Conservarea biodiversităţii şi dezvoltare comunitară în Transilvania
Fundatia ADEPT… protecting Transylvania’s unique farmed landscapes, their biodiversity, and the farming communities who live within them.
Pentru versiunea în limba română apăsați pe butonul de mai sus.
EU Life Nature project:
Saving the Important Pastoral
Ecosystems of Transylvania (STIPA)
The Sighisoara-Tarnava Mare SCI (Natura 2000 site declared under the EU Habitats Directive) is characterised by two priority dry grassland habitat types which are threatened in Europe:
- 6210* Semi-natural dry grasslands and scrubland facies on calcareous substrates (Festuco-Brometalia) with important orchid sites, and
- 6240* Sub-Pannonic steppic grasslands.
About 6.000 ha of the 85,374 ha area is comprised of these habitats. About half of this area is common grazing, under management of the Town Halls. A significant part of these habitats in the project area is either abandoned or overgrazed, for economic reasons. Farmers do not get sufficient economic return for managing them traditionally. Overgrazing causes loss of species richness. Abandonment leads to the spread of thorny scrub, and accumulation of dead grassy material. In both case, loss of habitat condition in common grazing land and in privately owned hay meadows leads to loss of associated flora and fauna including important bird and butterfly species.
These effects are obvious but still easily reversible by re-establishment of traditional management.
Under the project Fundatia ADEPT is:
- carrying out habitat and species research and consultations with the farmers and Town Halls who manage the land, in order to design effective and practical conservation action plans for different sites
- carrying out direct conservation on thousands of hectares, using innovative machinery and innovative mapping and monitoring to test results. This will in turn encourage local farmers continue good management into the future
- helping the design of farmer-friendly agri-environment schemes, which are necessary in order to give farmers the economic incentive to continue to manage the land
- carrying out a variety of awareness-raising activities with farmers, other land managers, and with local schools in order to increase local interest in these habitats and in the wonderful fauna and flora species they support.
Southern Transylvania is one of the most important High Nature Value Farmed landscapes surviving in full working order in lowland Europe.
This landscape of exceptional biodiversity has been created by farmers over hundreds of years, and it can only be preserved by continued traditional management by the farmers there today.
ADEPT has been working since 2002 with farmers, local communities, universities, other NGOs, and government at all levels in order to solve the range of problems threatening the survival of this remarkable landscape and of the small-scale farming communities living within it.
Saving this area is of great importance not only for its own sake – the species and habitats, the agricultural system in harmony with them, and the livelihoods of small-scale farming communities who live there – but also for what we can learn from it about saving or restoring similar areas in Europe.
Fundatia ADEPT is carrying out an integrated programme linking economic and social benefits with biodiversity conservation, and raising local capacity for good management in the future. We bring together Romanian and wider European expertise to carry out innovative nature conservation and rural development projects that are firmly rooted in local communities.
This website provides information, in English and Romanian, for local people and visitors who are interested in protecting this area, and similar High Nature Value landscapes in Romania and in Europe more widely.
ADEPT activities
Our team
News Headlines
Fundatia ADEPT participates in Local Farming and Short Food Chains Conference, Brussels, 20 April Read moreWild Carpathia film launch Read more
Fundatia ADEPT Annual reports available Read more
EU LIFE: ADEPT is beneficiary of Romania's only Life Nature project in 2010. Read more
See all news headlines
Guide to Butterflies and Moths of Sighisoara-Tarnava Mare area
In September 2010 Fundatia ADEPT launched the Brief Guide to the Butterflies and Moths of the Sighisoara-Tarnava Mare area.This guide is written by Laslo Rakosy, one of Europe’s leading lepidoptera specialists. The booklet links the butterfly and moth species of the area to their grassland, forest and riparian habitats.
Copies in English or Romanian language versions may be ordered from the ADEPT office in Saschiz: see under publications.
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High Nature Value Grasslands: conference reports and further action
Fundatia ADEPT was the local organiser, in partnership with the European Forum on Nature Conservation & Pastoralism, of the High Nature Value Grasslands conference, held in Sibiu, Romania in September 2010. This conference was held at a crucial moment in European policy-making. The EU Commission’s views on the new Common Agricultural Policy 2013-2020 will be announced later this year by DG Agriculture.
At the conference, leading NGOs launched detailed policy proposals for the re-targeting of Common Agricural Policy resources, so that they secure the future of these HNV grasslands and of the ecosystem services they deliver, and at the same time conform better to European citizens’ expectations.
See Conference page for further details.
