{"id":38775,"date":"2025-05-29T10:47:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T08:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/broz.sk\/?p=38775"},"modified":"2025-05-29T10:47:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T08:47:16","slug":"saving-an-endemic-jewel-of-the-carpathian-meadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/broz.sk\/en\/saving-an-endemic-jewel-of-the-carpathian-meadows\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving an Endemic Jewel of the Carpathian Meadows"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]\r\n

When we say “endemic plant,” most people think of species like Daphne arbuscula<\/em>, Onosma tornensis<\/em>, or the Slovak pasqueflower (Pulsatilla slavica<\/em>). Only few, however, know the Moravian ragwort (Tephroseris longifolia<\/em> subsp. moravica<\/em>). Yet this is an extremely rare member of the aster family that blooms only at the turn of May and June, on just a few small meadows in the White Carpathians, the Str\u00e1\u017eov Mountains, Vt\u00e1\u010dnik, and Tribe\u010d. Moreover, in all known localities, it survives in only dozens or, at best, hundreds of individuals. Precisely because of its uniqueness and vulnerability, we chose the ragwort as one of the target species of the LIFE Endemic PANALP<\/strong> project.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/p>\r\n

The greatest threat to this species today is land abandonment. Without management, meadows become overgrown with invasive shrubs and trees, and important transitional habitats between meadows and forests\u2014such as forest steppes or pasture woods\u2014are disappearing from our landscapes. These are key habitats for many rare species. In addition to the ragwort, the decline of such habitats also affects the Clouded Apollo butterfly (Parnassius mnemosyne<\/em>), another target species of our project. Both of these species can be found together in the SCI Vr\u0161atsk\u00e9 bradl\u00e1<\/strong>, at the Lys\u00e1 locality, where we have devoted the most effort to saving the endemic ragwort to date.<\/p>\r\n

\"A<\/p>\r\n

\"Alongside<\/p>\r\n

In recent years, we have cleared the overgrowing edges of this meadow, all the way to the border of the adjacent forest plot. Without this intervention, the steep meadow would have gradually disappeared into the shadow of the forest, despite occasional mowing and grazing. Thanks to targeted restoration, we have doubled the area suitable for the ragwort\u2019s life. However, the local population is also long-term threatened by browsing by game. Therefore, state conservationists from the Biele Karpaty Protected Landscape Area administration have begun to protect flowering individuals with individual enclosures, which allow them to flower and seed safely. Additionally, as part of our project activities from 2021 to 2023, we manually sowed hundreds of seeds collected in previous seasons.<\/p>\r\n\n\t\t\t