Târnava Mare - Saving One of Europe’S Last Great Landscapes

Târnava Mare - Saving one of Europe’s last great landscapes

Tarnava Mare, is one of the most important natural and cultural landscapes in Europe. Tarnava Mare has some of the most extensive flower-rich grasslands remaining in lowland Europe. This is a landscape essentially unchanged for hundreds of years, in which low intensity agriculture coexists with an rich wild flora and fauna - meadow-steppe grasslands, forested ridges of oak and beech, pasture and hay meadows on gentler slopes and terraces, and arable land and smaller meadows on the flat valley bottoms near medieval villages with fortified churches. Such landscapes have disappeared from most of modern Europe.

This rare, large-scale, farmed landscape is still managed traditionally and still intact and “working” as an ecological system - a man-made “semi-natural” landscape with wildlife of European importance, fitting perfectly into the European concept of High Nature Value farm- ing.

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e g PELISOR l a RETIS a small but fine 15th century forti- COCOMMUNAUNA MOSNSNAA V Romania. Explore the old citadel, Mo UNESCOSite a GRANARI r STEJARISU COCOMUNA IAIACOCOBEBENINI a l or H ZLAGNA iu il a r rt c iba u c fied church. APOS a i visit the museums, climb the u g b l ti o COCOMUNA BIBIRGHIRGHISS s r V o a St H . COCOMUNA AGAGNINITATA L Zl Ap MOVILE V. u C COCOM UNAUNA JIJIBEBERTRT ag n ov S el COM UNA SOARS Co c . Mare 14th century clock tower and a s e i COMUNA SOARS V s o t jd s a t a ul r

e Criţ is a picturesque village to RUJA i relax in the old market place. the south of Saschiz. Here you 0 1.5 3 6 9 12 Kilometri Legenda /Legend can find some well preserved Biertan - In the west of the Târ- Curs de apatemporar\Temporarywater course Zona Natura 2000 propusa/Proposed Nature 2000 area Biserica fortificata/Fortifiedchurch

Saxon houses and a fortified Curs de apapermanent \Permanent watercourse Zona LEADER/LEADERarea Biserica /Church Vegetatie arbustiva/Transitional woodland/scrub nava Mare area, Biertan is home church perimeter and gate- Drum local\Local road Rezervatia naturala /Natural reservation Terenarabil/Arable land Mlastina /Inlandmarshes to beautiful and impressive house. The church itself was Drum judetean \Countyroad Sat, oras /village,town Livezi si pasuni impadurite /Orchard andwood pastures Zona umeda, lac/Water bodies fortified church that is one of Drum national \Nationalroad Lac/Lake Pasune / Pastures rebuilt in 1810. Limita administrativa\Administrative boundary Padure /Broadleaf forest the largest in the region. Inside you will find an amazing piece Author:Bogdan Florescu Viscri – this internationally of medieval engineering – an famous village has an iconic impregnable lock that has 19 strongly fortified church on the bolting mechanisms. hill above the village. In the walls of the church is a fascinating museum dedicated to the Saxon heritage. At the end of a 7 km dirt road, Viscri provides an ideal escape from the pressures of twenty first century life.

Community involvement in conservation

This is a landscape created not by conservationists or by landscape architects - but by farmers, the result of good husbandry over hundreds of years. Only continued management by local people can conserve this unique area successfully. It is the source of income today for 25,000 farmers in small villages. Its survival is under severe economic threat. Biodiversity conservation measures will only be effective if designed in close cooperation with local people, so that local people feel that they are directly involved in the conservation of their landscape, and that conservation contributes to, and does not threaten, their future prosperity. Fundatia ADEPT is therefore working to integrate economic development measures and community benefits with biodiversity conservation measures. LEADER is an ideal tool for inspiring local involvement in this process.