkage of different topics and the development of knowledge for action from the disciplines of ecology, agriculture and forestry, regional economics and applied material flow management is established. The innovation lies in the further development of management methods and forms as well as in the identification of ecosystem services provided by hute forests and their agricultural, environmental and economic valorisation.

By networking the groups of actors involved and capacity building within the framework of different formats, knowledge for action is to be built up and successively disseminated, whereby a scaling of the project findings in practice can be achieved.

Special aspects of the project

Romania's forest pastures are of outstanding importance for the conservation of biodiversity on a European scale. At the same time, these agroforestry systems are threatened with extinction. Against this background, the project can make valuable contributions to securing knowledge about these ecosystems, to biodiversity-friendly management, to new value creation concepts and to their perspective protection. The cooperation with established networks in science and practice on site as well as the envisaged results and products in the field of communication and education allow a sustainable dissemination of the generated knowledge. The project activities have the potential to raise awareness of this issue among those active in science, politics and agricultural/nature conservation administration and to open up new ways of managing the agroforestry systems of Transylvania.

The first findings of the project were presented in the article "The traditional ecological knowledge conundrum", which was published in "Trends in Ecology & Evolution" (Section Science & Society, Series: Local and Indigenous ecological knowledge). The article was written by Tibor Hartel, Joern Fischer, Girma Shumi, and William Apollinaire.

Funding subject: Nature conservation and sustainable use of nature in cultural landscapes and protected areas

Cooperation partners:

• Trier University of Applied Sciences, Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, Institute for Applied Material Flow Management (IfaS), Biomass and Cultural Landscape Development Unit
• Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Biology and Geology, Department of Taxonomy and Ecology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Location: Transylvania / Romania

Funding period: January 2022 to December 2023

Project costs: Total volume: 124 997 Euro, DBU funding: 124 997 Euro

DBU-AZ: 37480

Note: Translation of the German version with DeepL

Last updated: 24.01.2023