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:
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:
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