The international project LIFE PANALP is focusing on the return of grazing as a tool for nature protection. Together with its Hungarian partners, the Regional Association for Nature Conservation and Sustainable Development (BROZ) will focus on the protection of several species of endemic plants and rare animals.
Conservationists, hunters, farmers, beekeepers and non-state forest owners are calling for landscaping for nature and people. In the memorandum “For a Healthy Country”, they appeal to the Government of the Slovak Republic and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Slovak Republic appeal.
As part of the project, we are also carrying out genetic research, and at the same time we are strengthening localities where there are so few individuals and interbreeding would deffinetelly occur between them.
In July 2021, we met with our external monitor and project team in Ostrovné lúky for the last time. We checked the activities carried out since last year. We also had a look on wetlands, planted trees or extended pasture in Bodzianske Lúky. The project ended in May and we believe that the target species…
In Turna nad Bodvou, at the Skalistý potok location, there is the second largest forest site in Slovakia. Ground squirrels have settled here partly also in the alfalfa field. That field was recently plowed. The ground squirrels now have youngsters and plowing would kill them.
As we announced in February this year, we started with the creation of biocorridors, the so-called ‘Highways’ for root voles, which will allow them to move more easily between locations.
In neighboring Austria, on the shores of lake Neusiedler, the work on restoration of Pannonian root vole habitat is also in progress.
This September BROZ is starting two new projects which have been approvedby the European Comminison. Both LIFE projects aim to protect endangered species and restore their habitats. One of these projects will be dedicated to conserving the European ground squirrel which, a once common species which is now endangered due to habitat loss.
BROZ in cooperation with the local cooperative has begun to graze livestock on 18 hectare of land in Tisovský kras where the ground squirrel population has been on the decline due to inapopriate land management.
Since the beginning of the year, we launched a regular field monitoring of potential biocorridors – „highways“ for the root vole together with the project partners, the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Comenius University in Bratislava and the State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic.