Life after LIFE

The long-term effects of nine projects funded under LIFE-Nature I

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Life after LIFE

A review of the long-term effects of nine projects funded under LIFE-Nature I

Authors: Anton Gazenbeek & Kerstin Sundseth

Ecosystems LTD

service contract n° B4-3200/2000/286966/MAR/D2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have helped in the preparation of this report and we are very grateful to everyone for sparing us some of their precious time to take stock of the situation vis-à-vis each project.

We would like to thank in particular the people we met during our Flashback missions or who provided us with information during the course of the assessment:

• In Crete, Greece: Thanos Belalides, Aliki Panagopopoulou + 3 volunteers from Archelon, Ioannis Kotsifakis (Mayor of Platanias), Mechtild Latussek (Tui Group representative), Maria Valerga (Grecotel representative)

• In Lorraine, France: Laurent Godet (PNRL), Frédéric Bréton (CSL), Frédéric Mony (Laboratoire de Phytoécologie, Université de Metz)

• In Sirente-Velino, Italy: Dr Giorgio Boscagli, Matteo Celeste, Dr Luca Gianotti, Arch. Maria di Loreto, Dr.ssa Paola Morini, Elisenda Pascali, Dr Ruffino Sgammotta, Dr Emilio Sinibaldi, Dr.ssa Sonia Stornelli (all Ente Parco Naturale Regionale Sirente-Velino); Dr Simone Angelosanto, Ing. Cesare Colorizio, Ing. Emilio Nusca, Ing. Donato Santili (all mayors and members of the Consiglio Direttivo del Parco); Prof. Pierantonio Tetè (Universita dell’Aquila, scientific expert in Consiglio Direttivo), Dr Carlo Console (forestry expert in Consiglio Direttivo), Mario di Braccio (agricultural expert)

• In Anholt, Denmark: Poul Erik Thystrup (Arhus County) Peter Simonsen, Karen Christensen (Danish Ministry of Environment)

• In Brandenburg and Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany: Thomas Bich, Gunter Braun, Bernd Girke, Jutta Zinnecke (all Landkreis Jerichower Land), Dr Wolfgang Wendt (Ministerium fûr Umwelt, Naturschutz und Raumordnung Land Sachsen-Anhalt), Dr Heinz Litzbarski, Dr Matthias Hille (both Landesumweltamt Brandenburg)

• In Trento, Italy: Dr Claudio Ferrari, Piero Flamini, Dr Diego Zorzi (Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Servizio Parchi e Foreste Demaniali)

• In Baixo Mondego, Portugal: Manuel Ferreira dos Santos, Carlos Manuel da Silva Barata, Deolinda Olivença Borges, Maria Cristina Lopez, Fernando Sabino Rodrigues, Paulo Jorge de Quadros Tenreiro (all ICN, Mondego section)

• In the Jura, France: Christian Bruneel (PNR-J), Alexandra Besnier, Bernard Leclercq, Marc Montadert (all GTJ), Michel Carteron (DIREN de Franche-Comté), Jean-Michel Mourey, Christian Guillemot (both ONF), Jean-Luc Pacis (ONCFS), Thomas Leplaideur, Patrick Lechine (both CRPF), Bruno Allein (ENJ), Adrien Bauer, Stéphane Besnard, Patrick Longchamp, Régis Renaude, Gaël Roy, Jacky Ruat (all FDC)

• In Dorset, UK : John Waldon, Nigel Symes (RSPB)

We would also like to thank members of the external teams, both in MECOMAT and ECOSYSTEMS, for their invaluable assistance in guiding us through the history and context of each project and in assessing the latest state of play. In particular Oliviero Spinelli, Manuela Osmi, Osvaldo Locasciulli (Mecomat/Comunità Ambiente), Ana Guimarães, Jesus Lavina, Concha Olmeda (Mecomat/Atecma), Marc Maury, Marc Thauront, Mariella Fourli, Stefanos Fotiou (Mecomat/Ecosphere) and Mats Eriksson (Ecosystems).

Last but by no means least we would like to thank members of the Nature Unit of the European Commission’s Environment Directorate for their comments and guidance throughout the whole exercise, especially Bruno Julien, Angelo Salsi, Bertrand Delpeuch, Maria Dolores Beceril, Joaquim Capitão, Olivier Diana, Maria Gaivão, Micheal O’Briain, Fotios Papoulias, Carlos Romão, Angelika Rubin, Oliver Schall and Isabelle Venti. TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... page i

INTRODUCTION ...... page 1 - Purpose of this report...... page 1 - The LIFE-Nature instrument: a quick recap ...... page 2 - Evaluating the success of LIFE-Nature ...... page 5

CASE STUDY I – SAVING SEA TURTLE BEACHES IN CRETE ...... page 9 - The context...... page 9 - Life after LIFE ...... page 15 - Overall assessment ...... page 18 - The future ...... page 19

CASE STUDY II – AT THE SEASIDE IN THE MEADOWS ...... page 21 - The context ...... page 21 - Life after LIFE...... page 25 - Overall assessment...... page 27 - The future ...... page 30

CASE STUDY III – UPS AND DOWNS IN THE SIRENTE-VELINO NP...... page 33 - The context ...... page 33 - Life after LIFE...... page 49 - Overall assessment...... page 44 - The future ...... page 47

CASE STUDY IV – DESERTS IN THE SEA : RESTORING LICHEN HEATHS ...... Page 49 - The context ...... page 49 - Life after LIFE...... page 55 - Overall assessment...... page 56 - The future ...... page 57

CASE STUDY V – FARMING FOR BIRDS IN GERMANY ...... page 59 - The context ...... page 59 - Life after LIFE...... page 65 - Overall assessment...... page 67 - The future ...... page 72

CASE STUDY VI – RESTORING WETLANDS ALONG THE TRENTO FLYWAY...... page 75 - The context ...... page 75 - Life after LIFE...... page 79 - Overall assessment...... page 82 - The future ...... page 87

CASE STUDY VII – REEDS AND RICE IN BAIXO MONDEGO ...... page 89 - The context ...... page 89 - Life after LIFE...... page 95 - Overall assessment...... page 99 - The future ...... page 101

CASE STUDY VIII – ROUND TABLES FOR CAPERCAILLIE ...... page 103 - The context ...... page 103 - Life after LIFE...... page 108 - Overall assessment...... page 113 - The future ...... page 116

CASE STUDY IX – RESTORING DORSET’S LOWLAND HEATHS...... page 117 - The context ...... page 117 - Life after LIFE...... page 122 - Overall assessment...... page 124 - The future ...... page 126

CONCLUSIONS...... page 131

Life after LIFE Page i EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SOMMAIRE

Purpose of this report Objectifs du rapport

It’s hard to believe that eight years have already passed Il est difficile de croire que huit ans ont passé déjà since the first LIFE–Nature project was launched. The depuis que le premier projet LIFE-Nature a vu le jour. time has come to take stock of the situation and to see Il est temps à présent de tirer un premier bilan afin whether the projects funded in those early years d’évaluer si les projets financés au cours de ces actually led to any significant long-term benefits for premières années ont réellement eu un impact positif et the sites concerned. An ex post assessment helps to durable sur les sites visés. L'évaluation ex post bring the whole process around full circle as the results permettra de fermer la boucle: les résultats obtenus of such an exercise can help improve the formulation devraient contribuer à améliorer la formulation de of the projects in the first place and so lead to better nouveaux projets, et par là conduire à des résultats and longer-lasting results. meilleurs et plus durables.

The present report – entitled ‘Life after LIFE’ – does Le présent rapport - intitulé 'Life after LIFE' (la vie not pretend to be a full-scale assessment of the LIFE- après LIFE) - ne se veut pas une évaluation exhaustive Nature programme. It does attempt however, through du programme LIFE-Nature. Toutefois, il vise, au the study of a handful of projects, to illustrate some of travers d'une poignée de projets, à illustrer certains des the long-term results of LIFE-Nature funding. The résultats à long terme du financement LIFE-Nature. intention is to give an honest appraisal of whether L'intention du rapport est donc de fournir une réponse LIFE-Nature has created any sustainable effects in honnête à la question de savoir si LIFE-Nature a pu these nine projects – without looking just for ‘success créer des effets durables dans les neuf projets décrits - stories’. After all, understanding why certain elements sans se focaliser sur des projets connus pour avoir été have not worked is as relevant and instructive as un succès. Car, après tout, comprendre pourquoi knowing what has succeeded. certains éléments n'ont pas fonctionné est tout aussi important et instructif que de savoir ce qui est source It should also be borne in mind that the rules for de succès. receiving funding under LIFE-Nature and for carrying out projects have been constantly evolving. Whilst the Il nous faut également garder à l'esprit que les critères focus has always been on the Natura 2000 sites with d'octroi d'un financement LIFE-Nature et de la mise en the intention of kick-starting their long-term oeuvre des projets évoluent constamment. Si le management or demonstrating good practice, the way programme s'est toujours focalisé sur les sites Natura projects are presented, implemented and monitored has 2000, avec l'intention de donner un coup d’envoi à la changed significantly over the years. This in turn will gestion récurrente ou de mettre en lumière les bonnes have influenced the outcome for many of them. It pratiques, la présentation, la mise en oeuvre et le suivi would not be right therefore to examine the LIFE- des projets ont évolué de façon significative au cours Nature projects chosen for this report – all of which des années. Ceci en revanche peut avoir influencé leur started under phase I of LIFE - in the light of the succès respectif. C’est pourquoi, il ne serait guère present rules and regulations. approprié d'examiner les neufs projets LIFE-Nature - qui ont tous été approuvés sous la phase I de LIFE - à We have tried instead, in the concluding section, to la lumière des normes et règlements actuellement en tease out some general observations from the whole vigueur. exercise without ‘pointing the finger’ at any one project. For the rest, the report dedicates most of its Dans la conclusion du rapport, nous nous sommes pages to ‘telling the tale’ of these nine very distinct efforcés d'extraire quelques remarques générales, sans projects - from their first attempts at getting an pour autant "montrer du doigt" l'un ou autre projet en initiative going, through their experiences with LIFE particulier. Du reste, la plus grande partie du rapport funding, to the present-day situation. Each one has an est consacrée à "raconter l'histoire" de ces neuf projets, interesting story to tell and will no doubt strike a chord tous différents les uns des autres - à partir des with many of the people working in this field. It is premières initiatives, en passant par l'expérience tirée hoped that the exercise will not only help improve the du financement LIFE-Nature, jusqu'à leur situation LIFE-Nature funding process but also provide an actuelle. Chacun de ces projets raconte une histoire illustration of the kinds of issues Natura 2000 sites are intéressante qui n’ira, sans doute, pas sans toucher de facing or may face in the future – wherever their bon nombre de gens qui oeuvrent sur le terrain pour la location. préservation du patrimoine naturel. Nous espérons que cet exercice contribuera non seulement à améliorer le processus de financement des projets LIFE-Nature, mais qu’il fournira également une illustration du genre de problèmes auxquels sont confrontés les sites Natura 2000, actuellement ou dans le futur – indépendamment de leur localisation.

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Introduction

The LIFE-Nature instrument : a quick recap In May 1992 the European Union adopted a Financial Instrument for the Environment known as LIFE. Focusing on five priority fields of action, this fund was destined to help develop and implement the Union’s environment policy as outlined in the Fifth Environmental Action Programme. It had an estimated budget of 400 million € for the first phase running from 1992 - 1995. This was followed up in 1996 and in 2000 with a second and third phase. The current LIFE III programme runs from 2000- 2004, with an indicative budget of 640 million €.

One of the priority fields - with an indicative amount of 47% of the total annual LIFE budget - is the protection of nature. Nature conservation actions financed under this instrument must contribute to the implementation of:

• Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora - known as the Habitats Directive – and

• Council Directive 79/409/EEC on the conservation of wild birds - known as the Birds Directive.

Habitats Directive Birds Directive

Special Protection Areas

List of Sites National of Special Areas NATURA list of Community of 2000 sites Importance Conservation

eligible for LIFE co-financing

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Eligibility criteria In particular, the actions proposed should aim to maintain and restore habitats and species listed in both Directives to a favourable conservation status. As the creation of a coherent ecological network of protected areas across the EU - known as NATURA 2000 - is central to both Directives, LIFE-Nature projects should target in particular the conservation of sites proposed as Sites of Community Importance (pSCIs) or Special Protection Areas (SPAs).

These eligibility criteria were enshrined in the Regulation as of LIFE II. Before that time, and so for the period during which the projects chosen for this report were approved by the Commission, the priorities for funding were modified annually in function of the timetable for implementing the Habitats Directive. Thus, emergency actions for habitats and species covered by EU nature legislation were strongly supported but they did not necessarily have to be within already protected areas. It was enough to have a commitment to include them in the Natura 2000 network at the end of the project. Inventories and other preparatory work that would help Member States to draw up their national list of sites were also encouraged under LIFE I.

Throughout LIFE, the Community's financial contribution to projects was set at a maximum of 50% of the total cost. In exceptional cases, however, the percentage could be increased to 75% for those actions aimed at priority habitats or priority species in the Habitats Directive – i.e. those identified with an asterisk in the annexes - or for 48 bird species considered by the Ornis Committee to be in danger of extinction.

Objectives of LIFE-Nature Being a relatively small fund, LIFE-Nature could not hope to pay for the full-scale implementation of the Natura 2000 Network, this has to be done through national commitments and through the other, much larger, EU funds such as agri-environment or structural funds. LIFE-Nature was therefore designed essentially as a catalyst, beyond the stage of basic research but still at the preliminary phase before large-scale investments could be used.

The overall aims can be summarised as follows:

• Pump-priming initial heavy investment costs that make the long-term conservation more affordable, • promote dialogue with the other land users of a site to find ways to conserve an area to the mutual benefit of all, or at least not to the detriment of one or the other,

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• providing high-profile demonstration models of how conservation objectives for particular habitats and species of Community interest can be achieved in practice, • developing best-practice methods that can in turn initiate larger-scale and longer- term programmes for the management of the area.

The funding agreement Projects were selected on the basis of their ecological value and contribution to NATURA 2000 and on the quality of their proposals, and not in function of any national quotas. Under LIFE I the agreement on funding was formalised through a contract drawn up between the Commission and the beneficiary detailing the project objectives and the administrative rules of procedure that needed to be followed. From LIFE II on, it was the application itself that became the technical annex to the individual Commission decisions, thereby providing much more detail about the project and its actions and timetable.

In the interests of good financial management, the Commission undertook to monitor progress closely. With over 300 projects on-going at any one time under LIFE- Nature, it contracted part of this work out to 'external teams' who assisted the Commission with the technical evaluation of on-going projects and advised beneficiaries on Commission procedures. They also contributed to the dissemination of information on LIFE-Nature (such as this present report written by Ecosystems LTD) and provided assistance in the exchange of experience between projects.

The type of actions funded The type of actions co-financed through LIFE-Nature to achieve these objectives can be broadly grouped into six main categories.

Money allocated per type of action

A F 9% 17%

E 7% B 32% D 11%

C 24%

Typical distribution of money according to the actions listed below(A, B, C, D, E and F)

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As the graph illustrates, a typical project will contain all six actions:

• Preparatory measures (A): actions preparing the ground for on-site conservation work, e.g. administrative preparation (permit procedures, meetings between project partners..), negotiations with stakeholders, preparation of management plans, site surveys, technical blueprints etc… • Land lease or acquisition (B): actions to gain control over land use. Acquisition and long-term lease may be the only action required in a project as it puts a stop to the activities that are damaging the site. Subsequent management then would probably involve no more than leaving the site to its own devices. On the other hand, it may also be a first step in initiating restoration actions for a damaged site. For instance, if a site needs to be re-humidified, it will be more cost-effective to buy or swap the piece of land to be flooded. It is also more likely to appeal to the owner. • Non-recurring actions (C): this often involves one-off investment works to kick- start the restoration of a site. Sometimes the work is relatively low-key and ‘natural’, sometimes heavy machinery and engineers have to be called in (e.g. to fell trees, remove scrub, re-divert rivers etc….)

• Recurring actions (D): involve actions that have to be undertaken on a regular basis to maintain or improve habitat conditions. LIFE-Nature often provides the initial investment (usually as a follow-up to site restoration) through purchase of equipment, small-scale pilot projects, test runs to get the formula right and personnel to go out and negotiate longer-term agreements with other land users. Other EU funds, especially the agri-environment regulation (now part of the Rural Development Regulation) can then step in and take over from LIFE, once the initial stage has been set.

• Public awareness raising (E): aimed either at visitors, the local community or relevant stakeholders. Activities include small-scale visitor management methods such as construction of footpaths and observation towers, preparation and publication of brochures, organisation of conferences and public hearings, media work and so on. It also involves actions aimed at disseminating information on the project, such as best-practice examples, networking and experience sharing.

• Project management (F): finally, good project management is essential to achieving long-lasting results. Conservation is, by its very nature, a little unpredictable, and highly dependent on the attitudes and cooperation of other land users. Even the best-prepared projects may run into complications. It is therefore essential for adequate management staff to be dedicated to keeping the project on track and to schedule. Several projects that underestimated this task found themselves struggling to achieve their original ambitions.

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Evaluating the success of LIFE-Nature

From the outline given above of the LIFE-Nature instrument, it is clear that one of the determining factors in assessing whether it has achieved its objectives, is to look at the long-term effects on those projects and sites that received funding under this instrument. This means looking not only at the success of the projects themselves during the lifetime of the EU co-finance but also at the context in which they had to operate, the threats they were addressing and the follow-up actions undertaken after the LIFE funding stopped. Only then is it possible to draw some conclusions as to the sustainability of the projects and their actions.

Conservation Demonstration benefit value

Success of a project

Incentive Socio-economic value influence

For the purposes of this study, four main criteria were looked at.

• The most obvious is the conservation effect of the project: is the site in a better condition now than it was at the start, have the threats been contained, has the habitat type or species population shown any signs of recovery, is there a better protection and management mechanism in place for these habitats and species… ?

• Another important element is to determine whether the project had a strong demonstration value: for instance, did it develop an innovative technique for management which was later applied elsewhere, did it incite others to follow a similar example?

• Closely linked to this is its incentive effect: did it succeed in mobilising additional or new funds for further work or kick-start long-term management programmes, for instance under the agri-environment regulation? Did it lead to the integration of the site’s conservation into other policy sectors?

• Last, but by no means least, is the influence the project had on the local community and stakeholders: are they now more aware of the conservation needs, are they more sympathetic, have they introduced any tangible measures which illustrate this, have they managed to benefit in any way from the results….?

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Choice of projects The choice of projects was not an easy task, since, even now, few LIFE-Nature projects have been finished for a long time. The cut-off date chosen was June 1998 in order to allow sufficient time between the assessment report and the end of the project.

Projects with similar size and budgets were also pre-selected, essentially focusing on those with just one site or a small suite of sites, as this was the most common type of project under LIFE I.

Finally, an attempt was also made to have a good geographical spread and to choose a cross-section of different habitats and species, type of actions, and socio-economic environments. This resulted in a shortlist of 22 projects, which was eventually narrowed down to the nine illustrated in the following map.

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS Well-managed turtle nesting beach in Rethimno, Photo : K Sundseth Beneficiary The Sea Turtle Protection Society (now called Archelon) Case study I : Budget 535.867 € Saving sea turtle EC co-finance 75% beaches in Crete Duration April 95 – Dec 97

Location The context Three nesting beaches on Crete The Mediterranean loggerhead sea Species/habitats: turtle, Caretta caretta, has been Loggerhead turtle known to man for centuries. Early (Caretta literature often referred to it as a caretta), symbol of longevity and tolerance. a priority Yet, despite this long association, its species life history is, to this day, still very poorly understood, probably because most of its time is spent far out at sea, beyond the reach of even the most sophisticated of tracking instruments. The only clues to this elusive creature’s lifestyle come therefore from its short period on land.

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We know that the female always returns to the same beach where it was born to lay its eggs. This it does at regular intervals every 2-3 years, once it has reached sexual maturity at around 25 years old. The nesting season continues from the beginning of May to the end of August, during which time the females will usually make 3-4 Less-regulated sea turtle beach in Rethimno, Photo : K Sundseth nests, each containing on average 120 eggs. This it will keep the existence of these beaches. doing for another 25-30 years - a very Destroying them is tantamount to long reproductive cycle but an destroying a generation of future sea essential one considering that only 1 in turtles since the female is unlikely to every 1000 hatchlings is likely to make look for an alternative nest site. it to adulthood. Unfortunately, in Greece, the features that have attracted turtles for eons - Greece hosts the most important fine sand, long stretches of beach, hot nesting sites in the EU, the main areas summer days – are also the very things being on Zakynthos (51%), the that are now attracting increasing Peloponesian mainland (27%) and hordes of tourists. As a consequence Crete (22%). On Crete, three main many nesting areas are subject to beaches are used, two along the heavy human pressure, and are being northern coast and one on the south ploughed over to make way for new coast near the small village of Messara. constructions or destroyed or damaged The first two are renowned tourist hot from trampling, umbrellas or vehicles. spots. Rethimno beach spans some 12 kms, occupied principally by large Eggs that do manage to hatch also run hotel complexes which gradually peter the risk of being disoriented by lights out the further away from the town one along the beachfront from tavernas, goes. By contrast, Chania beach has a hotels, bars…. Normally, a hatchling large number of small pensions and will automatically orient itself towards ‘rooms to let’ along virtually the whole the sea, following the reflections of the of its 17 kms. Messara, meanwhile, is moon. Unfortunately, with strong little developed by tourism but it is artificial lighting they are just as likely next to one of the main cultivation to head for the local disco. areas in Crete – the Messara Plains. Additionally, a large number of nests are destroyed by seawater inundation. The threats The cause can be natural or man-made; Because sea turtles have this unique coastlines are dynamic ecosystems that habit of returning to the same nesting erode and accrete according to beaches, their survival is dependent on prevailing conditions such as strong

Life after LIFE Page 11 winds, which are predominant in the Society to try out some of the tactics summer months. If these natural forces that had worked successfully on are constrained, the natural repair Zakynthos on Crete. Efforts were process is disrupted, causing small-scale at first, for Archelon was continuous erosion and eventually a only a small NGO with few means. It loss of part, or all, of the beach. This was also faced with an initially hostile is precisely what happens if local population who had been aware constructions close to, or on the beach, of Archelon’s ‘reputation’ on are badly planned or put up illegally. Zakynthos. The lack of a land use strategy in Crete is therefore a major problem not only Yet the situation on Crete proved to be for the turtles but also for the tourism very different. Unlike on Zakynthos, industry itself. the density of nests per kilometre is relatively low. This means it should be The latter is also increasingly possible for turtles and humans to concerned by the overall trend in cohabit, provided certain conditions tourism in Crete. Business has dropped are respected. But first, the general in recent years by as much as 30%. To level of awareness about the sea turtle compensate, more and more charters had to be improved, as few islanders and cheap deals are being offered, but had in fact seen or heard of this instead of boosting revenues this just nocturnal creature. Coupled to this was brings in more tourists who spend less the need for sustained action to protect (average daily expenditure used to be the nesting sites on the three principal 400 €, now it is closer to 260 €). More beaches. Such a major campaign could tourists also means more people on the not be funded by the society alone, beaches and, as a result, added which is why, in 1995, Archelon pressure on the nesting turtles. Again, applied to LIFE-Nature for funds. the situation is exacerbated by the lack of a tourism strategy to help guide LIFE objectives future orientations in this sector. The overall objective of the LIFE The beneficiary project was to ensure the long-term recovery of the nesting populations of When Archelon (then known as the Caretta caretta in Crete and to secure Sea Turtle Protection Society) was set the legal protection and sustainable up in 1983, its primary aim was to management of its beaches through lobby and Natura 2000. work for the protection of The specific objectives were to the sea ¾ Protect as many clutches of nests turtles on the as possible island of ¾ Raise awareness about the sea Zakynthos. turtle with local inhabitants and Six years visitors later, having ¾ Develop a management plan which carried out a balances the conservation needs of nationwide the sea turtle with the local needs survey of turtle nesting beaches for sustainable development throughout Greece, it identified three further key areas. This stimulated the

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The actions assess the number of emerging hatchings. In areas of high human The project ran from April 1995 to activity, the nests were protected by December 1997. It had a total budget brightly coloured cages designed to of 535.867 euro, with 75% financing deter people from putting umbrellas from LIFE-Nature (Caretta caretta is a and deckchairs on top of them. If a priority species under the Habitats nest was felt to be too close to the sea Directive). Three main actions were and therefore vulnerable to inundation foreseen: recurring on-site or at very high risk of being damaged, management, awareness raising and the team would relocate it either higher capacity building. As a small and up the beach out of danger or into one relatively new NGO, Archelon needed of the hatcheries. Detailed statistics of to establish a proper infrastructure to these daily visits were collated at the be able to run the project efficiently. end of each season to establish annual Its first objective was therefore to records of nesting and hatching resource itself in basic equipment - success. cars, mopeds, computers, fax, tagging equipment… It also established a The increasing problem of sunbeds and working base and living camp at each umbrellas was also tackled. This of the beaches to accommodate the 100 lucrative business is not so much a volunteers recruited every summer to problem during the day, provided that help carry out most of the seasonal the sunbeds are not put on top of the activities. These were in turn under the nests, but they are a real danger at supervision of a core staff of 5 who night. The large and heavy sea turtle is organised their workload, consolidated unable to manoeuvre between the the data and provided the necessary chairs and will either abandon the nest training. site completely or lay too close to the water. So a major campaign was Actions on the 40 kms of nesting launched to persuade hotels and beaches included daily patrols to count sunbed operators to stack their chairs the number of turtle “landings” and at night at the back of the beach. nests laid and, later in the season, Similar campaigns were run to reduce light pollution at night to avoid disorienting the hatchlings, and to curb the use of vehicles on the beaches.

Regarding public awareness, all the major interest groups were targeted: local authorities, businesses, hotels, tourists and local schools. A panoply of brochures, colouring books and other documents were distributed. Presentations were made at the main hotels, information kiosks were set up at strategic points (e.g. the old harbour) in the three neighbouring towns and specific meetings were held for local

Brightly coloured cages designed to protect nesting sites Photo : K Sundseth

Life after LIFE Page 13 businesses and authorities. Schools enough to solve the problem; were also actively targeted, talks were legislation was needed to bring about given and competitions were launched the necessary changes. highlighting the turtles’ history and behaviour. The same is true for dimming lights at night, but thanks to the project, Lastly, a management plan for the mitigating measures could be found to long-term conservation of the sea turtle reduce the effect of light pollution in Crete was written up and circulated without necessarily disrupting local widely for consultation. The final businesses. For instance, the lamps version was presented to the local could be painted black on the half authorities for adoption at the end of facing the beach. Altogether some 25 the project. operators were eventually persuaded to introduce some changes for the sake of Results the turtle. The backbone of the project was its army of volunteers. Archelon’s ability to recruit such a large number of volunteers every year from across Europe made it possible to monitor all three beaches systematically. Without this manpower, only a proportion of what had been achieved could have been achieved. As a result, all identified nests were protected, an important point, considering that as many as 63% needed some form of active management – be it protection by cages (41%), relocation (22%) or transfer to hatcheries (7%).

Regarding the use of sunbeds, the project tried at first to stack these beds on behalf of the hoteliers, using the volunteers, but this was felt not to be a viable Simple measures can be used to stop lights from dazzling hatchlings on the beach Photo : K Sundseth solution in the long term. The emphasis turned instead on raising awareness, but this was met with only As far as awareness raising is partial success; hotels conscious of concerned, altogether some 300 their ‘green’ image were more likely to presentations were made at hotels to respond positively to such pleas than inform tourists of the conservation the small operators. It was clear that needs of sea turtles. This is estimated voluntary agreements and awareness to have reached around a quarter of a raising on their own would not be million visitors over the three years.

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On the domestic front the project counterproductive to insist on sea turtle managed to capture the imagination of protection ‘above all’. Nor was this the local press and radio stations. As a totally necessary, as the statistics result, regular news releases and indicated it should be possible for the newspaper articles were written. This, two to co-exist side by side provided coupled with the constant presence of certain precautions are taken. the volunteers every summer, meant However, in order to achieve this, the that most interest groups had, at some local communities, businesses and stage, come into contact with Archelon authorities would have to want to and been made aware of the needs of cooperate, and the only way of the species. achieving this was to raise their awareness of the sea turtles and of their Did the project achieve its objectives? potential added value for an ailing tourism industry. Thanks to its consensus building approach and clear strategy, the This, the project achieved with some beneficiary managed to establish itself degree of success: the number of in a short space of time as a powerful tourists informed about sea turtle advocate for the turtle on the island. It conservation was substantial, enough also succeeded in achieving all the to have an influence on the tour objectives set out under the LIFE operators, who later brought pressure project. The consistently high number to bear on the hotels to adopt more of volunteers every summer meant that turtle- friendly practices. Some of the all known turtle nesting sites on the larger hotel chains, such as Grechotel, three beaches could be protected using were particularly cooperative as they simple but highly effective tools. This also recognise the potential in turn provided enough information competitive edge green credentials about the sea turtles’ habits to gain a might give them. better understanding of the effects of certain activities on their behaviour. At a more local level, whereas at the outset almost nobody had heard of the As for raising awareness, the project sea turtle, by the end of the project decided at the outset that its approach virtually everybody was aware of its would be a pragmatic one, based existence on the island, and the general firmly on cooperation and attitude towards Archelon turned from collaboration. In such heavily touristed initial hostility to general tolerance. areas, it would have been

100%

90%

80%

70%

Missed

60%

Unprotected

50%

Hatchery

40%

Caged 30% 20% Changes 1992-97 in 10% management techniques 0% for nests in Rethimno 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 (Data from Archelon)

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However, when it came to curbing certain activities such as sunbeds or night lighting, the response was rather more mixed, illustrating that voluntary agreements alone would probably not be able to deliver the significant changes required. Hence the importance of the management plan. But, although the beneficiary had done its part in presenting a detailed plan to the Information kiosk in Chania’s old harbour Photo : K Sundseth authorities, the latter had few legal means of translating this into national law until the adoption later on of the Life after LIFE law requiring Specific Environmental. Studies. As a consequence, the Nest protection management plan was not translated into law as such by the end of the Since the end of the project, the project. number of volunteers coming to Crete every summer to work with Archelon almost doubled to 200. As many as Did the project require a follow-up? 20% are repeat volunteers from the The project achieved a tremendous previous year, illustrating the amount in a short space of time. Yet popularity of this scheme. This means voluntary agreements with cooperative that Archelon could maintain and even hoteliers, and seasonal beach patrols enhance its presence on the three by volunteers - whilst important in beaches. As a result, all nests and their own right –, were unlikely to hatchings are still monitored and the bring about viable long-term solutions information is, as before, assimilated for the conservation of the sea turtle in into annual reports on nesting and Crete. This could only really be hatching success in Crete. The high achieved through the adoption of volunteer levels also means that all appropriate legislation and the identified nests continue to be implementation of a strategic protected. Up to now no part of the management plan for the species. beach has had to be sacrificed for lack of manpower. The ideal follow-up would therefore be for the NGO to continue its awareness In terms of the techniques used, only campaign and voluntary beach patrols, one substantial change was introduced. but at the same time, for the authorities Transfers of vulnerable nests to to introduce legislation to regulate hatcheries used to be fairly systematic certain potentially destructive activities under the LIFE project, but, following and agree an overall sustainable international consultation and further development plan, marrying the needs trial work, it was decided that too little of the sea turtle with those of was known about the potentially sustainable land use. damaging effects of these transfers to warrant such a high level of

Life after LIFE Page 16 intervention. Instead, only the nests Capacity building that were sure to be destroyed are now moved. Archelon itself has gone from strength to strength since the end of the project. Public awareness raising Overall the Society has almost doubled in size since 1996 and is now one of Public awareness raising continues to the most important NGOs in Greece. be central to all of Archelon’s On Crete, it has expanded its staff from activities. The number of presentations just one and a half at the end of the made at the hotels increased to almost LIFE project to three and a half full- 600 a year, touching an average of times plus twelve seasonal workers. It 200,000 tourists – almost ten percent has also managed to diversify its of all tourists coming to Crete source of funding: sale of merchandise, annually. The information kiosks have collections, corporate sponsorship, also kept going and are regularly individual adoption programmes resourced with new information etc…altogether the annual revenue material, leaflets, T-shirts, CDs, from these activities represents more postcards, games etc… than was available under LIFE. Archelon also receives a lot of On a more local level, over a hundred contributions in kind, e.g. the use of presentations are made annually to land for their camp sites, or offices for local schools around Crete, this time their operations etc… but there have using more unconventional techniques been no specific grants since LIFE. like story telling and dance to get the message across. Archelon found that Legislation children are so up to date with the latest information technologies that Here, a distinction has to be made they fail to be impressed by yet more between the local and national context. educational material delivered in this In the case of the latter, the adoption of format. The theatre and expression a national law obliging all Natura 2000 groups, on the other hand, have the sites to have a ‘strategic environmental advantage not only of being fun but study’ done to determine the also novel. management prescriptions and rules needed, could have a major impact on Finally, thanks largely to the the sea turtle sites in Crete in due volunteers, regular contacts are course. But for the moment the process maintained with local businesses is only just getting off the ground and around the beaches. The volunteers’ so it will be some time before the presence is now implicitly accepted recommendations made in the and although the level of interest or management plan developed under the willingness to change existing LIFE project will see the light of day. practices remains mixed, at least a dialogue has been established. Nevertheless, some progress was made Archelon will now often receive calls in terms of the extent to which the from local tavernas informing them turtle nesting beaches in Crete were that young hatchlings were ‘going the designated as Natura 2000. By the end wrong way’, or from local of the LIFE project only about 20 % of entrepreneurs who wanted to check the beaches had been put forward but that their new initiatives would not by 1999 this had increased to 85% conflict with the sea turtles. thanks to the constant lobby of Archelon.

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On a more local level, things look, on and contact with the Sea Turtle the surface of it, rather more positive. Protection Society rather than as a The beneficiary succeeded in lobbying result of local authority intervention. In for strict conditions to be imposed on fact nobody has yet been fined or had the issuing of sunbed licences. Thus, their licence revoked for not respecting only half the beach could be used and its conditions. all beds had to be 3 metres apart and stacked at night. Other measures were It is not clear why the local authorities introduced through cross-compliance have not taken up their responsibilities with more general legal schemes such for the sea turtle, which is after all a as the Blue Flag initiative. Originally protected species; perhaps because of this award had little value in Greece recent changes in government structure since it was based on bathing water or lack of human resources. quality (virtually all beaches Alternatively, it may be that certain qualified!), but once the implementing authorities remain convinced that mass body, the Hellenic Society for Nature tourism, even at the expense of high- Conservation, introduced stricter quality tourism, is essential for Crete’s conditions, the Blue Flag became a economy and are reluctant to support much more prestigious award and a anything that could be perceived as a particularly important one for the brake on this development. tourism industry. One of the conditions was that beaches harbouring Archelon continues to lobby for a more the sea turtle were also obliged to strategic approach to land use planning comply with a whole range of in Crete, but in the meantime, it is also measures, from sunbeds to lighting, to trying to find other ways to encourage beach cleaning, use of vehicles etc… a more sustainable approach to tourism. It is, for instance, Unfortunately, whilst these laws were collaborating with some of the more both strong and theoretically effective, enlightened municipalities on Crete to it seems that they are poorly develop proposals for funding under implemented. Only 40% of the sunbed the EU’s regional programmes. Two owners, for instance, comply with the such proposals are currently being licensing conditions. That 40% considered. Their main focus will be compliance has been reached is most on beach erosion surveys, dune likely due to the continued pressure restoration, establishment of an

The loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta Photo : Archelon

Life after LIFE Page 18 environmental centre for education Incentive value etc… By being involved so early on, Archelon is able to ensure that the The principal pump-priming effect of needs of the sea turtle are also taken the project was the influence it had on into account and wherever possible the beneficiary itself. This small NGO benefit from the actions proposed. was just struggling to establish itself on Crete when it applied to LIFE. The project not only gave it much-needed funding to get started, but also the Overall assessment moral support needed to be taken seriously. The beneficiary is now self- Conservation benefit sustaining. As a result most of the It is clear that the LIFE project has work started up under the LIFE project been vital for the survival of the sea has continued and even expanded – turtle on the island of Crete. Thanks to and, according the beneficiary, it will this project, all identified nest sites probably stay that way now for as long have been protected. It will of course as there are sea turtles nesting on be a long time before the true extent of Crete. this action on the species will be known, if at all. But already at this Demonstration value/ local interest stage it is fair to say that one of the The project set out to demonstrate that most important achievements of the sea turtles and tourism can live side by project has been its ability to convince side provided certain precautions are people that tourism and sea turtles can taken. The relative simplicity of some co-habit on the same beaches, provided of the measures used (e.g. cages that certain restrictions are respected. It around sites, painting lamps …) help to does not have to be a question of illustrate this and encourage hoteliers development versus conservation. to adopt similar measures. From this perspective alone, the project had a Looking at the conservation status of strong demonstration value. the sea turtle in Greece as a whole, it is The beneficiary’s strong public interesting to note that this LIFE awareness campaign and the fact that it project was in fact one of several run placed so much emphasis on by the same NGO. LIFE projects have cooperation and collaboration, has also also taken place in Zakythnos and in undoubtedly helped to change people’s the bay of Lakonikos, using similar attitudes – both locally and approaches as for Crete: nest internationally. Since 1995, it is protection and public awareness estimated that over three quarters of a raising. There are therefore efforts million tourists listened to one of the underway to protect all of the principal sea turtle presentations at the hotels. nesting sites for the sea turtle in This change in attitude can have a Greece. But little has been done so far powerful lobbying effect. For instance, to address the threats to the adult the major German tour operator TUI population whilst at sea, for instance wrote to the local authorities and hotel from bycatches or collision with ships. chains to insist on further changes in This was not in the remit of the present favour of the sea turtle so as to be able LIFE project but, if the sea turtle is to to address the large number of survive, it will be essential to start complaints it had received from recent working on this massive problem. visitors to the island.

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However, not all those who introduced sunbed stacking or lighting, but also turtle-friendly measures were able to the more strategic problems of coastal fully exploit their good works in their erosion, illegal constructions and an publicity material. This is because it ailing tourism trade. If the Study creates the impression that Crete is a manages to address these problems in a sea turtle haven with pristine beaches way that is favourable to the sea turtle, and well-regulated activities. Whilst then things will be going the right way. this may be true for the hotel’s own Then the next major challenge will be beaches, it is definitely not the case for to ensure that the management those outside the hotel’s control. Only prescriptions are properly implemented properly enforced legislation will bring – even if it means grasping the nettle about the necessary changes. of illegal constructions, which is a major issue in Greece generally. And here, as this case study has shown, the results are less tangible. Clearly the As for the survival of the sea turtle? LIFE project has helped to bring about Up to now, the focus has been on only some of the necessary changes, but one part of its life cycle, when it comes their impact is severely compromised on land. Yet if there is to be any hope by the fact that the authorities of saving the species from extinction, responsible for enforcing them seem in the longer run it will be essential to unable or unwilling to ensure their address the problems it faces as an effective implementation. All the NGO adult out at sea. Not only does this can do is ensure a regular presence on involve complex logistics but it is also the beach and highlight any abuses of likely to tread on the toes of some very the law when they come across them. powerful vested interests, such as the fishing industry. This is a very challenging task. The Future

So, despite the success of the LIFE For further information, contact: project, there is still much to do to Mr Thanos Belalides, Archelon protect the sea turtle in Crete and in Solomou 57, 10432 Athens, Greece Greece generally. The most important tel/fax +30 1 523342, email: [email protected], task now is for the government web: www.archelon.gr authorities to draw up a Specific Environmental Study for the NATURA 2000 sites hosting sea turtle nesting sites. This should tackle not only the ‘simpler’ issues such as

Conservation Incentive value Demonstration Public interest benefit potential All nest sites NGO now well Demonstrated that 10% of all tourists on protected, 85% of established and turtles and tourism Crete were given the nesting beaches continues to work for can live together presentations on the now under NATURA the turtle. Several provided certain fate of the sea turtle, 2000. Local laws hotel chains adopted precautions are local awareness also introduced to turtle protection taken significantly address some of the measures of their increased problems own initiative.

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS Etang Hamant : a continental salt marsh Photo : A Gazenbeek Beneficiary: Parc Naturel Régional de Lorraine (PNRL) with Conservatoire Case Study II: des Sites Lorrains (CSL) as partner

Budget: At the seaside in 800,000 €

EC co-finance: the meadows 50%

Duration The context Sept 1992 – Oct 1997 415 km from the nearest coast, in the Location middle of the sweeping farmland of Lorraine, France Lorraine, salt marshes (‘prés salés’) Habitat /species: suddenly pop up, with briny water, Continental salt expanses of Salicornia and other marshes – a priority salt-loving plants normally found on habitat the seaside, and even miniature mud type flats and creeks just like in the Wadden Sea. Altogether incongruous, and an unusual occurrence indeed – such inland (or ‘continental’) salt marshes are among the rarest habitats in the EU. There is only one in Great Britain, a few near the Austro-Hungarian border and a handful in northern and eastern Germany. That’s it.

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The Lorraine salt marsh territory (and LIFE- Threats and trends Nature project area) covers 3,000 ha and extends over three broad, shallow valleys There used to be more salt marshes in occupied by the Seille river and its tributaries Lorraine, but these disappeared under the between Chateau-Salins and Dieuze. The impact of civilisation. Only the Seille is left, underlying geological formations include salt- but 50% of its halophytic habitats were lost in bearing strata laid down in ancient seas over the past 100 years. 200 million years ago. When groundwater percolates through them, the salt is dissolved, As early as 1000 BC, brine from springs in making the water as briny as the North Sea. the Seille was boiled in clay pots Wherever this water wells up, salt marshes (‘briquetage’) leaving the salt behind. occur as islands in the grassland of the Although this industry depleted local forests, valleys. it did give reason for maintaining the salt springs and their vegetation. In 1800 the Fair enough, but how did the Salicornia and Seille valley was still largely a swamp. other halophytic (salt-loving) plants normally found hundreds of km away along the coast, Then the first drainage ditches were dug in get here? They are true copies of the the 1840s, and the drained land was used as Puccinellietalia distantis association of hayfield in spring and as pasture in summer coastal salt marshes, even with one endemic, and autumn (ironically, it is this 19th century found nowhere else in Europe, Salicornia land use that the agri-environment contracts vicensis. No-one knows for sure, but theories produced by the LIFE-Nature project try to are that seeds were blown by the wind, or restore). In the 1960s this relatively benign were brought here by waterfowl flying inland land use began to shift. Fencing allowed more from the coast. intensive grazing. Fertiliser use stimulated grass growth and allowed earlier mowing (first mowing in mid-May, second in mid- July). Deeper drains allowed cereals to be grown. All this crowded out the unique salt marsh vegetation.

Also, the wettest parts of the valley and its salt marshes had previously been mowed using horses, but as these animals were replaced by tractors, it was found that tractors simply are too heavy for this sort of land. These sections were abandoned and became invaded by Phragmites reeds, which choked the Salicornia vegetation. Lastly, at least 4 springs were converted into ponds for waterfowl shooting (‘étangs cynegetiques’) in the late 1980s.

Salicornia vicensis Photo : Conservatoire des Sites Lorrains

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LIFE objectives A prolongation was granted by the Commission to give more opportunity for To stop the continuing degradation of the salt land purchase, but this did not fully work out. marshes, two entities (the Parc Naturel i The project thus ended up spending only Régional de Lorraine (PNRL) and the 653,000 euro, instead of the 800,000 foreseen. Conservatoire des Sites Lorrains (CSL))ii formed a partnership and applied for LIFE- Nature funding. Cofinance was supplied by the Direction Régionale de l’Environnement The actions iii (DIREN) de Lorraine. Vegetation survey and management plans The vegetation survey carried out at the start The project had a three-pronged approach: of the project found 10 salt marsh subsites 1. First, a vegetation survey to find the exact covering 231 ha in all, plus transition zones boundaries of the most critical zones, around some of them, covering a further 187 followed by management plans for all of ha. All ten subsites are scattered within the the 10 salt marsh subsites in the Seille. meadows of the three valleys. They range 2. Gaining control over the 250 ha of salt from spectacular subsites such as Etang marshes (core zone) through purchase or Hamant, a botanically and morphologically long-term lease, and then installing a perfect ‘coastal salt marsh in miniature’, to system of land use based on low-key hay the more discreet, such as Grands Roseaux or cutting and grazing. I.e. a return to the Ancienne Saline, where unusual plants are past! tucked away between the grasses of a 3. Promoting the introduction of an agri- meadow. The survey also provided a baseline environment regime to the remaining 2750 for future monitoring. Later on, LIFE-Nature ha of land in the valleys, to provide a cofinanced the first systematic entomological buffer around the salt marshes. study of these sites. 4. These were flanked by awareness-raising measures for the local interest groups. Management plans were also drawn up for all Because the management contracts for sites, except the two, where land purchase farmers were later included in the agri- failed (see below). environment schemes cofinanced by 2078/92, so that LIFE-Nature no longer needed to pay Land acquisition for them as originally thought, a considerable Acquisition was considered necessary slice of the budget was subsequently re- because the salt marsh habitats were no longer assigned to land purchase. being managed appropriately or were even not being used at all. Ownership would make it possible to restore the sites to their former glory. In total 87 ha was purchased by the CSL in the 231 ha core zone. With the 20.5 ha bought and 0.8 ha leased before LIFE-Nature, this meant that a total of 108 ha (almost half of the core zone) was in conservation ownership by the end of the project. In the transition zone, only 14.9 ha was bought, and 3.7 ha leased for 18 years.

Although this was well short of the full control envisaged, at subsite level the outcome is more subtle. The entire core Etang Hamant Photo :A Gazenbeek

Life after LIFE Page 24 zone of Etang Hamant, one of the best Ensuring appropriate recurring management subsites, and nearly half its transition zone via agri-environment was acquired. In three other subsites, The next step after acquisition was to make including Pré Léo, one of only two places sure that the salt marsh habitats would be with the endemic Salicornia vicensis, two- managed appropriately. This would have to be thirds of the core zone was acquired. The done through regular management activities subsite Les Malaquits already belonged to a such as hay cutting and grazing. Rather than municipality, which was interested in doing it with own (limited) resources, the maintaining it for nature tourism (a trail and beneficiary formulated a specific management observation point were built). In three further contract (dubbed the ‘contrat C’) for the land subsites results were only middling, between it owns. In it, the CSL remains owner of the 25 and 45% acquired, whilst the project failed land but makes it available free of charge for completely in the subsites Basse Récourt and 5 years to a farmer, who is obliged to use it in Grange Fouquet, where nothing was acquired the way prescribed. at all. The 'contrat C' terms sought to restore the On some of the core or transition zone land 19th - early 20th century form of farming which was not acquired, agri-environment (late mowing after July 1, no fertilisers, no contracts were concluded with the farmers to phytopharmaceuticals, grazing from July to use this land in a manner which is not November 1st only). The consequent loss of harming the halophytic habitats. For instance, output to be compensated was calculated at although 6 ha in the Etang Hamant subsite’s 213 €/ha/year, but 91 €/ha/year was deducted transition zone was not purchased, nearly all to account for the gain to the farmer of not of it (5.5 ha) is under such agri-environment paying a lease. This left a net annual payment contracts, which means that 98% of this of 122 €/ha/year. C contracts were only particular subsite (core and transition zone) is offered for land owned by CSL. Farmers who now under conservation-oriented manage- did not want to sign up, nonetheless had ment. prescriptions imposed if they used CSL property and they had to pay rent.

HOW WAS THE LIFE-NATURE PROJECT VIEWED BY THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR?

The farmers are the stakeholders most affected by this project, so we met with a representative of the local farmers, M. Remillon, who has himself entered into management contracts (mostly C) for 30 ha altogether. According to him, local agriculture is viable. Farmers grow grain on the higher land while the Seille valleys are mainly grassland (grazing and hay) with some cropping. Income is sufficient; any farm on the market easily draws 20 or more punters. The problem is that the high capital cost of buying into a farm makes it financially crippling for young farmers to enter the profession.

Land purchase by the LIFE project was tolerated, because the land remained in agricultural use (being leased back via the C contracts), we were told. M. Remillon said that mowing makes farming sense on its own, and is not done simply to pocket agri-environment premia. The hay is used, even when it is mowed as late as July, for, although unsuitable for dairy cattle, such late hay is fine for suckler cows and sheep. Furthermore, because farmers can sign up to a mixture of contracts, they usually end up with different mowing times spread over their holding, leading to a constant supply of hay, with the most humid, halophytic areas being mowed last of all. Overall, M. Remillon underlined that the LIFE-Nature project management was diplomatic in its dealings and had always made it clear that collaboration by farmers would be voluntary.

Initially many farmers feared conservation prescriptions would be imposed, but some were willing to try and when agri-environment proved a success, most farmers changed their minds .One criticism he did have was that he, and other farmers participating in the agri-environment contracts, would like to know more about the impact on the flora of the management they do. According to him, there is a chronic communications deficit in this regard with farmers (and others too: many locals are still not aware of the uniqueness of the salt marshes). This interesting point was also raised by foresters in the Jura.

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Parallel to the conservation-oriented C Parallel to the LIFE-Nature project, but contract, other agri-environment contracts, funded from other sources, a nature trail with dubbed A & B, were formulated to offer to observation point and information panels was farmers who still owned land in the core laid out at the Les Malaquits saline spring zones, or to farmers in the buffer zones. These near Marsal, which has a local heritage imposed varying degrees of constraint in museum, the Musée de Sel (visited by 15,000 terms of mowing dates and grazing densities. people a year). Combining the two is clever, A number of farmers in the core and but unfortunately there is no reference to transition zones did indeed take up such LIFE-Nature or Natura 2000 to be found contracts. along this trail, which is a bit of a missed opportunity. The LIFE-Nature project did All these contracts were approved by the collaborate with the museum in a joint nature French Ministry of Agriculture and the education programme, which was being used European Commission in July-Oct. 1995, by 1200-1400 people a year by the end of the which meant they could be cofinanced by EU project. Regulation 2078/92. This was a turning point for the LIFE-Nature project. Until then, farmers had been sceptical, holding back on committing themselves, but when they saw that the grants were in the bag, there was a rush to sign up. At project end (early 1997) 78.7 ha was under contract C, involving 20 different farmers, which means 3/4 of the land owned by the CSL was being managed in favour of halophytic plant communities.

Other recurring management In areas like reedbeds where farmers could Information panel at Etang Hamant Photo : A Gazenbeek not operate, the CSL’s own workmen cleared reeds to re-open the salt marshes.

Communications with the wider community A newsletter, 'Horizons', was published in Life after LIFE 10,000 copies in June 1994 by the LIFE- Nature project. It gives a user-friendly Land purchase introduction to the salt marshes and their history, describes the project and its goals and The CSL has continued acquisition, but at a gives an overview of all the agri-environment much slower rate (15.8 ha since LIFE) as it contracts. Truly a quality product! It is a pity has to be financed out of its annual operating that it was not been followed up with a second budget. A factor to bear in mind is that land and third issue. prices have risen above the maximum price used during the LIFE-Nature project because Site visits were also organised for farmers, of the demand for land among farmers during which the rare salt marsh plants were (agriculture is doing well in this district). In shown. This led to reactions like, “So that’s 1998 and 1999 8.8 ha was bought. Since July what it is! I have been mowing 30 years and 2000, changes to national law allow the did not realise this plant was so special”. SAFER (French agri-structural authority) the Often enough, once farmers realised this, they right of first option if it is buying for were more willing to help via management environmental reasons. This has already contracts. proved helpful - the SAFER Lorraine used

Life after LIFE Page 26 this right to buy 6 of the 7 ha acquired by the Recurring biotope management CSL in 2000. Reed cutting and other management work in However, no breakthrough yet at the two the wettest, most inaccessible areas no longer subsites where purchase did not succeed used by farmers, has continued, using the during the LIFE project: CSL’s workers. • Le Grange Fouquet: its owner is viscerally opposed to conservation and refuses to The area covered by the C contracts with sell, or manage the site. This is serious, as farmers, cofinanced by the agri-environment Le Grange Fouquet is the only subsite, programme, has remained the same in the apart from Pré Léo, which hosts the core zones. These contracts all had 5 years endemic plant Salicornia vicensis. It is duration, and started coming to an end in being choked by reeds and biotope December 2000. It appears that the farmers management is urgently needed want to continue the contracts. • Basse Récourt: its owner wanted to keep However, because of the current transition the land, but negotiations for an 18-year from Regulation 2078/92 to the new lease are currently going on. Here, programmes foreseen under Regulation therefore, a happy end is possible. 1257/99, and various political delays, new contracts can only start again in 2002, leaving Natura 2000 designation a one-year gap. It is very surprising that not one of the ten Finally, a new measure was undertaken after LIFE-Nature subsites had any legal protection LIFE to try to save the endemic plant under French law at the end of the project. Salicornia vicensis which is only found in two They were not part of the Natura 2000 subsites (Pré Léo and Le Grange Fouquet), network either. Given their value at EU level, one of which is out of bounds to conservation this was quite unacceptable. Because large management, and which appears to be losing parts of the core zones had been purchased by ground. Seeds have been brought to the a conservation body, designating these could botanical garden in Nancy, where it has been hardly be a political problem. successfully cultivated (just in case...). In September 1998 1345 ha were finally proposed as pSCI (‘Vallee de la Seille’) by the DIREN. Although considerably smaller than the LIFE project area, the pSCI does cover the greater part of the lowlands along the Seille river and its tributaries with the notable exception of the Marsal- Lezey valley, where only fragments are designated. However, all ten LIFE subsites are included.

Anciennes Salines where reeds were cut in 2000 Photo : A Gazenbeek

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Management plans 2000 process). There are talks with the Musée du Sel at Marsal to add exhibits on salt marsh The 8 management plans produced by LIFE- habitats to the other heritage aspects on Nature will be revised by the CSL in 2001 to display. fit into the management planning for the new Natura 2000 site. In the French national This is a great pity considering the level of strategy for pSCI management planning, a interest and curiosity expressed by the framework document (Document d’Objectif) farmers themselves about the salt marshes. valid for 6 years at a time will set the conservation objectives, describe all the stakeholders and define the responsibilities of each of them. Overall assessment

The procedure to draw up a Document Conservation benefit d’Objectif for the Seille valley was launched in October 2000 by the DIREN via an ‘Arrêté The action taken by the project (land purchase Préfectoral’ (decree of the prefect of the with leaseback under strict conditions, Département de Moselle). The PNRL together recurring management via own staff or agri- with the Chambre d’Agriculture will be environment measures) has definitely had responsible for drafting the document, which tangible, positive effects: is expected to focus on the role of the farmers • 50% of the 231 ha of core zones and to define the technical and financial harbouring the unique salt marsh habitats aspects of the measures and management is now owned by the CSL, guaranteeing contracts for the salt marshes and humid their long-term preservation and grasslands. This Document d’Objectif is to be conservation management ready by March 2002. • destruction of humid grasslands through drainage or ploughing has stopped the wettest, most central zones, which were Scientific monitoring and research • being abandoned, are now being mowed Monitoring plots laid out to compare the annually, so that their invasion by situation of the 1994 LIFE-Nature vegetation Phragmites reeds is being rolled back study with development since, were surveyed • less humid zones around these wet cores, in 1997 and in 2000. A follow-up study to which were being mowed, but too examine in depth the discoveries made by the intensively, and were becoming eutrophic LIFE-Nature entomological survey was through fertiliser application, are now launched after the project by the Région farmed more appropriately. Lorraine. The phytosociological map made at the beginning of the LIFE project is being These broad-brush improvements should be updated. reflected in the evolution of the vegetation. The monitoring plot surveys of 1997 noted LIFE-Nature revealed where the gaps in only a slight increase in biodiversity vis-à-vis knowledge were; studies to fill these gaps will the 1994 baseline, but the 2000 results, which be a task for the Natura 2000 management are currently being evaluated, do show a plans being made for the Seille valley pSCI. definite conservation benefit. A preview of this research indicates that, in the very saline Communications with the wider community areas, the number of plant species has increased by 25% on the plots subjected to Direct publicity for the salt marsh habitats agricultural extensification since 1995. appears to have come to an end after the LIFE-Nature project (CSL and PNRL were The species which have benefited are mainly instead much absorbed by the regional Natura halophytes of high conservation interest;

Life after LIFE Page 28 some did not even occur on the plots The incentive value previously. In the meadows with a medium to low salinity, the increase in plant diversity The CSL and PNRL had been collaborating (expressed in species) varies from 42% to on salt marshes since 1984. The CSL had also 63%, depending on the level of agricultural built up experience with management extensification. contracts for farmers elsewhere, and saw their potential in the Seille valley. A summary of these results will be published in a brochure by the Agence de l’Eau Rhin- What LIFE-Nature did, was to provide a big Meuse in April 2001 and a full scientific enough investment fund to allow land publication on the dynamics of the halophytic purchase and biotope management to really vegetation and the impact of agri- make a giant step forward. That was certainly environmental measures, is foreseen by the project’s ambition. The CSL was Frédéric Mony in 2002. responsible for all of Lorraine and the PNRL covered a very large area of land, so inside In terms of legislation now all ten sites are both organisations the Seille salt marshes had proposed as pSCIs thanks to the project. This to stand in line for a share of the normal will be particularly important for those sites budgets. This meant a slow and piecemeal where the owners have shown strong investment process. The LIFE-Nature budget opposition to any cooperation or support for was about equivalent to the entire annual more conservation-friendly practices. budget of either PNRL or CSL, which shows what a difference EU support made! The example of Grange Fouquet illustrates how legal protection can make a difference. Although the original ambition to secure all During and after the LIFE-Nature project, Le the salt marshes in one fell swoop did not Grange Fouquet was at the mercy of its come about (simply too ambitious!), at the private owner, with almost no possibility to end of the LIFE-Nature project CSL owned 5 intervene if the habitats there were destroyed. times as much land as before, and in four of This shows the limit of the conciliatory the ten subsites it had become the dominant approach. However, since the subsite has landowner. So LIFE did give a major boost to been included in the Seille pSCI, Art. 6 of the earlier conservation efforts. Habitats Directive can be invoked at least against site destruction (but can not be used to Moreover, the management contracts for force appropriate management or habitat farmers developed by the project were improvement - here the classic instruments integrated into the agri-environment schemes like land purchase or management agreements funded via Regulation 2078/92, which remain as valid as before). Similarly, demonstrates its strong incentive effect. It is concerning the on-going risk of drainage and also a good example of integrating intensification of land around the ten core conservation into other policies and of sites, pSCI designation means that Article 6 synergy between EU instruments. now applies to these too. Demonstration potential In short, the saline springs with their highly Promotion of agri-environmental contracts specialised fauna and flora have been with farmers, to ensure recurring maintained in a good condition, which is management, was very successful; the project already an important result, and the meadows did good work here in convincing farmers to around them, including their halophytic sign up. These contracts are now coming to an vegetation, are reacting favourably to the end but farmers appear to wish to continue management regimes. them. Relations seem to be good, and that can only be applauded.

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contributed to willingness to sell land and enter into agri-environmental management contracts. This is a classic example of how even minor changes to complex and abstruse subsidy and market support structures like the CAP maize premia, have considerable knock- on effects, for good or for bad, at a local conservation level

Relations with local interest groups The effects of the project on local interest groups have been multiple, if rather modest. In terms of influencing damaging activities, the following examples illustrate the benefit of having a focus and presence on the site through LIFE in the absence of legislative protection.

During the LIFE-Nature project, plans by utility companies to lay power lines and telecommunications cables through salt marsh areas cropped up. After talks, the plans were modified to avoid valuable habitats. Moreover, a military reconnaisance unit based Anciennes Salines – salty pools returning after management Photo: A Gazenbeek at barracks near Etang Hamant often went on maneouvres through the salt marsh there. There was also a shift in overall farming Interventions by CSL and PNRL have policy which will have had an indirect impact brought this to an end. on the success of the project as well. Up to 1992 there was a trend to convert grassland in The LIFE-Nature label itself played a role, the Seille valley to maize or wheat. Although through the positive awareness effect when the salt marshes themselves are unsuitable for local people discover to their surprise that corn, the humid grasslands surrounding them their familiar ordinary hay meadows have were very much affected. Arable conversion value at European level. This effect and abandonment of land use in the core apparently helped win over several farmers. zones were the two principal threats to the ecosystem. Reversing them was one of the Interesting is that the farmer we spoke to said main justifications for the LIFE-Nature he would like to know more about the impact project, particularly its land purchase strategy. of the management he does on the flora. A However, the 1992 CAP reform stopped similar remark was made by private foresters arable conversion - premia for grain are now in the Flashback project for capercaillie in the only given if the farmer can prove the land Jura. Feedback between the project was first ploughed before 1992. management and the stakeholders who cooperate with a project is certainly a kind of Grassland converted after that does not awareness work that deserves to be promoted, qualify. This external development has thus as its added value is very high. It is a pity removed an incentive to convert meadows to therefore that the project did not continue maize, lessening the threat of agricultural with its publications, such as the excellent intensification and drainage inside the LIFE- “Horizon Seille’ Nature project area. It also must have

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In the same vein, although continuation of the good, but far short of the original target. Any LIFE work is chugging along, there is not the expansion of these buffers, especially when same level of drive and exploitation of they eliminate maizefields still near the core opportunities there would be if there was at zones, would be positive. At the moment least one person fully dedicated to salt marsh almost half of the pSCI is ‘improved conservation. Employees of PNRL and CSL grassland’ and arable land; the rest is salt are taking care of the Seille, but have to do marsh and semi-natural humid meadows with this besides their many other tasks over the conservation value. large geographic area covered by the two bodies. Improvement of plant biodiversity can only be expected on land used by farmers under Still, all in all the project and its continuation management contract, or mowed by the seem to be addressing three of the five CSL’s own workers (reedbeds). The very principal factors affecting conservation status heart of the core zones, the springs, mudflats (recurring management of the meadows, and patches of open salty water (‘mares’) counteracting reed proliferation, preventing where Salicornia and the other really extreme intensification of land use) rather well. The halophytic plants grow, are not affected by fourth, legislative protection, has finally been any of these measures. Yet do they need achieved, while the fifth, hydrology, has so management? The ex-beneficiaries are far been neglected. Research has however currently in contact with the Tour du Valat begun into the hydrology of the saline wetland ecology station to examine which sources, as this is little known but could be factors determine the conservation status of very important for the overall conservation these extreme saline environments. The CSL status. and PNRL are also starting a programme to monitor the salinity and hydrology of the subsites, to see if hydrological actions are needed. The future Although, thanks to the purchases, drainage of meadows no longer is an issue in the core The most important task now is to ensure that zones, the rest of the Seille valley is still recurring management continues. On the 142 subject to drainage plans. In Lorraine the ha land acquired so far, prospects look authorities subsidise farmland drainage work reassuring. If, for whatever reason, farmers do and the Conseil Général de Moselle, which not renew their agri-environment contracts coordinates these subsidies, had by 1996 from 2001 onwards, the land remains under adopted a procedure to check all applications the control of the ex-LIFE beneficiaries, for subsidies which affected the LIFE-Nature although they would of course have a problem project area, with CSL and PNRL. This in managing it. The situation is rather more sounds encouraging, but the system is not yet complex for the rest of the project area, where foolproof as various near-misses have a farmer who has completed a five-year agri- testified. Clearly, communicating the environment contract for the meadows he conservation values to all decision-makers owns could decide to stop and go back to a needs to be stepped up, but it also highlights more intensive use, negating whatever the lack of legal protection for so long. Now conservation benefit has been achieved. Land the sites have been designated pSCI, more purchase as conservation strategy is thus notice will presumably be taken of them by completely vindicated here. all concerned. About 500 ha of the 1345 ha pSCI surrounding the salt marshes is under some sort of agri-environment regime, which is

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Conservation benefit Incentive value Demonstration Public interest potential All core sites protected Quantum leap after Demonstrated the Raised thanks to through Natura 2000 now, earlier small-scale potential link that can the LIFE project but conservation within 50% conservation action for be established could be of the core areas secured this priority habitat type between conservation substantially and conservation- friendly through injection of and farming through improved in view of techniques adopted in significant funds. Ball the use of agri- local interest, significant tracts of has kept rolling since. environment schemes especially by remainder, including for active management farmers, to know buffer areas. of the salt marshes. more about these habitat types.

During the LIFE-Nature project, the new road Chesny-Heming cropped up as a threat, as it was planned to cut through the Basse Récourt subsite. The road is now being built, but no longer affects Basse Récourt. Instead, where it by-passes Moyenvic village, the route might affect the Pré Léo subsite, one of the most For further information, contact: valuable. The exact route is still under • Frédéric Bréton, Conservatoire des Sites Lorrains, 7 place Albert Schweitzer, F- discussion, but there is a dilemma between 57930 Fénétrange, tel +33-387.03.00.90, damaging the salt marsh or having the road fax +33-387-03.00.97, email too close to the village (noise!). [email protected] • Laurent Godet, Parc Régional de Lorraine, In this context of threats and risks, an ‘Atlas Chemin des Clos, Domaine de Charmilly, Communal’ is being prepared by a F-54703 Pont-a-Mousson. Tel +33 383 81 67 67, fax +33 383 81 33 60 email: consortium of conservation entities and [email protected] experts, which maps each municipality in the • Frédéric Mony (for scientific questions) region, grading the territory according to its Equipe de Phytoécologie – UPRES, ecological value and fragility. This will be EBSE Campus Bridous – Université de useful to assess which drainage, road-building Metz,2 Rue du Général Delestraint, 57070 and other activities could be harmful, and Metz, Tel +33 387 37 84 24, fax +33 387 37 84 23 email: [email protected] would make planning much easier.

i The Parc Naturel Régional de Lorraine (PNRL) is a voluntary collaborative structure between 186 municipalities covering 220,000 ha in Lorraine with a population of 80,000. The municipalities agree to support a charter (which has to be approved by the national Environment Ministry to get the regional nature park label) to safeguard the natural and cultural heritage and promote rational land use and sustainable economic development. iiThe Conservatoire des Sites Lorrains (CSL) is a regional NGO whose mission is to manage nature areas. It does this via land purchase or lease and/or ensuring appropriate use of conservation land, either directly or via contracts with landowners or land users. There is a ‘conservatoire’ in each French region and they have set up an umbrella organisation called Espaces Naturels de France (ENF). iii France’s Ministry for the Environment and Land Use Planning (Ministère de l’Amenagement du Territoire et de l’Environnement) has a decentralised network of agencies covering the national territory, one in each of the administrative regions making up the country. These agencies are called Direction Régionale de l’Environnement (DIREN) and the one responsible for Lorraine was the partner in this project.

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS View down main north-south valley between Monte Sirente and Beneficiary: Monte Velino Photo: A Gazenbeek Ente Parco Naturale Regionale Sirente- Velino Case Study III: Budget: 400.000 € Ups and Downs in EC co-finance: 75% Sirente-Velino NP Duration Jan 1995 – July 1997 The context Location Apennines, Italy Describing a project area extending Habitat /species: over 60,000 ha, in a few words, is Brown bear (a priority not an easy task. The LIFE-Nature species), Chasmophytic project ‘Habitat Gole Rupestri’, vegetation on rocky named after the gorges (gole) which slopes were one of its prime targets, coincided with an SPA, most of which is now also pSCI. Two great mountain massifs, one in the west (Velino) and one in the middle (Sirente), both rising to over 2000 metres, dominate the Natura 2000 area. Their jagged limestone peaks rise over extensive ‘altipiani’, haunting, high-altitude landscapes of desolate steppe-like grassland dotted by rocky outcrops.

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Lower down are forests of oak and which was released in the Mt. Velino beech, which because of a long history area recently. Lynx and wild cat are of coppicing mainly consist of scrubby also found here; the latter has even trees with thin trunks, but here and been spotted in the farmland of the Val there are squat, gnarled, thick-set Subequana. Meanwhile, bears, a beeches that are 200 years and more priority species under the Habitats old. Deep gorges with remarkable Directive, occur as wandering chasmophytic vegetation cut into the individuals, mainly in spring and south rim of this plateau, where the summer, more rarely in autumn, but do land falls away to the Avezzano basin. not winter here. Between 1996 and 2000 the park wardens collected a total Between the two mountains is a north- of 81 signs (visual sightings, south valley (Ovindoli-Rocca di droppings, prints, carcasses) of wolf Cambio), with meadows, fields and presence and 83 of bear presence. It is several villages. Within easy motorway thought there are two packs of wolves reach of Rome, it has attracted winter (maybe 15 individuals together) and sporters, day trippers and people from 2 to 5 transient bears. buying houses to use as summer getaways. Another valley, the Val Sirente-Velino lies smack between the Subequana, lies north-east of Mt. famed Abruzzo national park and Sirente. It is more populated, and Maiella to the south and Gran Sasso, devoted to farming (hay, grain, small- Monti Sibillini and the new Ernici- scale vineyards and orchards). It used Simbruini regional park to the north. to be very prosperous, with water mills These outstanding natural areas form a in every village, but it is now the most coherent mega-complex of truly depressed part of the park, with European significance, which could be constant depopulation and emigration marketed as one of the crown jewels in since 1945. Most inhabitants are now the Natura 2000 network. Within this elderly people living off their pensions; mega-complex Sirente-Velino has a young people tend to move out. pivotal position. The Rome-Pescara motorway has created a barrier to This diverse landscape has a rich terrestrial migration from Maiella and wildlife. The golden eagle and many the Abruzzo park to the other four. The other Annex I birds occur here, only place where wildlife can cross is including the vulture Gyps fulvus where this motorway goes under the

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Top of the Gole di Aielli-Celano Photo: A Gazenbeek ranges in tunnels, which happens to be immediately adjacent to the southeast corner of Sirente-Velino. So, it represents a critical ecological corridor which allows gene flow through the central Apennine parks, thus preventing population fragmentation and genetic isolation for many important animal and plant species. 250,000 €/year for the park’s operational costs. During the first 6 Lead-up to the LIFE project years, these annual budgets were Given all this, a movement to establish accumulated as an investment fund, a nature park covering Sirente-Velino which grew to 1.25 million € by 1994 began in the 1960s. After persistent and was further topped up by leftovers campaigning, the Parco Naturale from subsequent budgets. Regionale Sirente-Velino was finally designated in July 1989 by the With an investment fund of that size, Abruzzo regional government. It why was LIFE needed at all? The park, covers 90% of the SPA. 13 with so many municipalities inside its municipalities lie entirely within it, borders, had to dedicate attention to another 9 partially. Total population other issues such as cultural heritage, inside the park is 10,000 (in 41 tourism development or land use settlements). All 22 municipalities with planning. LIFE-Nature was called on territory inside the park are members for investments in habitats and species of the Comunita del Parco. This while the rest of the investment fund platform appoints 6 members of the was used for projects which were less Consiglio Direttivo (governing board) directly nature conservation and more of the park, 5 other members are sustainable development. technical experts appointed by the Abruzzo Region. The day-to-day work For instance, one of the most recent is done by an agency under the board’s projects bankrolled by this investment supervision, but with its own staff and fund is a 300,000 € project to extend budget (the Ente Parco Naturale the natural gas supply lines to 6 Regionale Sirente-Velino). municipalities. In return, these municipalities sign conventions that However, for years the new park they will reduce the cutting of remained a purely paper entity. Its firewood in their woods. Besides governing board was not appointed reducing the impact on forests, the idea until 1992 and when in 1994 an is to prove that the park supports application was made for LIFE-Nature positive development of direct human funding, the park still did not have any benefit. staff. Nevertheless, from 1989 onwards the Abruzzo Region earmarked about

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LIFE objectives These were to be flanked by an information campaign aimed at In keeping with several other projects stakeholders and inhabitants of the during the early years of LIFE I, the park. project contract had generally vague technical descriptions and imprecise The Gole Rupestri LIFE-Nature locations for many of its actions, with project officially began in January almost no quantified outputs. From a 1995, but the park agency, which was current perspective, the application supposed to implement the project, had was poorly prepared: everything was no staff (the director, Dr Boscagli, was speculative – the detailed plans had to only appointed in Nov 1995) and be worked out during the project! immediately faced political and administrative difficulties at regional Nevertheless, it was eventually agreed and municipal level. Progress was so that the project would focus on the poor that on Feb. 29 1996 a DG ENV following main actions: audit mission took place with a view to • Increasing the ecological knowledge cancelling the project and claiming of this vast area, and preparing a back the advance payment. Because management plan. LIFE would the political authorities gave firm finance inventories and preparatory commitments to do better, the studies. Commission agreed to give the project another chance. This was all reported • Introducing surveillance, both to extensively by the local press as if the help with monitoring wildlife, as to project had passed an exam! address problems like illicit rubbish dumping or herdsmen putting out After Dr Boscagli finally hired 3 poison against stray dogs and collaborators in autumn 1996, using wolves preying on their livestock. LIFE as a lever, things speeded up. • Removing rubbish dumps and The project was further streamlined via controlling the use of motorbikes an additional clause, which gave 7 and 4WD vehicles, which were months prolongation and replaced going into the limestone gorges for some of the original measures, which jaunts, disturbing wildlife and had proved to be impracticable. This damaging vegetation. The project revised programme was carried out and intended to close all access tracks, 95% of the budget was spent in the last set up signs and wooden fences, and 9 months. buy up land around the gorges to create a buffer. At the end of the day, the project was • Improving foraging conditions for quite successful, albeit in a much more wandering bears by planting fruit limited way than originally foreseen, trees and pruning existing ones. despite the fact that the beneficiary • Allowing some oak-beech woods was attacked by two citizens’ petitions and upland meadows, which were and by several regional politicians over degenerating ecologically due to some actions (such as the closure of inappropriate or excessive the gorges). exploitation, to recover by taking them out of use via lease and compensation.

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The actions

Inventories and surveys

Three large-scale studies were carried out by consulting scientists: • a botanical survey of the chasmophytic vegetation in the gorges (which concluded that Celano is one of the most important sites in Europe for this habitat type) and a survey of the most appropriate sites for planting fruit trees for bears. • a geological study of the gorges which revealed that the Celano gorge, the biological hot spot of the Sirente-Velino, is vulnerable to slumps and landslides, and recommended further assessments of this risk. • an ornithological inventory of the Annex I species present. According to the beneficiary, this was Recommendations were made for one of the most important actions of their protection (notably prevention the whole project as it was the first of disturbance). time the regional park was visibly These were to be used after LIFE to present in the field via staff. help prepare the park management plan (piano del parco) Eliminating rubbish dumps

The wardens also made an inventory of all the rubbish tips in the park. A local Surveillance contractor was hired in Feb 1997 to The LIFE-Nature project hired 6 clean up several of them, while at the wardens (all local people) on contracts beneficiary’s request, military of limited duration. engineers cleared up old projectiles from a former military training area Their tasks: (Monte S. Nicola) near the Valle • Surveillance of the most critical d'Inferno gorge. areas (particularly for bears and wolves) within the park. Controlling access • Awareness-raising among residents • Monitoring species on the Habitats The project originally targeted 3 and Birds Directives. Observations gorges, but one (Vallone di Teve) was were collated into a data bank. under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, which closed the foot track into the gorge of its own accord. Vehicle access to the other two gorges

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- Valle d’Inferno, Gole di Aielli- plastic which protect against grazers Celano – were intended to be closed by but which also create a microclimate putting up a steel bar across the speeding up tree growth. unsealed roads leading into them. Only farmers, landowners and herdsmen While waiting for these fruit trees to were to be allowed in. mature, 80 feeding plots of maize and carrots totalling 1 ha altogether were This measure was however highly planted by the project, along the bear unpopular. A 1996 petition, backed by corridors - some plots were even right stakeholders like hunters, farmers and next to fruit trees. Seven local farmers the local motorbike club, complained were paid to plough the plots, sow against it and received political them and check that nobody stole the backing in the regional parliament. crops. Parallel LIFE-Nature plans to buy land around the gorges and fence it off as an The beneficiary discovered that the additional protection, were also plots were easy to plant but taking care opposed by the municipalities and of them (the plants need water and never got off the ground. other care) was too much extra work for the staff and too expensive to pay Improving foraging for bears for. Also, it turned out that instead of bears, it was mainly wild pig and deer Work for the bears proved to be easier. which were attracted to these crops. The LIFE-Nature project planted 4,200 fruit trees split between 10-15 macro- Restoring forests and pastures sites (large numbers of trees planted close together) and 15-20 micro-sites The project leased 14 sections of (trees planted sporadically), all located pasture or woodland totalling 157 ha in along probable routes of passage of four municipalities (Aielli, Celano, bears. Initially the young trees were Gagliano Aterno and Ovindoli) for 20 fenced to protect them against years. Because the point was to leave browsing livestock and wildlife. these meadows and woods During the project a better technique undisturbed, the project also was found: sheaths of biodegradable compensated the municipalities for the loss of use over that time. This whole exercise cost about 100,000 € - equivalent to a quarter of the total LIFE budget.

One of the fruit trees planted for bears Photo: A. Gazenbeek

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Information dissemination Drawing up a management plan

A series of didactic publications were For such a complex area involving so produced as part of the project to many different interest groups, an increase awareness of the challenges agreed management plan would facing the park, while signposts and provide an essential mechanism for information notices were put up at working towards common, definable various strategic spots. objectives. Its adoption was therefore considered central to the Park’s future conservation work, but would of course require a lot of negotiation and debate.

In Italy, a regional or national park management plan is not just a wish list, it has force of law. It is adopted by the regional authority and is therefore hierarchically higher than municipal zoning plans, which it overrides. The zoning plans of the municipalities Some of the Park management team and mayors on its even have to be amended to conform governing board Photo: A Gazenbeek with the management plan! Hence the inherent difficulty in reaching a consensus for adoption.

Life after LIFE Further studies were undertaken subsequent to 1997 by the University After the LIFE-Nature project ended in of l’Aquila, which discovered species July 1997, its work was continued by of insect not previously known to the ‘Progetto Ponte’ or ‘bridging occur here and demonstrated that bears project’, a grant of 200,000 € from the and lynx wander across the park along Abruzzo Region to allow the park to NW to SE trending corridors, as continue its bear conservation work. suspected already. Maps based on all the surveys are now ready . Meanwhile, a project relating specifically to bears was formulated So far, over 125,000 € has been and sent to Brussels, where it was invested in drawing up the plan (all of approved in summer 1998 as a second it regional funding). The next phase LIFE-Nature project, called ‘Urgent will be to interpret the ecological data actions for bears in Sirente-Velino’. to suggest policies and to translate This project has a budget of 640,000 € these into territorial zoning and (55% paid by LIFE) and lasts from management prescriptions. This will Sept. 1998 to Sept. 2001. involve widespread consultations, but these talks will not be easy, as, given Actions undertaken after the Gole the power of a management plan in Rupestri project include the following: Italy, a lot is at stake. Already, just the presentation of the maps has led to lively debate!

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Surveillance have been a public relations disaster. It would also be very difficult to stop Streamlined to three persons on half- walkers and bikers from going around time contracts, the wardening team the barriers unless there was constant was kept after 1997, via the Progetto surveillance (which the park is unable Ponte and the LIFE bears project, but to assure). Trail biking and rallies with when the latter ends in Sept. 2001, the 4WD vehicles still occur around Monte wardens will lose their jobs if other Sirente and the gorges, and are difficult sources of finance are not found. to bring under control.

Eliminating rubbish dumps Improving foraging for bears

Since the Gole Rupestri project, This aspect of the work has gone from municipal rubbish dumps are slowly strength to strength, thanks especially being closed and cleaned up. The to the adoption of a further LIFE- strategy is to collect rubbish at central Nature project focusing on the bears. points and transport it out of the park The latter has vigorously continued to acknowledged processing facilities. fruit tree planting. Around 9,000 extra 90% of the dumps in the Val trees will have been planted by 2001, Subequana have gone; the problem mostly in a NW-SE band across zone is Ovindoli-Rocca di Mezzo, Sirente-Velino. This corresponds to the where there are some big dumps, main route followed by bears which will be expensive to dismantle. wandering across the park, through There is difference of opinion between beech woods which form natural park and municipalities over who monocultures in which few wild fruit should be responsible for this work. trees grow.

Controlling access

The Gole Rupestri project did put up the barriers to the gorges despite local opposition. They are still there but some are now open permanently. In view of the attitude of the municipalities and local people, closing them would

Above: barrier put up during the project in the Valle d’Inferno gorge Left: barrier removed since at Gole di Aielli- Celano, which is now permanently open Photos: A. Gazenbeek

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The work of rejuvenating wild fruit trees by pruning has also continued, using local farmers trained by the park (1,000 trees pruned in the 1999-2000 period). Whether it will be possible to continue after the LIFE-Nature bears project, which is now funding this work, ends in Sept. 2001 is still unclear, although the park thinks it would be desirable to Altipiano di Baullo Photo: A Gazenbeek continue. The compensation is paid from the Restoring forests and pastures park’s annual budget; so far a dozen of such mini-sites have been secured for The fact that the land in the park is tied about 13,000 €. up with ‘uso civico’, ancient use rights to wood, grazing land, fish and water The trend is now towards hands-on from springs, meant that the idea of sylvicultural work. Beech, as a result compensating loss of use and leasing of traditional coppicing, is crowding land to allow forests and upland out other trees. To restore diversity and meadows to regenerate, had to be give more food resources to e.g. bears, abandoned to prevent a perpetual excess beech is to be removed financial drain. (although normal succession would also lead to a beech climax forest, so It turns out that uso civico can never be this measure can be considered rather extinguished. Therefore, although not artificial). exercising use rights can be compensated, for 20, 50, even 100 The target for the near future is to years, afterwards one must pay again. tackle 40 ha (30 ha beech, 10 ha Uso civico cannot be stopped forever. pines), starting autumn 2000. This is So, when the 20 years for the land one-off work - it takes 50 years for the leased by the Gole Rupestri project are forest to return to the situation of up, the park will have to pay before the intervention. Under the law compensations again if it wants to stop on uso civico, if the park wants to do use for another 20 years. forestry work like beech removal it has to follow a complex approval Instead, the park now only procedure. When this is concluded, the compensates for non-use of individual beech is cut by local agents under trees (200-400 year old big Quercus contract to, and paid by, the park, but robur trees or trees used by birds for the timber is given to the municipality nesting). Moreover, this compensation which either distributes it among its is only offered when and where an area citizens (holders of the uso civico) or is coming up for tree cutting. sells it and uses the money for

municipal projects. No compensation then needs to be paid.

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A general problem affecting the In 1998-99 mass complaints in the Val uplands of the park is that they have Subequana about damages caused by been abandoned to succession, proliferating wild pig led to a political purchased by investors to convert into decision (regional decree of March 7 ski-ing areas (Ovindoli-Rocca di 2000) to take a block of land between Cambio) or actively afforested (Val Secinaro, Gagliano and Castel Ieri out Subequana). Consequently, blocks of of the park, so that the pigs could be afforested conifers now often interrupt hunted (by law, hunting is not allowed expanses of upland grassland. in a regional nature park). The result is However, the park has successfully that the park’s area has been reduced taken up the matter with the forestry from 59,186 ha to 54,725 ha. service, which now accepts the special ecological situation of Sirente-Velino To an outsider, this outcome seems and has committed itself not to plant rather bizarre. Why not take a conifers and to consult the park before pragmatic attitude and organise a cull any new afforestation with indigenous of pigs, instead of de-designating a species. large slice of park? True, the ban on hunting in protected natural areas does Damages to crops and livestock make it very difficult to get a derogation for a cull. For various A problem that has been aired time and reasons, Italian conservationists are again at public meetings with the local reluctant to involve recreational community is the damage to livestock hunters in any such culls. Still, and crops caused by wild pig, stray technical solutions (e.g. culling by park dogs, wolves and bears. People often staff) were possible. We have not added their fear that bears, as a result enough information to comment of the two LIFE-Nature projects’ work, further.. would become a pest like wild pig and stray dogs. Many complained that Information dissemination payment of compensation for damages is slow and inefficient. The park has recognised the importance of communications in Damages to livestock are indeed a terms of getting acceptance for problem. Wolves and, above all, stray conservation measures and has dogs are responsible, although bears therefore invested significantly here. have been observed eating livestock This includes the hiring of a full-time carrion. To protect their animals, public relations officer, Luca Gianotti. stockfarmers lay poison, which kills One of his first activities has been to indiscriminately. Even though illegal, organise a round of public meetings in it is difficult to stop this practice. Feb-March 2000, at which all could Eradication of stray dogs would go a come and air their views and long way towards tackling the root grievances. cause, but this is virtually impossible as a new Italian animal welfare law Meetings were held in 18 villages forbids killing dogs unless the animal throughout the park. Attendance varied is caught in flagrante delicto attacking from half a dozen to 40-50 people another animal or person. (over 400 in total). A summary was made, and it makes interesting reading. Damages to crops have already had Besides various complaints mentioned unpleasant consequences for the park. previously, a common concern was

Life after LIFE Page 43 whether the park is doing enough to bruno’ project how to catch bears. promote ‘our village’ or whether the A third central Italian LIFE-Nature division of funds and projects between project, ‘Lupo e orso’, does not municipalities was fair and equitable. overlap geographically with Sirente - Velino, but its main innovation - The Environment Ministry’s PTTA training sheepdogs to protect livestock (Programma Triennale Tutela against bears and wolves - might be Ambiente) budget line has also been useful. The park is currently evaluating tapped to fund a centre for if Lupo e orso’s outputs can environmental education and plan a successfully be transposed to Sirente- network of nature trails. 15 young Velino. people have been trained via PTTA to become “spokesmen for the park”, e.g. The ‘Mammiferi’ LIFE-Nature project during visits to schools. In March also selected Sirente-Velino as a 2000 a training seminar, attended by possible site for reintroduction of the 50 teachers from local schools, was Abruzzo chamois (Rupicapra ornata, held to promote nature education based an endangered endemic species found on the park’s assets. nowhere else in the world but the Abruzzo region). It started a feasibility Networking study which is being continued under a second LIFE-Nature project The project also allowed the park to (‘Rupicapra’). network and learn from other LIFE projects, especially foreign ones. The Meanwhile, to pave the way for network of the European LIFE-Nature reintroduction, the Sirente-Velino park bear projects with its quasi-annual has begun work on a so-called ‘area meetings and the Oct. 99 LIFE Week faunistica’ on a bluff beside the village were particularly useful. of Rovere. This is a big fenced-off enclosure of several hectares, which Closer to home, the mega-complex of will double as a facility for captive central Apennine nature areas of which breeding and as a tourist attraction. It Sirente-Velino is part, has attracted a costs 125,000 €, funded by the ERDF, series of LIFE projects dealing with and will be ready in 2001. It is large mammals. In 1996, the park however still unclear how the running director, Dr Boscagli, was invited into costs (permanent staff, veterinary care the coordination committee of the bear etc) will be financed once it is stocked. subproject of the LIFE-Nature project ‘Mammiferi’, to contribute his expertise. This was reciprocated with Mammiferi’s successor project, the LIFE-Nature project ‘Orso bruno’. In July 2000 the park trained the ‘Orso

Hill at Rovere where the area faunistica will be built Photo A Gazenbeek

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Overall assessment natural environment and the cultural landscape mix, and both, by and large, are still in good shape. It is no Conservation benefit coincidence that the LIFE project and Prior to LIFE-Nature, apart from the its successors focus their conservation slow progress towards establishing a work on large, rare mammals (bears, regional park, very little hands-on chamois, wolf) which do need a conservation work had been done other helping hand. If these animals survive than a few inventories. and prosper, it enhances the value of the Sirente-Velino park, and is Although some measures under LIFE- important for the overall conservation Nature proved unsuccessful in the long status of these species in central Italy. run, the project did achieve three For bears, the park is even a important results: strategically vital lynchpin allowing 1. it allowed the first nucleus of staff exchange between the central and a group of wardens to be Apennine populations. employed 2. it laid the basis for a comprehensive Incentive effect survey of the area and the In our opinion, the real value of the preparation of a management plan LIFE-Nature support lay in the 3. it started off work in the field to political sphere: it helped unblock a clean up rubbish dumps, improve log jam of inertia which was diversity in woodlands and provide preventing the park from really better foraging conditions for bears. functioning. The park had been proclaimed 6 years before the LIFE project was submitted in 94/95, but All three have been carried on since, there was no staff or infrastructure. joined by important new initiatives The political will to use the budgets such as hiring a PR officer or networking with similar conservation made available by the regional projects. So, in 1996-97, the LIFE- government was just not there. Nature project gave an initial impetus Because of the LIFE funds, for which to conservation work in the Sirente- the park, as beneficiary, was not Velino park, and the momentum has dependent on local authorities, it was been kept up since. There is, however, possible to get the ball rolling. The a somewhat dangerous reliance on staff employed via LIFE for technical follow-up EU financing (via the LIFE- work on bears and scientific surveys, Nature bears project) to continue simultaneously helped build up the important work like surveillance, park as a functioning entity at all which is not a one-off investment like levels. Once this fait accompli was fruit tree planting or forestry work. achieved, the local/regional authorities Hopefully more permanent funding for followed up by bringing the core staff surveillance can be found. under the operating budgets earmarked for the park. In terms of conservation benefit per se, the effects are perhaps rather ad hoc The prestige of EU support for the and localised, most attention having park, and more importantly, the fact been focused on the high-profile that the Commission followed the priority species such as the bear. project closely and intervened when it However, it should not be forgotten appeared to be stalling, played a vital that this is a huge area where the role in this process. This is a classic

Life after LIFE Page 45 case where a Commission mission on-site (in Feb. 1996, at a moment of crisis in the project) had a powerful and positive local political impact. The joint technical and financial audit mission was apparently a salutary lesson for all those who had a tendency, fuelled by years of structural funds largesse, to view EU funds as a one-way process where nothing had to be accounted for to anybody. They realised that with LIFE, there was a direct relationship Village of Acciano – Val Subequana Photo : A Gazenbeek with the Commission in which it overhauling conservation policy in the wanted to know what happened with region. It is still unclear if and how this the funds. will be put into effect.

Local attitudes - the political context From all sides it appears that local inhabitants expected economic Sirente-Velino’s natural beauty and miracles from the park when it finally value is agreed by all, but the began, and did not understand that challenge, we were told, lies in such things take time. The matching this to aspirations of social considerable investments in buying a and economic development among the new park headquarters, carrying out communities in the park. As Mr Cesare studies and planting fruit trees for Colorizio, past president of the park bears are contrasted by some with the governing board, put it, the park must lack of tangible economic spin-offs or apply a credible policy, which means with what is perceived as neglect of allowing room for legitimate projects other important ‘nature’ issues like compatible with the environment. preventing wildfire or cleaning up the remaining rubbish dumps. Yet at the Which projects are compatible/ same there is suspicion of the personal sustainable is of course the crucial restrictions the park might bring. question. Even the core tasks of the park are not agreed upon between the The park administration agrees that it different members of the governing has to boost confidence in its policies board. Meanwhile, the party which among the municipalities and the won the spring 2000 regional elections citizens, - hence the appointment of a in Abruzzo (Alleanza Nazionale) PR officer and the round of village campaigned on reducing the park from meetings in 2000. 55,000 to 15,000 ha and generally

Conservation Incentive value Demonstration Public interest benefit potential Increased Managed to get the park Little demonstra- Public interest surveillance, more finally off the ground tion value at this stimulated by project foraging areas for through an initial impetus stage. Some but still a long way to bears, reintroduction of dedicated funding. techniques for go in winning of chamois planned. Much of the work has improving support for the park. Management plan continued since. Also foraging for Efforts underway for for pSCI being stimulated networking bears could be sustainable tourism drawn up. with other parks and useful could help to sway LIFE projects. elsewhere. public opinion.

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Bringing about sustainable solutions

So what are the main socio-economic options for this park? Tourism is being eyed as a possibility, but there is the good, the bad and the ugly, all vying for space in the Park.

Winter tourism Two downhill ski-ing resorts (Ovindoli and Campo Felice), financed by EU structural funds and other public money back in the 1970s-80s, lie inside the park and Natura 2000 area. Although snow is limited to a few months a year, these resorts are close enough to Rome to be attractive for weekend or single-day ski-ing trips (123,000 visitors per season in Ovindoli). Projects are still being pushed to expand these resorts, for instance, by linking the two skifields, tar-sealing the track to Prati di Pezza or building a new parking lot at the Campo Felice field to relieve congestion. These have already led to complaints from conservation bodies because of the potential damage to valuable habitats. Controversy over winter sports development has spilled over into municipal politics. There is a master plan for winter sports produced by the Region, but it dates from the 1980s and is oriented towards maximum winter sports development. Sceptics say that winter sports is concentrated in a few congested weekends and creates no permanent jobs, while outside investors control the chairlifts and hotels and pocket the profits. On the other hand, protagonists say these ski-fields are already affected by man-made infrastructures, so improving the technical quality and throughput of what there is, is better than opening new fields in unspoilt areas. At the local level, Dr Angelosanto, the mayor of the winter sports town Ovindoli, is strongly opposed to the sprawl and clutter of buildings put up previously. A new, stricter municipal land use plan strongly advocated by him, was adopted in July 2000, legalising what is already there but not allowing new buildings. Ten years ago this would have been politically impossible to even propose, but new fiscal rules for second residences have lessened market interest in them.

Summer tourism The regional park is particularly keen to develop nature- and heritage-based summer tourism, so that the natural capital of the district is seen to be bringing economic benefits. Compared to winter sports, summer tourists tend to stay longer and engage in a greater variety of activities. Revenue is thus spread more evenly among operators and there is more human contact between locals and visitors. However, local mayors consider that the park has not managed to significantly increase summer tourism yet, which is still underperforming. Currently there are 30-40,000 overnight stays each summer in the Ovindoli-Rocca di Mezzo zone but very few in the Val Subequana - usually day trippers from Ovindoli. The regional park counters that tourism development is hampered by a lack of local initiative, even apathy. It cited several cases where it had launched ideas or contacted tour operators and the media, but with no response from the municipalities. Mr Santili, mayor of Castelvecchio, says this is because most municipalities only have a population of around 200 and no structures or capacity to organize tourism initiatives, market themselves or their local products. Collective projects, under the aegis of the park, seems the only logical solution for him. In this respect some collective projects have already been undertaken. Besides the conservation-oriented posters and leaflets produced through LIFE-Nature, the park has published two high-quality, almost encyclopaedic booklets. One presents all the municipalities with their principal sights and a list of hotels; the other describes a whole series of hiking trails. These are excellent tourism material! Using its ‘investment fund’ the park has also opened 11 information centres, but it seems that only 6 or 7 function properly - finding people willing to take care of the centres is a major problem. The structural funds have also made a considerable contribution. The 1994-2000 ERDF made available nearly 1.7 million €, administered by the park or the municipalities, for projects targeted towards developing sustainable tourism. These were: • two visitor centres with small botanical gardens • three combined nature and history trails with panels • a geological and agricultural heritage museum in Ovindoli • a mountain refuge for hikers near Mt. Velino • restoration of old water mills in the Aterno valley • construction of the captive breeding centre for Abruzzo chamois The Abruzzo Region’s Operational Programme for the 2000-2006 round of structural funds assigns 13 million € to all the parks in Abruzzo together, including Sirente-Velino.

An initiative is now also starting to promote the six central Apennine parks, including Sirente-Velino, as a European mega-complex of nature reserves. Called ‘Appennino Parco d’Europa’, and funded by conservation NGOs, regional bodies and the Environment Ministry, it wants to stimulate the parks to work together, involve the unprotected districts between them, start up joint subprojects, e.g. on the Abruzzo chamois, and present the parks together at trade fairs.

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The Future Meanwhile, the local community seems divided. It is abundantly clear Sirente-Velino is almost a classic case that the park has supporters (citizens of where the future of an attractive and and mayors), but it also faces more largely unspoilt semi-natural area than enough critics and opponents at depends on whether or not the local all levels. Plus, it seems, indifference - inhabitants and their political the park management complained representatives consider that about the lack of response from sustainability, conservation, nature citizens and local authorities when it park/Natura 2000 status e tutti quanti actually did propose projects that could is bringing them tangible benefits. lead to socio-economic benefits.

So far, the jury is still very definitely At the end of the day, the park has to out on this one. In Sirente-Velino, be seen to be delivering benefits (not sustainability would have to be based just deliver - if nobody notices, it’s no on agriculture, tourism and possibly good) to win over its critics and some traditional artisanal outputs enthuse the apathetic. These benefits (there is actually a plan to introduce a could be more tourists, or development label of ‘park origin’). Within of new niche markets, or removal of agriculture, stockraising is critical, as eyesores like rubbish dumps and the most unusual landscapes in the uncontrolled building that trouble local park (the altipiani upland meadows) people. Whatever. The important thing depend on it, but it is not too robust. is that there are benefits - according to the citizens! Pure conservation Tourism is a two-headed beast here: successes are unfortunately much winter sports is already important in harder to sell, even though the work on one part of the park (Ovindoli-Rocca large mammals is justified and di Mezzo) but is more likely to strategically important in the overall threaten than enhance habitats here, Apennine context and must be while the rest of the park suffers from continued. a lack of tourists. Summer tourism, farm tourism, cultural heritage tourism Tragically, in spite of its efforts in the and nature-based tourism are all under- social environment, which certainly developed. Efforts to redress this are should be stepped up, and its good being made, but without overwhelming conservation work, the park is still success so far. under a cloud: the contract of the park agency director, Dr Boscagli, who The park administration, the former conceived and managed the LIFE- LIFE-Nature beneficiary, is investing Nature project and got the park off the time and effort in the sustainable ground, was not renewed in Sept. development work. Whether it is 2000. What happens now is not clear… enough, is impossible to gauge at this stage. Certain is that the park For further information contact management is willing to learn from experience. Thus it has recently hired a Edoardo Alonzo PR officer specifically for community Parco Naturale Regionale Sirente-Velino relations, and organised public Via Orti di Santa Maria 67048 Rocca Di Mezzo (L’Aquila) meetings in every village in the park. Tel: +39 0862 916343 Fax: +39 0862 916018 Email: [email protected]

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS Aerial view of Anholt Island Photo K Sundseth Beneficiary: Århus County

Budget: 490.000 € Case Study IV:

EC co-finance: 50% Deserts in the sea: Duration Oct 1994 – Dec 1996 restoring lichen heaths Location The island of Anholt in the Kattegat sea The context Habitat /species: Northern grey dunes Located in the middle of the and Crowberry brown Kattegat sea between Sweden and dunes – priority Denmark, the small island of habitat types Anholt is an unusual place. The rugged and austere landscape, devoid of hills or trees, reminds one more of a desert, or even the surface of the moon, than a Danish island. In fact the eastern part of the island is often referred to as the ‘Anholt desert’. This is because it harbours a very special type of habitat: the lichen heaths.

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Area of trees to be removed in dark From beneficiary’s application file Covering 1100 ha, it is one of the largest expanses of dune and lichen heaths The threats remaining in north-west Europe. No less The main threat to this fragile heath than 8 habitat types have been found comes only indirectly from tourism. here, three of which are priority under Few people actually venture inland onto the Habitats Directive (fixed coastal the heaths because it is so barren and dunes with herbaceous vegetation, difficult to walk across. Also, cars and decalcified fixed dunes with Empetrum bikes are restricted to certain paths, so nigrum and coastal dunes with visitor pressure is minimal. But because Juniperus spp.). The wildlife interest is the island is flat it is often subject to also significant: the tawny pipit, Anthus strong winds. As a result most holiday campestris, nests on the island and the cottage owners have planted tree surrounding waters are home to shelters around their houses, using the important concentrations of grey seals mountain pine Pinus mugo. and harbour seals. As a result, 13 357 ha have been designated both as SPA and This exotic species has adapted well to pSCI - 1804 ha being on land. the local conditions and is now Not surprisingly, the island is sparsely spreading rapidly of its own accord populated – 174 inhabitants live all year across the heaths, destroying the round on the island, earning their underlying habitat along the way. By income from tourism. However, in the the early 1990s it was estimated that as summer months the place changes much as 40% of the heath had been completely, because large numbers of affected. How to remove these trees is visitors are drawn by the beautiful another cause for concern, for the heaths beaches and quiet atmosphere – are unable to withstand the damaging sometimes there may be up to 6000 effects of heavy vehicles or regular staying overnight on the island at the trampling. Little guidance could be same time, usually in holiday cottages. gleaned from other similar areas since Yet, because the coastline is so long, there were few precedents for this people are easily scattered and there is habitat type to work from. rarely a feeling of overcrowding.

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The beneficiary that all projects funded in 1994 had to be completed within two years so that The Anholt heath has long been its financial commitments did not recognised as an area of outstanding significantly overrun the end of the natural heritage. Legislation goes back LIFE programme. As a result all as far as 1939 but it was only in 1980, successful applicants were asked if they after it had been protected through the were able to complete their proposed Danish nature conservation law, that projects within this shortened time attention turned towards actively frame. managing it. This was the responsibility of the local authority, Århus Amt, The Århus Amt had originally asked for located on the mainland. But in order to four years to complete the work on do so they had first to pay the private Anholt. It had also asked for a individual who owns this part of the substantially higher budget, but because island a fee for the right to manage. competition was so tough that year – 6 times oversubscribed – and a number of Some years later, a small area of significantly better prepared projects overgrown heath was restored using a had been put forward, the Commission variety of techniques. The purpose was was reluctant to fund the Anholt essentially to assess which techniques application fully. would be most appropriate and cost- effective to use, with a view to It proposed instead that the project determining how much money would be receive only 50% funding from LIFE required to run a large-scale restoration rather than 75% as requested and that programme. The final cost estimates the overall budget be reduced in were way beyond the resources of the function of the shorter time frame. This local administration, which is why they effectively meant that the total project applied to LIFE for funding. budget had to be downsized by 25%. Nevertheless, Århus Amt accepted these The beneficiary’s application was conditions and the project began in submitted in 1994, two years before the October 1994 with a total budget of end of the first phase of the LIFE 490.000 €. regulation (1992-1995). Because there was no certainty at the time as to whether another phase of LIFE would LIFE objectives be approved, the Commission decided The specific objective was to restore heaths over 300-400 ha overgrown by pine and to secure the remainder from further threats of pine invasion. A secondary objective was to trial different restoration techniques in order to advance the management knowledge of this particular habitat type.

Area invaded by self-seeding pine Photo: K Sundseth

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since the needles from the pines would choke up the furnaces. Also, the local fire brigade objected vociferously to the idea of burning wood on site. With the prevailing strong winds on the island there was always the risk that a fire in such an arid landscape will run out of control.

It also became evident that the contract work would be more expensive than foreseen - as a result of the reduction in the time frame, and because alternative methods had to be used to compensate for the fact that the wood could not be burned on-site.

The beneficiary did what it could to find additional funds to pay for the extra Lichen heaths are very fragile and easily damaged by vehicles Photo K Sundseth costs but, in the end, the final cost of the project still came to 674,000€ compared to the original cost estimate of 490,000 The actions €. It also decided to test out alternative techniques such as crushing the The bulk of the funds were therefore branches or chipping the wood and allocated to outside contractors, hired to scattering it in the vicinity. These at remove the pine using very specific least would have minimal impact on the techniques. The original intention was heaths in terms of trampling and to clear an area of 400 ha manually and vehicular damage. then remove the wood, either by burning it on the spot or by chipping it and then Another element of the project was to sending it off to one of the five small monitor the effects of the different chip-fired plants in town. Work would techniques on the recovery of the start in the more fragile eastern part of heaths. Eight plots were chosen in the the heaths, which had only low densities management areas and six in the control of trees, and end up in the more robust areas. These were regularly checked by western part where the older, more biologists from Copenhagen University dense plantations were located. with a view to gathering sufficient data to determine both the rate of recovery of However, early on in the project, it the heath and the best means of became clear that several of the achieving this. proposed actions could not be done as foreseen, either because they hadn’t Finally, a small component of the been thought through carefully enough, project was dedicated to awareness or because the budget cuts, introduced raising in order to gain local acceptance during the application phase, were more for the work being undertaken, both by problematic than first envisaged. In the the residents and by the tourists. A case of the former, the beneficiary only leaflet was produced and a small discovered after the project had started exhibition centre installed in the local that the chipped wood could not be used museum near the harbour. to fuel the local power plants after all

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Results Thankfully, as the site is close to the As far as the restoration work is main village this is logistically very concerned, despite best efforts from the straightforward. Removing pine beneficiary, the project finally only seedlings will in any case have to be felled 5130 m³ of wood and removed done in the vicinity of the pine shelters 1750m³ compared to the original surrounding the holiday cottages on the intention of felling 7050m³ and heath itself as some of the fallen cones removing 3250m³. But the reason for from felled trees start to grow. the drop in volume can be largely attributed to one factor: a mature dense The question is then whether it was wise plantation close to the town was left out to leave so much wood on the ground. altogether. This was much less worrying What consequences would this have for than it seemed at first since the the recovery of the heaths? To the underlying heath had, in any case, little islanders the left-over trees were chance of recovery. For the remainder, a visually unappealing, raising fears of a variety of techniques were tried out as slump in the tourism trade. To the burning could finally only take place on scientists it meant that the recovery of 43 ha. Branch crushing was done the heath would be delayed by at least instead on 441 ha (30 ha high-density another 10 years. This was the main wood, 411 ha scattered trees) and conclusion of the end-of-project chipping on 15ha. workshop involving the project’s own scientists, other experts and local So are the results as bad as they seem? representatives. Yes and no. Despite the reduction in volume of wood removed, the area over Once this became apparent, the which the tree clearance took place was Commission raised the possibility with actually greater than foreseen – 499 ha the beneficiary of taking certain instead of 400 ha. This meant that all remedial measures to correct this trees over the eastern part of the heath problem, for instance issuing a further had been cleared, thereby removing the contract to remove the debris. However, main threat to the habitat. The fact that a it was felt that more damage would be mature plantation was left standing is caused by running vehicles up and down not so serious since the heath the heaths to remove the fallen trees underneath had little chance of recovery anyway. But it does mean that more effort will be needed in the long term to contain the spontaneous reseeding from this plantation so that it does not spread on to the heath again.

Assessing the results four years on with the project manager and officials of the Danish Ministry of Environment Photo K Sundseth

Life after LIFE Page 54 than leaving the wood on the site to actions. The beneficiary undertook to decay slowly. So no further action was continue this programme for a further taken and the project was closed. five years until 2001.

Either way, both the Commission and The public awareness actions on the the beneficiary were criticised by the other hand were relatively minor, but local community for the final results – were sufficient to explain why the they felt that both were too far removed conservation work was important. from the island to be able to conduct the Clearly, the project manager had very project effectively. It is true that the little experience in this field, which will Commission was not able to the visit the not have helped matters. For instance, a project whilst it was on-going. The video had been produced but was journey either required a prohibitively essentially only made of snapshots of expensive private plane charter or a long the island before and after the project journey by sea. Yet, what alternatives and so of little interest to a wider were there? The Århus Amt had the audience. statutory responsibility to maintain the

Area where tree felling with branch crushing was conservation value of the island, and the used fours years ago Photo: K Sundseth local population was so small that, even if it had wanted to tender for the work, it As far as networking is concerned, the would not have been able to muster the end-of-project scientific workshop was required manpower to carry it out. in fact the only form of networking undertaken. It has to be borne in mind As far as the other actions in the project that this is a very remote and are concerned, the monitoring work was inaccessible part of Denmark which completed as foreseen but it would be makes networking that much harder. some time before the effects of the The beneficiary had for instance after project work would become apparent the project organised a follow-up and recommendations could be made scientific workshop to take stock of the about the relative merits of the different rate at which the invading pine was

Life after LIFE Page 55 disintegrating and the lichen heath prolongation). Also, the consequences recovering. Yet so few expressed an of a substantial reduction in a budget interest in attending that the event had to should be carefully assessed, before a be cancelled – according to the final agreement is reached. beneficiary people had wanted to come but could not afford the cost or the time This then raises the question of the to get there. detail of the application. The fact that several of the original objectives, such Did the project achieve its objectives? as burning on-site and using local chip fire plants, fell through rapidly after the Despite all, the project did in fact start of the project, may be indicative of achieve its objective, albeit in a round- the fact that the application does not ask about way, as it succeeded in removing enough questions, or possibly the right the principal threat to this fragile questions, to test the robustness of the habitat. The majority of the heath (490 project. This point has in fact already ha) had been cleared of invading trees been addressed in LIFE II where much and now it was only a matter of time more detail is required, particularly in before the heath would recover, terms of ‘readiness’ of the actions, the provided of course that the beneficiary socio-economic context and the possible would undertake regular maintenance constraints that may arise. work to prevent the remaining trees around the settlements from re-seeding The other conclusion to draw from this themselves. is that even if a project is very remote and expensive to get to, it should be The local reaction was also less hostile monitored just like any other project. It than it first seemed. Granted, there was may be that if there had been earlier some resentment towards the fact that contact with the beneficiary and local organisations as far afield as Århus and residents on site, some of the Brussels were making the decision misunderstandings that arose later could about their environment, but once the have been avoided. fear over the visual impact of the tree removal programme subsided, the That said, the project still managed to general attitude turned towards one of achieve what it set out to do. mild curiosity.

Yet, despite a relatively happy end, Life after LIFE there are still a number of salutary lessons to learn from this project. First, Three years after the end of the project, there is a real danger of compromising a the beneficiary undertook its first project on the ground of administrative clearance programme for the self- or financial imperatives. The substantial seeding pines at a total cost of 4300 €. cut in time and budget risked The work was essentially done by compromising this project, even though locals. A further programme is foreseen the beneficiary was given an for the year 2001 and it is clear that the opportunity to react to these proposals. beneficiary will continue with this In hindsight, it might have been wiser to regular maintenance work for ‘as long have allowed the full period of time for as it takes’ - in other words every 3-5 the project as requested by the years for the next 15-20 years, by which beneficiary (after all, nowadays a time the pine seed bank should be significant proportion of LIFE-Nature depleted. projects still have to ask for a

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As to the project areas worked on, these Overall assessment were left to decay of their own accord. To most people’s surprise the wood Conservation effect chips did begin to decompose and blend into the landscape; in fact you would Despite all the problems encountered almost have to be on top of a clearance during the implementation of the plot nowadays to recognise it. project, it has to be said the final result Nevertheless, from a scientific point of is already now a lot more positive than view the recovery of the heath remains a expected. The main threat to the fragile slow process. That is why the heath was essentially removed, thanks beneficiary has paid for regular to the LIFE project – demonstrating its monitoring work since 1997. ability to support initial, expensive one-off investments that allow the future management to be low-key and cost-efficient.

As far as the recovery of the heath is concerned, the jury is still out on this one. Most scientists predict that it will take a long time for the heath to return but only the results of the scientific monitoring work will confirm whether or not this is the case. What is sure is that it is only a matter of time now before Aerial view of area cleared of pine fours years later, note forest plantation which was left out of project it does recover, as no new threats Photo: K Sundseth have appeared since that could significantly damage this unusual As for the local awareness initiatives, habitat. there is still an exhibition in the local museum about the heaths but it has not been updated since the project. There is Demonstration value also a local initiative to organise guided It also has to be said that the changes in walks in the summer around the Anholt the project objectives from pure burning desert to explain to visitors the on-site to a variety of tree removal fascination and natural interest of this techniques may in fact have ended up unusual habitat. Finally, Århus County having an important demonstration role. is in the process of writing about Anholt Very little is known about lichen heaths and its natural environment. Despite its and their ability to recover from popularity there is in fact relatively little afforestation. What better place than information available about the island, Anholt to trial out the different methods so this book is sure to fill a gap. and their costings? Once the results are

Conservation Incentive value Demonstration Public interest benefit potential One-off clearance of A significant injection Different techniques Initially hostile, now invading pine has of funds from LIFE used for clearance, benign indifference – removed main threat made it possible for their effects are possibly a missed to the site, recovery the County to tackle being monitored and opportunity for will take some time the problem in one could be of interest raising awareness of though. go. to others. this unique habitat.

Life after LIFE Page 57 written up in a scientific journal (which Nevertheless, if there is to be a take is foreseen) the experiences here could home message from this, it is that well be of use for other similar habitats. special attention should be given to remote and isolated projects to bring them into the LIFE fold, as it is clearly harder for them to network and share experiences than other more centrally located projects. Also, remoteness should not prevent the projects from being monitored as regularly as any other project.

The future

The future for the lichen heaths on Anholt is very straightforward, now that the principal threat has been removed. • Continue with the removal of self- seeding pine until the seed resource is depleted • Continue to monitor the results of the different techniques used to clear the trees and ensure that once the effects become evident, these are made widely available to others Incentive value through scientific and other technical publications The incentive value on the other hand is • It may also be an ideal opportunity, not really relevant in this case as there with the high levels of tourists was nothing more to do on the site, apart coming to the beaches, for the from the continued monitoring work and residents and authorities responsible the occasional removal of self-seeding for Anholt to ‘show off’ this very pines every 3-5 years until the seeds special type of habitat and raise lose their viability. Nevertheless, by awareness for nature conservation providing a significant initial injection generally. of funds beyond what was available at national level, LIFE-Nature made it possible to tackle the problem of invading pines in one fell swoop. This will mean that subsequent management will be low-key and relatively inexpensive. For further information, contact: Poul Erik Thystrup Influence on public attitudes and the Århus County local economy Nature and Environment Lysend Alle 1 The initial hostile reactions from the DK-8270 HOJBJERG local community to the project, to the Tel +45 89 44 6990 beneficiary and the Commission had Fax +45 89 44 6982 been unexpected but did not last long.

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS

Two projects, Fiener Observation platform near Buckow Photo: A Gazenbeek Bruch and Großtrappen Brandenburg, were treated as one for the purposes of this report Case Study V: Beneficiaries 1/ Landkreis Jerichower Land with the Sachsen- Farming for birds Anhalt Ministry of Environment 2/ Brandenburg in Germany Ministry of Environment Budget: The context 1/ 526.666 € 2/ 3.650.000 € The great bustard, Otis tarda, is a EC co-finance: jumbo jet among European birds, 1/ 75% weighing up to 20 kg. Although it 2/ 33% flies well when it has to, like a 747 it Duration cannot just bank and turn on a 1)Sept 94 – Aug 97 sixpence and so is vulnerable to 2)Sept 92 – Dec 94 crashing into sudden obstacles like Location overhead power lines. The bird lives Sachsen-Anhalt in small flocks in open plains. The Brandenburg, males gather in groups to give Germany spectacular courtship displays at the Habitat /species: same place year after year. The eggs, Great bustard usually two, are laid in nests on the (Otis tarda), priority ground, often in tall vegetation as species for LIFE this gives more cover against funding predators.

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All bustards are very shy, but the Great bustard habitats in Germany females are particularly sensitive to disturbance, and will often abandon the Eastern Germany, where a relatively nest if they are frightened. Although inefficient, low-intensity rotation the adult birds are mainly plant eaters, farming on large semi-feudal private the chicks rely on invertebrates for estates provided excellent habitat nourishment during their first months. conditions, still had 4,000 great bustards in the 1940s. After 1945 the The great bustard hails from the communist GDR reorganized farming steppes of Russia and central Asia, but on an industrial model, with dire long ago adapted to the ‘pseudo- consequences for the great bustards. steppes’ created wherever peasants By 1981 only 361 were left, scattered cleared forests for subsistence-level among twenty isolated populations. grain growing rotated with livestock About this time, the first systematic grazing on fallow land. By 1700 the efforts to conserve the species began, bird had reached as far as Sweden and largely based on personal efforts by southern England. Then decline set in, pioneers such as Dr Litzbarski in under the combined onslaught of more Brandenburg and Dr Dornbusch in efficient agriculture, denser human Sachsen-Anhalt. The 1990 merger with settlement and hunting. Many great the Federal Republic brought the bustard populations were extinguished, demise of the GDR industrial farms, leaving isolated remnants wherever the but this was a mixed blessing as it also right conditions persisted. The total brought new threats (privatisation and European population is now estimated fragmentation of land holdings, all at 25-30,000 of which 95% is sorts of investment and development concentrated in Russia, the Ukraine schemes) and an end to the joint and the Iberian Peninsula. A remnant conservation actions which had been in the Hungarian basin collapsed from started with the state farms. 3400 individuals in the 1980s down to 1100 today. Barring a tiny group in the In 1990 only three viable populations Rumanian Dobruja which is probably were left. They occupied the extinct, the east German bustards are Westhavelländisches Luch (5610 ha) the only other population left in and the Belziger Landschaftswiesen Europe. (4460 ha) in Brandenburg and the Fiener Bruch (9000 ha, but only 3000 Leaflet for farmers produced by the Brandenburg project

Life after LIFE Page 61 ha relevant for great bustards) in Sachsen-Anhalti. All the others had petered out or were down to a few lonely survivorsii.

These three sites are broad plains and depressions (originally fens, but drained long ago), rising gently to surrounding low ridges and fossil dunes. They are either used as humid grassland for livestock grazing and hay production, or, wherever the land is drier and sandier, for large-scale crop farming. An orderly landscape of huge fields interrupted by occasional rows Dr Litzbarski, who had built up a great of trees, where human population bustard research and captive breeding density is low. The bustards spend station (‘Trappenschutzstation’) at their summers in the meadows and Buckow in the Westhavelländischer cropland of the depressions and their Luch during the 1980s, elaborated a winters on the higher-lying ridges recovery strategy based on the nearby, seeking suitable foraging bustards’ habitat requirements. opportunities among the winter crops of alfalfa and rapeseed. It had two thrusts: • Getting, or keeping, habitat This mix of humid pastures and dry conditions right. This meant fields harbours, besides the great restricting fertiliser and pesticide bustard, a broad range of waders and use to promote higher plant and meadow-breeding birds, and this invertebrate biodiversity, leaving cocktail of steppic and meadow- unexploited strips in and along wetland birds is quite unique. Until fields and hay meadows as refuges 1976, great bustards and black grouse and foraging areas and providing (Tetrao tetrix) even shared the same winter feeding possibilities in the range here. Therefore, in a way the form of high-energy crops like great bustard is a flagship and indicator rapeseed. Modifications to farming for the health of an ecosystem which is which destroy habitat, like valuable in its own right. Hence, eliminating fallow land and parallel to all the efforts undertaken for uncultivated margins around fields the great bustard, maintaining this or ploughing up grassland, ought to broader avifauna and the surviving fen be prevented. habitats has always remained a second • Reducing human disturbance in conservation target for the site general, and accidental destruction managers. of nests and chicks by farm machinery and labourers. Any eggs LIFE objectives and chicks rescued from such accidents, when they did occur, The task for conservation was to halt were captive-bred at Buckow and the decline of these last three viable eventually re-introduced back into east German populations and create the the wild. right conditions for their revival.

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He estimated that for each self- co-financing was also sought from contained population of great bustards, LIFE-Nature, which in 1992 agreed to 20 individuals was the absolute contribute 1.2 million € over a two- minimum for the population to stand a year period (packaged as the stand- chance of being viable (historically, alone project ‘Great bustards in breeding populations ranged from 40 Brandenburg’). In this case LIFE- to 120 individuals each!). These would Nature’s support was ‘a brick in the require 5,000 hectares, at least half of wall’ - a valued contribution to an which must be farmed in a bustard- ambitious programme funded from a friendly way. variety of sources.

To guarantee this, land was to be The situation in the Fiener Bruch, only purchased at the two Brandenburg sites a short distance away in the and made available to farmers on strict neighbouring Land Sachsen-Anhalt, terms as to how it was to be farmed; or was quite different. Very little had else farmers would be compensated for been done here in the field until a 1994 voluntarily farming their own land application was successfully made to according to the recovery strategy. LIFE-Nature by the Kreis Jerichower This approach was later copied in Land, the local authority territorially Fiener Bruch, where bustard responsible for the Fiener Bruch. So conservation started much later. These here LIFE acted as an ignition key, prescriptions are in line with the financing 75% (395.000 €) of all costs recommendations in the Action Plan in a 30-month project to get things off for Globally Threatened Birds. the ground.

Dr Litzbarski succeeded in winning What did the projects achieve? support from the new post-communist government of Brandenburg for a Brandenburg LIFE-Nature project comprehensive great bustard recovery programme. Further support came This project took the line that, to from the Großtrappenförderverein ensure meeting the twin targets of e.V., an NGO. Given the size of the appropriate habitat conditions and investment required (7 million € for reduced disturbance, the most critical the whole programme in land purchase land had to be brought under alone, plus considerable annual conservation control by buying it and compensation payments to farmers) imposing strict conditions on future users. Around this core, contracts would be made with land users to farm in a particular manner.

Dr Litzbarski (far left) and representatives of the Environment Ministry of Brandenburg and the Federal Government, outside the Buckow Trappenschutzstation Photo: A Gazenbeek

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Applying this strategy, it had bought inputs and intensity, while 2087 hectares of land by the end of Vertragsnaturschutz, which is designed 1994, 23% (477 ha) using LIFE funds. to serve conservation purposes, compensates additional restrictions or Farmers agreeing to work this land actions in favour of the great bustards. according to the prescriptions of the Altogether, about half the total area of great bustard programme, or signing the two sites had been brought or kept five-year contracts to do the same on under the kind of land use desired by their own land, were paid the bustard recovery strategy. compensations for loss of income and additional work load. By the end of 7 new farms, ventures like organic 1994, 4540 ha in both sites together vegetable growing, sheep farming or was under this strict, bustard-oriented low-density beef cattle grazing which land management. LIFE-Nature co- were considered to be naturally more financed the compensations for the in line with bustard prescriptions, were first two years as an incentive, after established on the land bought by the which they were fully borne by the recovery programme. In all, 43 Brandenburg Environment Ministry’s different farms are to a greater or ‘Vertragsnaturschutz’ agri- smaller degree covered by the two environment scheme (which received project sites. no EU support at the time!). To manage and monitor all this, a solid In addition, the Brandenburg site management framework had been Agriculture Ministry’s KULAPiii agri- built up, centred on the research station environment scheme covered over at Buckow and a new one at Baitz for 4000 hectares in the two sites. the Belziger Landschaftswiesen, with 8 Sometimes fields under KULAP staff (one of these a new post co- contracts lay scattered between the financed by LIFE). There were visitor Vertragsnaturschutz fields, forming a access and information facilities at ‘buffer around the buffer’, but Buckow (also co-funded in part by sometimes the same farmer had LIFE) which were visited by 2-3000 Vertragsnaturschutz and KULAP people a year, including school parties. contracts simultaneously for the same Altogether, the LIFE-Nature project field. In this kind of situation KULAP, met all its targets and was which is not primarily conservation- implemented smoothly and within the oriented, subsidises basic reduction of time frame originally proposed.

Landscape in Fiener Bruch Photo: A Gazenbeek

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Fiener Bruch

The Fiener Bruch project’s tactics were quite different. First, via fieldwork, using equipment paid by LIFE, it identified the most important summer habitats for the great bustards. These turned out to lie within a 1700 ha zone which was designated ‘great bustard refuge’ (Trappenschutzzone, which in Sachsen-Anhalt has a legal status giving the species, not the habitat as such, comprehensive protection) and closed to non-authorised traffic every year from March to October. Embedded inside this refuge, the project identified 650 ha of central habitat which included the sites for courtship display and the nesting areas. For this heartland, a management plan was made which acted as basis for the further measures.

The project restricted land purchase to only a small area of 97 ha (the traditional mating areas and first port of call for the bustards when they return to the lowlands after winter) inside the 650 ha central zone, to ensure that there would always be a minimum bustard ‘sanctuary’. This 97 Brochure for general public explaining the project ha is leased to an agricultural cooperative until 2013, which has to The Fiener Bruch project had more mow the grassland there according to success with voluntary restrictions on conservation prescriptions. For the land use in exchange for rest, it counted on legal protection of compensation: 700 ha was under such the whole area as strict nature reserve contracts within the 1700 ha bustard to ensure that land use would conform refuge by the end of LIFE, plus an iv to great bustard requirements . almost equal amount in the remainder of the 3000 ha project area. These agri- This strategy backfired badly. Legal environment contracts are all protection raised the farmers’ hackles administered and paid by the Sachsen- and led to a massive row which still Anhalt Agriculture Ministry’s KULAP had not been digested by the time of programme, which is cofinanced by this Flashback mission. At the end of Regulation 2078/92. There is no the day, only 143 ha (including nearly equivalent to the Brandenburg all the land bought via LIFE) was Environment Ministry’s Vertrags- protected under regional law as naturschutz programme. ‘Naturschutzgebiet’ (strict reserve, covering, besides the species, the habitats as well) in Nov. 97.

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As flanking measures, electric power today, thanks to good renewal rates lines and tree rows which cramped among management contracts coming great bustard flyways and views were to the end of their 5-year term. removed. Like Brandenburg, site monitoring and day-to-day Site monitoring, daily management and management was established thanks to scientific observation is ensured, from 2 jobs created by LIFE and 3 by a two stations at Buckow and Baitz. German employment scheme. There are 10 local staff (more than during LIFE!) under the All in all, this project did meet the Landesumweltamt Brandenburg, the objectives set out in its LIFE-Nature public body responsible to the contract, but had a rather turbulent Environment Ministry for on-site lifetime because of the battle over legal management. Six of these, plus two in protection, slow progress in achieving the local NGO Großtrappen- even its modest land purchase target förderverein e.V., deal exclusively (which necessitated a short with great bustard work. Conclusion: prolongation) and various internal the recovery programme to which administrative difficulties. LIFE contributed, had by 1995 already achieved its overall goals.

In Fiener Bruch

By contrast, Fiener Bruch had to struggle to hold on to the results obtained via the initial investment provided by LIFE, mainly because of a chronic lack of follow-up finance. The staff for site management and Logo specially designed for the LIFE-Nature project monitoring had shrunk from 5 to 1 by 1999 and even this last post (site manager), one of the two created via Life after LIFE LIFE-Nature, looked uncertain during the Flashback mission. Since then Since their ending dates in Dec. 94 temporary solutions were found (Brandenburg) and Aug. 97 (Fiener allowing the site manager to be kept Bruch), the two LIFE projects have on, but funds will run out again in followed quite different paths: April 2001. The Landkreis is trying to find new possibilities, but so far In Brandenburg without success.

Here land purchase continued, to reach The amount of land under a total of 2231 ha today. There are extensification inside the 1700 ha plans to acquire another 350 ha, mainly refuge zone dropped from 700 to 612 to round off areas where ha by 1998 because contracts were not rehumidification is taking place under renewed by farmers. After that it fell the parallel meadowbird-wader even more dramatically, to only 200 ha programme. The amount of land under in the 1700 ha Trappenschutzzone in the Environment Ministry’s strict the year 2000, which reflects the “Vertragsnaturschutz” bustard-oriented strained relationship with the farmers. agri-environment scheme is at 4440 ha In some cases, land where contracts

Life after LIFE Page 66 were not renewed was subsequently New challenges ploughed up or treated with herbicides to get it back to par, thereby wasting 5 Expectations at the beginning of the years’ investment in compensation projects were that once the threats of payments. This is permitted under the habitat loss and disturbance had been agri-environment schemes and the neutralized, the great bustard regional land use provisions, so little population should become self- can be done about it legally speaking supporting, perhaps even expand. (however, the designation as SPA in Oct. 2000 potentially creates a new This did not happen, even though situation!). habitat loss and disturbance were tackled quite successfully. In both This does vindicate the strategy of project areas, populations are not buying land. After purchase, land can declining any further, but they are very always be made available to farmers low, and stable rather than increasing. again, but then the conservation agent, as owner, is able to impose whatever There are two principal factors conditions are deemed necessary and involved here: moreover, any ecological improvement • Mortality among the adult birds obtained as a result of agri- because of the combined effects of environment contracts or other actions, ageing birds and kills by predators, is permanent. By contrast, agri- especially foxes, whose environment or other management populations exploded as a result of contracts with a private owner have the successful rabies vaccination. disadvantage that the owner can • The low rate of successful always decide not to renew the reproduction. Only one in every ten contract and revert to past practices, females raises a chick to maturity thereby negating the funds and effort each year, because of a shortage of invested in the contracts. The Fiener males and high losses of chicks and Bruch project, which bought less than eggs (50-80% of the annual ‘crop’) 6% of the 1700 ha great bustard core to corvidae and foxes. This cancels zone, relied on legal protection with out the positive effect gained by binding prescriptions for land use effectively ending the loss of eggs (which failed). Brandenburg owns 20% and chicks to farming activities. of the total land area of its two sites, and, although it still needs farmers to Low recruitment rates and predation work this land, it calls the shots there. are, as principal remaining threats, the price of success in dealing with the Yet no new land has been bought, for other threats. lack of funds, although the conservation managers would, in an The response has been threefold: ideal world, like to acquire the entire collect eggs for captive breeding, fence 650 ha core zone so that its enclosures in which breeding groups management can be assured via lease- and juveniles are protected against back under appropriate conditions. predators, increase annual fox culls Given the collapse of farmer (now at 350-450 in Brandenburg and participation in voluntary 200 in Fiener Bruch). extensification, this is quite understandable as strategy.

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Look, but don’t disturb: Field trip to bustard heartland during Fiener Bruch mission Photo: A Gazenbeek

Since 1990, all eggs found in the wild in the Westhavelländisches Luch are collected until around June 1st and substituted against a wooden egg to bind the females to the nest. Eggs laid from then onwards are left to hatch naturally. The collected Although sceptics might call this zoo- eggs are incubated at the station in keeping rather than nature Buckow; the chicks are raised in a conservation, the critically endangered fenced enclosure and eventually status of east German bustards justifies released in the wild. This means that in such temporary emergency action to any given year the chicks reaching build up a healthier population base. maturity are a mix of captive-bred and raised in the wild. Overall assessment In 1995 this fenced enclosure for chicks was expanded to cover 12 ha, Conservation benefit and 3 males with clipped wings were placed there. Because the males could By the end of the Brandenburg LIFE- not move out, the females joined them Nature project in 1995, farmers were there and stayed during breeding. This collaborating faithfully with the site had two benefits: it protected them and managers to prevent accidents to birds. their chicks from foxes (which can’t Consequently, the percentage of nests cross the fence), and it meant that and chicks lost to farming activities social interaction was restored because has fallen from 80% to below 10% in the birds kept together as a stable 1999, which is a great success. In the group (research had shown that two sites, Westhavelländisches Luch integration of juveniles into the and Belziger Landschaftswiesen, the population is a delicate process in great bustard population stood at 70 which male birds play a crucial individuals, and falling, in 1990. It positive role). continued to shrink steadily to bottom out at only 40 in 1996, but then, as the This tactic is now being copied. In the effects of the conservation measures Belziger Landschaftswiesen 10 ha was began to trickle through, numbers fenced recently and is being used to began to creep up again to 47 in 1999. release juvenile bustards to the wild. Between 1 and 5 chicks survive to The latest news is that in Fiener Bruch autumn each year. a similar enclosed area, to be stocked with 2-3 males, is being built on the In Fiener Bruch the population, 30 in land purchased via LIFE-Nature. 1980, had shrivelled to 6 in 1993, then, Completion is foreseen for May 2001. as the LIFE-Nature project’s measures began to take effect, it bounced back to

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pairs) etc. around 7–9 birds, with occasional • In the Fiener Bruch, Numenius peaks (13 for a short time in March arquata, down to 18 pairs in 1993, 1998 and again in Sept. 2000) when has recovered to a constant 25 birds fly in temporarily from breeding pairs, with one of the Brandenburg. The number of nesting highest breeding rates of any females climbed from 4 in ‘93 to 7 in population in Germany. Falco ‘97, but then went down to 4-5 in ‘99 tinnunculus made a come-back from and 2000. Similarly, 1-2 chicks were 10 pairs in 1993 to 30-35 today. raised and survived to autumn each • The three sites are important staging season between 1995 and 1997, but areas for migrating birds – in total then, in 1998 and 1999, there were no 45,000 Vanellus vanellus, up to chicks at all - possibly a consequence 2,500 Pluvialis apricaria, up to of the less favourable conditions in the 23,000 of Anser albifrons and Anser field engendered by the farmers’ fabilis together, from 1,500 to 6,500 ‘recurring management strike’ (pg 72). Grus grus and significant numbers Fortunately, in 2000 a chick was again of Gallinago gallinago (200), raised successfully. Tringa glareola (150) and Philomachus pugnax (120). The work to secure and restore habitats • Birds breeding at the 3 sites are for great bustards, together with other Ciconia ciconia (12-15 pairs) and parallel, habitat projects, brought Lanius collurio (90-120 pairs). conservation-benefits to other birds as well: These figures alone would vindicate • 17 bird species which had not been the conservation work done in these observed for 20 years have returned three sites, even without the great to the Westhavelländisches Luch: bustard. Porzana porzana, Crex crex (now up to 5 calling males), Gallinago From a legal standpoint, the areas are gallinago (15-20 breeding pairs), also now ‘better off’. The entire Emberiza calandra (60-70 breeding surface area of the two Brandenburg

Landscape in Fiener Bruch Photo: A Gazenbeek

Life after LIFE Page 69 sites, except the villages inside them invested any funds in the project’s such as Buckow, Damme etc, was continuation. The Ministry has a designated SPA in 1997 (although the budget for great bustard work, but it Standard Data Forms did not reach the can only be used to pay external Commission until Jan. 1999). contractors to do habitat management work, scientific surveys etc, whereas For Fiener Bruch the Commission what Fiener Bruch needs is funds to finally received an SPA designation for pay for its own personnel and land the entire LIFE-Nature project area in purchase costs. October 2000 (3677 ha i.e. twice the Positive spin-offs size of the Trappenschutzzone). Interesting is the economic impact from the 7 million € used to buy over 2,000 hectares Incentive effect of land in Brandenburg. For land owners in the villages in and around the project area, this capital injection was welcome. The In terms of incentive effect of LIFE- GDR era had left a legacy of poorly Nature funding, there is a sharp maintained, rundown houses. Many local contrast between the two projects. home owners might not qualify for a bank loan to renovate these houses because they had lost their jobs in the changeover It has to be said that the Brandenburg to a market economy. So, income from project was part of much a grander land sales was widely used to renovate houses. The effect is still noticeable today scheme for the great bustard. As such, – in a village like Buckow the houses with it had significant financial backing, new roofs and fresh paint often point to continued after the end of the project, people who have sold land to the bustard from the Brandenburg Environment conservation project! Ministry (which paid for personnel and operating costs, land purchase and a large slice of the agri-environment compensations) and from various Relations with local farmers NGOs which funded scientific monitoring work and more land Both projects needed farmers to work purchase. the land they have bought, and both counted on voluntary agreements with In the case of Fiener Bruch, although private owners and users in the rest of LIFE did provide the initial impetus, it the land occupied by the great bustards has not managed to ‘prime the pump’ to follow management prescriptions in by attracting additional funds to build return for compensation. Yet one of on this foundation and so consolidate the surprises of the Flashback mission the results of the project. So far, apart was the underlying discontentment of from the agri-environment payments farmers with the land management and a Federal German employment agreementsv. scheme funding the site manager, follow-up work in Fiener Bruch has From what we heard, it seems that, been exclusively financed by the local generally speaking, the farmers felt the authority (the Landkreis Jerichower management contracts are too Land), whose pockets are not too deep. inflexible. They are usually defined according to entire cadastral sections of land (whereas the bustards may only Neither the Land Sachsen-Anhalt’s be nesting in a corner). Farmers must Environment Ministry nor therefore mow the whole section and conservation NGOs appear to have they must mow after, say, June 15 (and

Life after LIFE Page 70 not before). This hinders the farmers: 2078/92 co-finance), the fact that the weather conditions change from year prescriptions changed annually also to year, so sometimes grass is ready for upset many farmers. In theory this mowing earlier in the season, allows some adaptation to changing sometimes later. It hinders the bustards circumstances, but, farmers claim, too, according to the farmers, as grass these prescriptions become ever more which grows too tall and dense simply detailed and restrictive (which the is not in their interest either. conservation side sees as positive feedback from experience gained!). In the case of Fiener Bruch, the The KULAP agri-environment mowing regime applied to the land contracts for both Länder (cofinanced brought under legal protection made no by 2078/92), on the other hand, do not sense at all, the farmers bluntly said. restrict farming activities as severely as The dates were not appropriate for the Vertragsnaturschutz, but their great bustards and certainly not for the drawback is that they are said to be farmers. Consequently, farmers more monitored by agriculture officials in an or less went on strike in 1998, refusing extremely rigid and inflexible manner. to take up the options offered to them If a farmer breaks one of the for using this land. (This complaint management conditions, the premia might be justified - mowing dates do paid over the entire five-year term, seem geared to meadow bird even for years when he obeyed the requirements! Apparently this was due prescriptions, can be clawed back. to poor consultation between the different public bodies responsible Also, because fertilizers have not, or when the conditions for the protection barely, been applied for so many years order were drawn up in late 1997)vi. of agri-environment contract, the vegetation is more diverse but much Regarding the Brandenburg less suitable for feeding to livestock. Environment Ministry’s Vertrags- This, farmers say, means constantly naturschutz programme (100% falling yields, which the compensation domestically funded by the levels (fixed for five years in advance) Environment Ministry, with no no longer offset. Dairy farmers, in

External threats to the sites

Various threats feared by the projects in the early 1990s (investment in new forms of intensive farming, holiday parks) did not materialise. Disturbance from nearby glider and balloon airfields and low-flying military jets have been solved via agreements on codes of behaviour, or are at least being discussed constructively. At this point in time, plans to build windmill parks in the higher-lying winter foraging areas between the three bustard areas seem the only serious external threat. The flyways along which the great bustards fly to and fro between sites are fixed and windmills could block these flyways, or scare the birds away from landing in their foraging areas. The environmental authorities in Sachsen-Anhalt have already formally rejected these windmill parks.

The outcome to one threat is an example of an innovative solution to the kind of conflict between infrastructure development and conservation requirements Article 6 of the Habitats Directive refers to. The upgrading of the Berlin-Hannover railway, which crosses the Westhavelländisches Luch bustard area, was a major controversy during the LIFE-Nature project. Fears were that great bustards might crash into the trains and overhead power lines. For a long time, a tunnel was the favored option, but this would have cost 350 million €. In the end, a solution promoted by Dr Litzbarski and his team – earth dykes on either side of the rail – was chosen. Construction ended in Oct. 1998. The dykes stretch on either side of the railway for 5.3 km and are 7.5 metres tall. They are made of styrofoam covered in soil, because otherwise their weight would depress the peat soil, causing them to sink. Yet their soil cover, now overgrown with grass and shrubs, makes them look very natural. The great bustards treat the dykes as a natural hillock and fly over them, so that they do not collide with the trains and the power pylons. A win-win solution? Definitely for the accountants, as total cost was only 13 million €.

Life after LIFE Page 71 particular, are hit hard. Therefore, from section to section, but in farmers either want to be able to apply compliance with the scientific opinion limited quantities of fertilizer again, to of the conservation manager. prevent further degeneration and maintain a basic yield, or to plough The idea certainly sounds attractive, and re-seed certain sections. If this is and may well work with mowing or not possible, then higher premia ought grazing, but appears less suited to to be granted to buy supplementary targets like restoring vegetation by fodder elsewhere. reducing fertilizer input – such efforts must be kept up for several years to All in all, there is a fundamental achieve the target and so would require anxiety amongst farmers about longer-term, fixed agreements. Also, constant change and lack of long-term this flexible, ad hoc approach implies a security (what happens when the considerable investment in qualified current programmes end?); both make personnel to monitor the site and economic planning difficult. negotiate with farmers!

The farmers said they would prefer to Finally, the sites harbour, besides great work in a ‘target-oriented’ system in bustards, other birds and habitats. The which the target (ensuring a favourable conservation agents have parallel great bustard population) is sacrosanct, strategies and targets for these (e.g. but the way to achieve it is given via maintaining high groundwater levels frameworks which can be implemented for meadow birds) yet this may not be flexibly (e.g. in function of the weather fully understood by the farmers, who and agricultural strategies, great then campaign against prescriptions bustard behaviour, other conservation they consider excessive, looking at aspects etc.). Mowing dates would then them only in terms of great bustard

Conservation benefit Incentive value Demo Public interest potential Brandenburg project 2231 ha purchased and a total LIFE-Nature was Gave Capital injections 4440 ha under bustard part of a larger example through land purchase oriented agri-environment programme for for the benefited locals. Over agreements – population of Brandenburg’s later half of zone brought great bustard stabilised as a great bustard (a Fiener under agri- result after a long decline. valued Bruch environment although Protection as SPA but threat of contribution). LIFE- some frictions still to predation and ageing amongst Nature be solved with still small population to be project. farmers. tackled as matter of urgency. Fiener Bruch Limited success with Despite initial Lessons Still strong opposition measures but population has injection of funds can be from farmers to the stabilised after a long decline. through LIFE- learned conservation Also area now protected as Nature, the project from its prescriptions, which SPA. runs risk of not setbacks. needs to be settled. being sustained in the long run due to insufficient follow- up efforts. fluctuate from year to year and even management.

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lynchpin for the long-term survival of L ooking beyond one’s own patch – the great bustard in this region of networking and dissemination Europe. The Action Plan for Globally Threatened Birds’ chapter on great bustards specifically Curiously there has been no organised mentions international cooperation as a attempt to market farm produce by measure of high importance, and the exploiting the situation created by the Commission encourages LIFE-Nature projects to network with each other and bustard management prescriptions. disseminate results. Why not try to market produce from these fields as ‘green’ and ‘nature- The Brandenburg programme, from the friendly’ with the great bustard as start, had a very international outlook and logo? liaised extensively with colleagues in great bustard conservation across Europe, including beneficiaries of LIFE-Nature However, farmers do not need as much projects in Spain and Portugal. As a final grassland as they used to – the trend in touch to the LIFE project, it organised an Fiener Bruch is to intensify milk international workshop in May 1995. This production by keeping animals in the active role continued after LIFE-Nature. In fact, the informal great bustard network stables permanently and bringing which arose during the early 90s appears to fodder to them. This means obtaining have moved into a second phase of joint higher yields of hay, silage and maize, research work: Brandenburg is now which in turn could be one of the collaborating with the Spaniards on winter reasons why agri-environment foraging research, with the Hungarians and Slovakians on artificial insemination and contracts are being resiliated and lands with the Hungarians on predator control. It ploughed up or fertilized. is also giving technical assistance to a In arable farming too, trends in CAP bustard project in Saratov (Russia). market support mechanisms can have consequences for the great bustards. The Fiener Bruch project, as new kid on the block, began by fostering close contacts and For instance, any changes in the collaboration on the site manager/site market regime’s subsidies and quota worker level with the Brandenburg which leads to a decline in rapeseed programme. After LIFE-Nature, the Fiener cultivation could have serious negative Bruch project coordinator developed effects, as rapeseed fields are the main contacts with colleagues in Austria, Spain and Hungary, published contributions in winter foraging areas for the great specialist journals and effectively joined the bustards. At the moment this crop is international network. So, both projects get still being grown, but no longer in the top marks for international networking! traditional foraging areas, which creates a new challenge.

We think farmers should not blame all their woes on the conservation The future programmes, however. The three LIFE-Nature project areas have poor Farmers in both project areas gave a lot and fragile peaty soils, which are of detailed criticism of the agri- simply not suitable for super-intensive environment contracts they were farming of whatever kind. confronted with. These were interesting, and should be discussed Desiccation as a result of past and further by both parties acting in good present drainage schemes could well faith. After all, extensive and be as much to blame for falling yields conservation-friendly farming as agri-environment programmes. Yet, practices will remain the fundamental

Life after LIFE Page 73 rather surprisingly, nobody, neither the iv This would essentially have forced farmers to follow agricultural authorities nor the nature strict conservation-oriented farming prescriptions rather conservation bodies, appear to be than encourage them to do so through voluntary agreements. addressing this very fundamental v Because farmers are such crucial players, we met with problem, even though in Brandenburg representatives during the Flashback mission: Messrs Feye, Behrendt and Rawolle in Fiener Bruch, Mme the peaty soil is reported to be drying Schönborn and Messrs Richter and Barthels in out, losing contact with the falling Brandenburg. vi Our latest information is that the protection order for the groundwater levels and mineralising. 143 ha in question is currently being revised and the This is bad news for biodiversity, but mowing regime is being adjusted, so this problem should therefore be solved. just as much for agriculture itself in the vii We have just been informed that a project to improve the vii long run . hydrology of the Havelländisches Luch is now under way. The grassland covering 2/3 of Fiener Bruch is less affected by hydrological fluctuations. Finally, the two projects show how vital sufficient follow-up finance is to be able to build on the results of a LIFE-Nature project. Brandenburg has the financial muscle of the Land’s environment ministry behind it; Fiener Bruch is, to all intents and purposes, dependent on the limited financial resources of a local authority and is thus struggling to hold on to what For further information LIFE achieved. At the end of the day, the two projects are neighbours; Brandenburg project Dr Matthias Hille scientific observation has shown they Landesumweltamt Brandenburg deal with one and the same population. Postfach 60 10 61, D-14410 Potsdam Joint action would seem logical, and Tel: +49 331 277125; Fax: +49 331 277 6183 seems to be starting up at last. Email: [email protected]

Fiener Bruch project Talks between the competent Sieglinde Bischoff ministries in the two Länder were, by Landkreis Jerichower Land, Außenstelle early 2001, beginning to bear fruit in Genthin, Amt für Umwelt und Naturschutz the form of outlines for a joint project Brandenburgerstraße 100, D-39307 Genthin to tackle the main problems still facing Tel: +49 3933 905517 Fax: +49 3933 905518 great bustards. This is encouraging news, which hopefully will firm up over the coming months.

I In winter the birds occupy a range twice as big as they fan out from these core areas to look for foraging opportunities. iiThe status of a small group (3-4 individuals observed) in the Uckermark is not entirely clear: are they indigenous birds or wanderers from the three main surviving east German populations mentioned above? iii KULAP (Kulturlandschaftsprogramm) is the generic name for a comprehensive agri-environment programme in Germany. Such programmes, administered by the German Länder, cover a range of specific contracts: late mowing, low stocking densities, reduced fertiliser input, no ploughing of pasture, preservation of humid meadows or streamside strips, etc.. The original KULAP programmes were initiatives of the Länder, funded from their own budget, but from 1992 onwards they were co-financed by Regulation 2078/92/EEC.

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS View of La Rocchetta in the Noce alley Photo: A Gazenbeek Beneficiary: Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Servizio Parchi e Foreste Case Study VI: Demaniali

Budget: 800.600 € Restoring wetlands

EC co-finance: 50% along the Trento flyway

Duration July 95 – June 98 The context

Location For 3000 years the Adige valley has Trento, Italy been a highway through the Alps from Germany and Austria to Italy. Habitat /species: SPA wetlands, Today the millions of travellers Residual alluvial along the roads and railways forests (priority habitat between Bozen/Bolzano and Trento type), Annex II speed through wall-to-wall orchards amphibians and vineyards between the sheer mountain ranges on either side of the valley. A string of towns and industrial estates lines the heavily canalised Adige river. Power lines march across the flat lands and over the high peaks. So what’s LIFE- Nature doing here, in a landscape completely transformed by the hand of man?

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Originally the Adige and its tributaries End of story? Not quite. For although were braided rivers, dividing they were protected against immediate themselves into many channels drainage at last, these wetland reserves winding between extensive gravel are usually quite small, hemmed in by banks, lined by riparian forests. They intensively used land and often regularly overflowed into the strongly degraded as a result of past floodplain forests and wetlands human activities. occupying the valley. Centuries of human impact has transformed this The LIFE objectives natural ecosystem - the rivers are enclosed between embankments, the The NIBBIO LIFE-Nature project, run wetlands and floodplain forests by the nature conservation service of reduced to tiny scraps. the Trento Autonomous Province, set out to repair, improve and expand a set Do such scattered fractions have any of seven degraded or remnant biotopes, value? Well, apart from being a refuge as a pilot project in nature restoration. for local wildlife and testimony of what used to be there, the Adige’s The project consisted of two quite remnants of nature are significant for distinct parts: birds migrating along the valley from central Europe to the Mediterranean • A part dealing with watercourses and vice versa. They have been using (subsites La Rupe, Foci this trans-Alpine route a lot longer than dell’Avisio): restoring river humans. Rather like the motels along habitats and their associated the motorway from the Brenner Pass riparian forests. down to Verona, these patches of wetland are resting and foraging spots • A part dealing with wetlands for birds. This gives them a European (Canneti di San Cristoforo, Taio, value. Inghiaie, Palu di Borghetto, Palu di Roncegno): Restoring those which In the 1980s drainage and conversion had become too choked with reeds. to farmland of these last wetland Buying neighbouring land to create fragments in the Trento Province more wetland or buffers against accelerated, perhaps as a grass-roots surrounding intensive agriculture. reaction to political discussions about Italy’s obligation under the Ramsar The actions Convention to protect wetlands. The Ramsar law, the Legge Biotopi, finally The watercourse subsites arrived in 1986, just in time to save the last remnant of Taio and halt La Rupe (near Mezzocorona) Here encroachment on the Palu di the Noce river, a tributary of the Borghetto, two small wetlands which Adige, changed its course about 100 would later become LIFE subsites. As years ago, leaving its former bed as a a result, all 41 wetlands left in the dry channel (the Nocino) parallel to the valley of the Adige and its tributaries current river, with a narrow tongue of in the Province of Trento were land covered in vineyards and orchards designated nature reserve. between them.

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The LIFE-Nature project reconnected had been turned into pastures. Here the dry channel to the river by digging LIFE-Nature’s targets were to create a six broad basins down to groundwater network of pools and plant new level, and diverting water from the reedbeds around them, to restore Noce into them through a buried willow and alder woods, and to plant concrete conduit. These basins were to hedges in the pastures as refuges and develop into a chain of pools and corridors for various species. wetlands, 2 km long, rather than a swift-flowing stream. To speed up the However, only part of this menu was process, extensive planting of willows, actually carried out. The most alders and reeds was done after the significant achievement was an excavation works. A tributary of the agreement with the water authorities Noce, the Roggia di Fai, was bringing under which only trees with trunks organic pollution into the river. So, thicker than 10 cm, considered a safety three deep basins were excavated with hazard, have to be cut, but other trees a threshold where it enters the Noce, to and bushes will be allowed to grow allow nutrients to settle and be filtered freely. out by planted reeds. The network of pools and hedges was Foci dell’Avisio : Although not realised. The project excavated two embanked, the Avisio, flowing into the small ponds, planted with reeds and a Adige north of Trento city, is still a buffering hedge of trees. However, braided river with numerous channels supplying the ponds with water, and and extensive gravel banks. However, keeping them filled, turned out to be a its riparian forests were being trimmed technical headache on account of the (for flood safety reasons) so subsoil structure. So this kind of thoroughly that they, to all intents and biotope work was not continued. purposes, did not exist anymore. Meanwhile the reedbeds in the Basins excavated in the former river bed of floodplain between the embankments The Noce at La Rupe Photo: A Gazenbeek

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The wetland sites Formerly a meander of the Adige, by the early 1990s Taio, beside the motorway and railway line near Nomi, had shrivelled to a tiny patch of reeds partly filled in by an incongruous pile of dumped bricks and other debris, surrounded by vineyards and orchards.

The Palu di Borghetto consists of a Restoration work undertaken in the Taio subsite compact reedbed with some open Photo: A Gazenbeek water in a shallow basin – vineyards slope up on every side. Before LIFE- water with tortuous inlets and Nature it was criss-crossed by drainage islets); channels and drying out. • planting screens of poplars, willows and alders around the edges of Canneti di S.Cristoforo: consisted of wetlands to act as buffers and as a patch of reeds and trees, interspersed habitats for Ardeidae; with maize fields, squeezed in between • replacing concrete-lined drainage a waterfront settlement and the main trenches by newly-excavated road skirting Lake Caldonazzo. meandering brooks. .

Inghiaie (near Levico Terme) is a With few exceptions, the planned complicated mix of orchards, fields, measures were carried out successfully patches of wood and wetland at all the wetland subsites. occupying a cone of alluvial debris extending into the Val Sugana, the Surveys & other preparatory measures broad valley of the Brenta river, from the mountains. The Palude di Surveys were carried out in all subsites Roncegno in the same valley is a to monitor the birds, amphibians and similar mix of woods, fields, meadows fish species present before and after and reedbeds. biotope works. A special survey of aquatic vegetation and invertebrates All these wetland subsites are small, was made to test the efficacy of the ranging from 4 ha (Taio) to 30 ha restoration in the La Rupe subsite. (Inghiaie). To ensure that the plant species used in The measures carried out were broadly the habitat restoration work were of similar for all of them: indigenous stock, the project also • opening up channels and pools in converted a former forestry nursery, the reedbeds; situated conveniently close to a • purchasing adjacent orchards and channel of the Adige River, to raise vineyards to convert to wetlands aquatic, hygrophilous and riparian (e.g. at Taio, by excavating them to species. Plant matter dredged or cut groundwater level to create open during the biotope work, which would

Life after LIFE Page 79 normally be thrown away, was brought land purchase for conservation here for propagation. purposes. Relations with the wider community Also, commendable is that the project reports included excellent colour Public relations work, to tell people pictures of the situation at each subsite why these nature engineering works before and after works. This is a very were being done and to promote the graphic and user-friendly way to sites’ European significance, was an illustrate project achievements which important part of the project. A video was often rather lacking in the other was made about the work co-financed Flashback projects! by LIFE-Nature and a high-quality forty-page brochure was published illustrating the LIFE-Nature subsites and the other wetlands. A description Life after LIFE of the LIFE-Nature project was included in the nature education So what happened after the end of the curriculum of local schools, who were LIFE project? invited to visit the project subsites. An exhibit “Biotopes for Europe”, The watercourse subsites presenting the potential Natura 2000 sites in Trento Province, was organised At La Rupe the basins had become in Nov. 1997. To go with it, a public pools of clear water with abundant meeting on agriculture and amphibians. Vegetation growth around conservation was jointly organised by them has been so rapid that in 1999 the nature conservation and agriculture willows were already trimmed, reeds departments. will have be cut to keep enough open water, while invading Robinia trees So all in all the NIBBIO project ran will be removed later. smoothly, met its targets and kept to its original deadline. Probably no With the La Rupe section finished, the coincidence that this project was based ex-beneficiary has been expanding on a well-prepared application with river restoration up- and downstream. very detailed descriptions of the In 2001 grassland along the Noce measures - down to the number of m³ downstream (south) of the LIFE site of soil to be excavated. Although an will be converted to meanders, open additional clause in February 1997 water etc. This project will be financed made a few financial modifications, via the sale of gravel excavated during these were actually marks of success: these works. as some of the land required for the biotope works was bought with Upstream, inspired by the work done at additional provincial funds, more LIFE La Rupe, a new LIFE-Nature funds were available for biotope work. application was made for the La Rocchetta (Campodenno) section of Land purchase itself also proved not to the Noce river, several km north of the be as difficult as in other LIFE-Nature LIFE site. This 400,000€ project, projects. As explained by Marco dubbed ‘NECTON’, was approved by Frenes, a farmer we met during our the Commission in summer 1997. It is mission, many farmers have a job excavating chains of pools and elsewhere and work the family plot artificial meanders over a length of 3.5 after hours. This may help explain why km along the Noce, to recreate the there was no large-scale resistance to original braided river structure and

Life after LIFE Page 80 provide new habitat for Trutta cut. This accord, still in force today, is marmorata and other fish, and for allowing the riparian forests to make a aquatic birds. As in La Rupe, basins comeback. are dug to allow eutrophic water from a tributary, the Rio Denno, to settle and The Avisio also looks like a good deposit the nutrients. The works were candidate for a systematic river largely finished in June 2000. restoration strategy along the lines of the Noce. Indeed, in the winter of 99 Between La Rocchetta and La Rupe, a some works were done on a tributary dam across the Noce is a major barrier entering it from the north. to migration of fish. There are plans to build a fish bypass into the bedrock The wetland sites beside the dam, but the cost (250,000 €) is still an obstacle. Meanwhile, the Here too, work was continued after the Trento Province has doubled the La LIFE-Nature project with own funds. Rocchetta regionally protected area In particular the Taio subsite is slowly (biotopo) to coincide with the pSCI but surely being expanded outward and is considering expanding it even from its original tiny nucleus - more further upstream. Agri-environment land has been purchased and converted agreements, with EU cofinance, have to wetland; plans are to continue the been made for 8.5 ha of meadow along expansion in 2001. Its size will soon be the Noce under which farmers will triple that of the fragment at the mow hay to favour grassland birds. beginning of the LIFE project. Digging of pools and planting of trees has Thus the first LIFE-Nature project has continued at several sites, with wild led to follow-up projects which are fruit trees being planted at Borghetto quite systematically restoring the Noce as a food source for birds on their river. Impeccable! autumn migration.

An extra bonus is a new Italian law Only the Canneti di S. Cristoforo obliging electricity companies to seem to be lagging, mainly because guarantee a minimum flow in rivers owners of maizefields inside the site where they operate hydro-electric refuse to sell them for reconversion to power plants. The Noce river in 1999 wetland. became one of the first where the new law was applied, and the EU Humid meadows on the Avisio and involvement via LIFE-Nature provided Noce floodplains and inside the an additional means of pressure. The Inghiaie subsite, which were being hydro company, Edison spa, has abandoned, are now being mowed agreed to provide a constant minimum again, thanks to Regulation 2078/92 flow in the river, which will greatly support. improve the effects of the conservation work done here. Besides continuing the work inside the LIFE-Nature subsites, the ex- A similar situation has emerged for beneficiary has also launched similar Foci dell’Avisio. The most significant work at five new sites. achievement under the LIFE project was the agreement with the water Moreover, the NIBBIO LIFE-Nature authorities under which only trees with project has been copied in Trento’s trunks thicker than 10 cm have to be

Life after LIFE Page 81 neighbour to the north (the are involved, adding up to 2 full-time equivalents. Job creation! Management plans La Rocchetta was chosen as a pilot project for drawing up Trento’s first pSCI management plan, which was completed at the end of 2000. For the other sites, management plans are still to be drawn up.

Relations with the wider community The video and brochure produced by the LIFE-Nature project continued to be distributed to interested schools and municipalities around the LIFE subsites. Response from teachers has been very positive and many school excursions have been organised to the sites.

Since LIFE-Nature, the ex-beneficiary has invested a great deal in visitor La Rocchetta – in the middle are the new channels access to its subsites. For instance, at excavated by the Necton Project Photo : A Gazenbeek the La Rocchetta site a project is under Bozen/Bolzano Autonomous way to convert the railway station of Province), where a three-year project Crescino to a visitor centre from which to restore part of the Lago di Caldaro a track (already finished) leads to wetland was drawn up and successfully boardwalks into the alder-willow submitted for LIFE-Nature support in swamp forest and the river’s edge. 1998. The Caldaro wetland is also Along this nature trail a series of open- located along the Adige flyway and air exhibits explaining certain aspects this project will, if successful, enhance of ecology - but in a very original, the benefits for migrating birds almost unorthodox, way - will be obtained by the NIBBIO project and its located. successors. In fact, Trento seems to have a Surveys penchant for experiments in communication: In March 1999 a Scientific monitoring and surveys have guidebook was produced for the certainly continued well. Further Inghiaie site with some unusual surveys, to monitor evolution of the touches, e.g. a step-by-step description new habitats, colonisation by (« now, to your right, you see….. »), a amphibians and trends in fish logbook to record observations such as populations, were carried out at the the weather on the day of the visit, an LIFE project subsites after 1998. A opinion poll one can fill in and return consultancy is charged with much of and even a form one can use to report this monitoring and altogether (ex- vandals! LIFE sites and the follow-up and parallel projects in Trento) 6 people

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A 1 ha botanical garden will be laid and their ligneous vegetation with Salix out as an added visitor attraction on elaeagnos’ and ‘residual alluvial forests land donated by the Levico with Alnion glutinoso-incanae’. municipality beside Inghiaie. The avifauna is beginning to show signs Observation platforms have been built of benefiting too. Birdlife in the at the Foci dell’Avisio and La NIBBIO sites is diverse, particularly Rocchetta. At the end of the access ducks, herons, Rallidae, birds track to Taio there is now a small associated with streams (C. cinclus, gravel parking lot plus two large Motacilla cinerea) and reed-dwelling information panels. Plans to also build birds (Acrocephalidae), with 50-odd an observation tower here are still species in the seven sites, although the being vigorously debated, as not all number of Annex I species is rather within the conservation department limited (8, including migrants). want to promote visitor access to this particular wetland, given that it is Among these Annex I birds, the small and first and foremost, meant to project’s mascot (Milvus migrans, the be a bird refuge. black kite, called ‘nibbio’ in Italian) has responded well, returning to 2 subsites, Although these sites are unlikely to Palù di Borghetto and La Rupe. Also in become tourist attractions, they are La Rupe, the kingfisher, Alcedo atthis, frequented by local inhabitants. Since drawn by the increase in prey the biotope work carried out by LIFE- (amphibians, fish) brought about by Nature, La Rupe, for instance, has the LIFE works, has come back. In become popular for weekend walks. Foci dell’Avisio, a significant red- This is one reason why some technical backed shrike, Lanius collurio, experts and conservationists in the population (45-60 individuals) is Trento community do not want to benefiting from the conservation work. encourage access to all the wetland areas. Yet the Province’s planned At La Rocchetta and in the Foci promotion of cycling tourism may dell’Avisio, in the meadows now being bring people to the quieter subsites mowed as a result of the project, such as Borghetto if routes are not corncrakes, Crex crex, have been heard carefully chosen. Plans to lay a cycle again - probably individuals passing track through the Canneti di San through and using them as resting Cristoforo have already been headed place. The ornithological surveys by off, instead the track will be re-routed the successor project (NECTON) around the site. discovered large, hitherto unknown Crex crex populations (20-25 calling males) in the meadows of Saronno and Malosco, in northern Trento. A new Overall assessment SPA is being designated for these populations and suitable management Conservation benefit actions are being discussed with the local farmers and municipalities. The beneficiary’s approach of ‘slowly but steadily’ restoring the remaining All the sites had already been fragments of wetland in the region designated pSCI by the national seems to be paying off. The river authorities back in 1995, but the restoration work has begun to expand increase in Annex I bird species noted the Annex I habitat types ‘Alpine rivers by follow-up monitoring to NIBBIO led

Life after LIFE Page 83 to two sites (Taio and Borghetto) also of their fields, but now at least accept being designated SPA by the their presence. Autonomous Province in late 2000. The effects are being felt on other Moreover, agriculture as a whole, species too. Amphibians have been the throughout the province, has evolved success story here. At Roncegno the markedly and positively over the past number of species climbed from one to decade, Dr Caden said. Integrated 3 as a result of the work done and at cropping has expanded significantly Inghiaie from 2 to 4. The Annex II and is now the dominant form (90% of species Bombina variegata has farming); organic farming accounts for colonised the Rupe pools where 2-3%; the rest is classic intensive monitoring in 99 discovered hundreds agriculture. Nor is agricultural of individuals. In total, the seven Nibbio technology standing still. For instance, sites have 12 amphibian species; although, there still are plenty of besides B. variegata, there are three orchards where water is sprayed Annex IV species (Triturus carnifex, liberally over the trees from Bufo viridis and Rana dalmatina). standpipes, precise and economic drop- by-drop irrigation, which was unheard Monitoring in La Rupe revealed that of a decade ago, is now increasingly initially there was an enormous accepted and used. More economical diversification of fish because of the use of water is good for local new habitats and niches created by the hydrology and by implication, for all hydrological engineering works, but as the wetland habitats in the valley organic matter settled in the ponds, which are at risk of desiccation from smothering bare gravel habitats, the excessive water use. The rivers are range of species lessened again. already too dry, partly because of irrigation use. The impact of a switch The fundamental question still to be from standpipes to drop-by-drop answered is how sustainable this is, in view of the fact that the wetlands are Alnion glutinosa swamp forest near Crescino with one of the new boardwalks built by Necton still hemmed in by intensively used Photo: A Gazenbeek agricultural land, often with very sharp boundaries. What is being done to protect these wetlands against drifting agrichemical spray, run-off of nutrients and biocides or the effects of desiccation?

We discussed the interface between agriculture and conservation in Trento with Dr Stella Caden of the Province’s service for agricultural infrastructure and consolidation of rural land holdings. She conceded that the take- up rate for agri-environment schemes among farmers around the wetland reserves is low (1%). Still, there is progress as ten years ago farmers did not want any nature areas in the middle

Life after LIFE Page 84 irrigation could well be bigger and At the moment, Trento Province has an more beneficial than successful agri- annual budget of 1 million € for all its environment schemes in the buffer nature work, including its national zones around wetlands, yet would not parks in the mountains, which shows be noticed if tunnel vision makes one how significant this rather modest look only at peripheries of nature LIFE-Nature project was as an arease, she concluded.. investment aid. Besides that, in Trento LIFE-Nature appears to have had a less The incentive value tangible, but perhaps more important, political incentive effect. The Nibbio Typologically, this is very much about project appears to have been very safeguarding and restoring the last important to the beneficiary, the forest fragments of nature in a very and parks service of the Trento intensively populated and exploited Province, because it came in a period district. In other words, a project to do (1993-94) when conservation was in nature restoration work, or even create difficult straits. The political new nature. The watercourse part of authorities were considering a the project, which involves a lot of downsizing of provincial nature excavating and engineering, is a protection policies (e.g. via a proposal scaled-down version of bigger LIFE- to decentralise them back to the Nature river restoration projects in municipalities) and funding. The Austria and Germany. Is it breaking approval of the NIBBIO project new ground in Italy ? application made a big difference, less because of the money involved, than Before LIFE-Nature, small-scale because of the EU recognition and habitat improvement work had been support which it implied. done at several wetlands in Trento. So LIFE-Nature was not starting from This was confirmed by a NIBBIO zero, but building on earlier work. project monitoring mission by DG However, the scale of what was ENV D2 in July 1998, where the achieved compared to what went physical presence of a Commission before, represents a quantum leap official made other departments in the forward. LIFE-Nature here, as in Baixo provincial government take notice and Mondego, Anholt and The Lorraine so had a powerful effect in favour of saltmarshes, represents a massive boost conservation. to investment in biotope conservation. The momentum started by LIFE- Nature has not been lost, on the Seeking markets for green produce. contrary. Not only have activities According to Dr Caden the idea of creating continued at the original sites but also niche markets for quality or ecological a series of spin-off projects have produce has been examined. There is a started or are in the pipeline. These label ‘Valle Trentina, Naturalmente’ for fruit. To accede, farmers must comply with include a second LIFE-Nature project certain criteria which are roughly equivalent (NECTON), recently completed to the norms for integrated agriculture. successfully, which restored sites Initially this label gave added value, adjoining the NIBBIO project area, allowing premium prices to be charged, but and now a third (NEMOS), currently as other regions in Italy have now copied it, the competitive advantage is lost and being considered by the Commission premium prices are no longer possible. for co-financing, which will tackle yet New ideas to regain the edge are being more wetland sites in Trento. investigated.

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Borghetta, a site hemmed in by vineyards Photo A Gazenbeek

The LIFE-Nature funds themselves were also particularly important for land purchase, vital precondition to be able to start nature restoration work. It seems that, before 1993, land purchase by the parks service, the autonomous This, then, has been the true value of province’s conservation agent, was the project – it has shored up and possible, but difficult, and when it did given impetus to conservation in the occur, it focused on buying Trento Autonomous Province - a unproductive land like reedbeds inside ‘political’ conservation benefit. reserves, acting almost as a compensation to landowners for Networking stopping them from converting such land into something more productive. By contrast the networking potential of the project appears to have been under- Buying productive land was exploited. Together the LIFE-Nature unthinkable at the time. A vineyard, subsites and the other Trento wetlands needed to expand the wetland, might form a series of stepping stones along cost ten times as much per hectare as the trans-Alpine flyway for migrating reedbeds – any suggestion to the birds. This, more than the species provincial treasury to fork out would occurring there, is their European lead to comments like “Is this money value. Yet the project, although it has well spent? This costs too much !”. been copied in the Trento-Bozen However, the treasury minded less if region, does not appear to have built up EU funds were used instead, and so, any significant contacts further afield, thanks to LIFE-Nature, could be somewhat surprising for managers of persuaded to try buying expensive staging points along a flyway for farmland for nature restoration. migrating birds.

Once the success of the first such cases Joint monitoring of birds with had been demonstrated by LIFE- colleagues in Austria and Germany Nature, the province became less would be an obvious step. The Trento reticent about buying productive land. Province parks service does attend Already during the LIFE project, meetings of the ARGE Alp, a platform additional funds were made available of authorities from northern Italy, west for such purchases, liberating LIFE Austria, Bavaria and Baden- funds earmarked for this towards extra Württemberg. Perhaps this platform biotope restoration work. A classic could be used in the coming years to pump-priming effect by LIFE! build up joint conservation actions?

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Overriding economic concerns The road issue cropped up during the lifetime of the two LIFE-Nature Inevitably in a district with such busy projects (NIBBIO and NECTON), so through-traffic, the wetlands have been that the Commission, in monitoring the faced with new infrastructure progress of the projects, participated in initiatives. No less than three sites are the discussion about impacts on the affected by a new road from the Non sites and possible solutions. This valley along the Noce down to Trento. illustrates another facet of LIFE- First, this road skirts La Rocchetta and Nature. The Commission, because it is forms the western boundary of much co-financing a project there, can help of this site. There will be compensation ensure that infrastructure plans which for the land lost to this road, in the could affect the integrity or form of financing for new pools (some conservation status of a LIFE-Nature have already been built). The new road site, are thoroughly assessed as to will then head past La Rupe. alternatives, mitigation and compensation.

Relations with the local community From the strong emphasis placed on raising local awareness for these tiny wetlands, it is clear that the beneficiary wanted to win local support for its conservation work. This seems to be working. New road with La Rocchetta to the left Photo: A Gazenbeek Some years ago about half the farmers The original plan would have laid the and others affected by measures were road straight through La Rupe ; this hostile, and the other half indifferent. was headed off by the forest and parks Now the overwhelming majority is service. Instead the road will now run indifferent, with minorities either along the top of the dyke which forms fanatically for or against. It is also easier now to start conservation the eastern border of the site, between i the renaturalised Nocino and adjacent projects than before, we were told . . farmland. This shift in attitudes has been a result Finally, the road has to cross the Foci of the work done (via the LIFE project dell’Avisio site, and again, instead of a and its aftermath), which showed that new route through the site, a the conservation projects were not as compromise has been found in which bad as feared and that there were good the road will run beside the existing results. Even elderly farmers, although Brenner-Trento motorway. they remain opposed, do, when the new pools have been dug in the midst of farmland, say, ‘ah yes, I remember, it was like this when I was a child’.

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Conservation Incentive value Demonstration Public interest benefit potential 6 of the 41 LIFE-Nature funding convinced Provided a Agreements with hydro wetlands the Trento Province of the model for and water agencies, remaining in importance of these sites in subsequent conflicts with road Trento have EU context. projects, some building plans solved, been restored Local conservation budget of which were but still more work to and work is safeguarded as a result and co-financed do regarding overall underway to actions on site continue. through LIFE- land use actions such restore further Results also integrated into the Nature. as farming and gravel sites new Rural Development Plan. extraction.

The Future areas and restoration works. Another gravel works spoils the view from an observation platform at the Foci This more positive attitude seems have dell’Avisio site. Will these crushing been taken on board amongst other plants eventually be closed down and government departments too. For re-integrated into the sites ? instance, the Trento Rural Development Plan for 2000-2006 Taio, although very successful in terms under the new Regulation of restoration work, remains hemmed 1257/99/EEC includes specific and in by vineyards and orchards. The operational references to Natura 2000, water in the pools is groundwater, and including a full list of sites, and although its chemical composition is proposes actions to help implement the not being monitored ( !) there must be Habitats and Birds Directives by a problem with agrichemicals brought means of agri-environment measures in by wind or via the groundwater. Can (e.g. late mowing, circular mowing and these problems be resolved through the other measures to favour meadow new Rural Development Plan? …. birds).

One specific action aims at riparian forests, which were one of the principal targets of the NIBBIO and NECTON river restoration subprojects. i During our mission, we attended a public meeting in Compodenna where the La Rocchetta works were Altogether, the Rural Development presented. Over 70 people attended; although there were Plan clearly shows that the experience some critical remarks, most people were pleased and gained through the LIFE-Nature interested, in particular the local anglers. projects has been taken into consideration, which is an example of integration of conservation into other (EU) policies. For further information, contact: Mr Piero Flamini Now comes the test of putting this Provincia Autonoma di Trento concept of integrated land use planning Servizio Parchi e Foreste Demaniali into practice. Because, at the end of the Ufficio Biotopi day, a strategic approach is necessary. Via G.B. Trener 3 38100 Trento For instance, both La Rupe and La tel: +39 0461 495833 Rocchetta have large gravel crushing fax: +39 0461 495918 plants hard against their perimeters, email : [email protected] which makes for rather bizarre contrasts with the adjoining nature

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS Water lilies used to control growth of Myriophyllum Photo: ICN Beneficiary: Istituto Conservação da Natureza (ICN)

Budget: Case Study VII: 1.000.000 € EC co-finance: Reeds and Rice in 50% Duration Baixo Mondego Jan 1993 – Dec 1996

Location Near Coimbra, The context Northern Portugal

Habitat /species: Near the famous old university town SPA wetlands of Coimbra, the Mondego river leaves the ranges of inland Portugal and flows through a broad river plain to the Atlantic at Figueira da Foz. This lower section of the river (the 'baixo Mondego') has been canalized and its floodplain converted to rice fields or other farmland. Of the original wetlands, almost nothing is left. However, a few patches remain in the side valleys where tributaries flow into the Mondego from the low hills to the north and the south.

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The LIFE-Nature project covered the Storks, spoonbills, egrets all forage three main wetland patches (Paul da here. Taipal alone has six nesting pairs Arzila, Paul do Taipal and Paul da of purple heron (Ardea purpurea). The Madriz). All three are reedbeds (a mix swamps also host a series of reptiles of Scirpus lacustris, Typha latifolia, and amphibians and even otters occur. Typha angustifolia, Phragmites australis and Carex riparia), with Threats and trends patches of open water and thickets of willow and alder. They are fringed, The three wetlands themselves were hemmed in even, by farmland threatened by a mix of internal and (ricefields) and/or wooded slopes external factors: (pines, eucalyptus). The sceptic may • Proliferation of Phragmites reeds well ask, what is the value of these and loss of open water. isolated fragments of rather run-of-the- Traditionally, reed cutting was mill reedbed against a backdrop of carried out as a local economic hundreds of km² of planted forests, activity, which kept the wetlands farmland and straggling townships? open, but this is now being abandoned. The result is that In fact, they are still important Phragmites australis is getting the wintering stops for birds and resting upper hand, at the expense of areas during the spring and autumn Typha, which is important as habitat migrations (in the summer of 1998 for Annex I birds. By the 1990s 30,000 migrating swallows were 80% of the Arzila wetland, for counted here). The sites are nationally instance, was covered in significant as breeding ground for Phragmites. reed-loving birds such as warblers and little bittern (Ixobrychus minutus).

A lesson for LIFE: get your measurements right

Endless confusion was caused, during this Flashback exercise, by the exact size and boundaries of the project subsites. According to the 1992 project contract, Paul do Taipal covered 350 ha, Paul da Arzila 300 and Paul da Madriz 50 ha. Together 700 ha as project area. However, interim and final reports of the project gave other values, while the official 1999 Portuguese figures gave 1,000 ha for the three together. Even taking the original 700 ha total, the proportion affected by land purchase and biotope management work during the LIFE-Nature project (for values, see below) seemed quite paltry in comparison. Our initial impression of the project's achievements was correspondingly sceptical.

During the on-site mission it turned out that although the Paul da Arzila nature reserve and SPA cover 535 and 686 ha respectively, only 165 ha is ‘core zone’, that is to say, the land effectively targeted for conservation work by LIFE, and only 120-135 ha is true wetland. The rest of the SPA/nature reserve is actually a buffer zone, encompassing the forested slopes of the valley in which the wetland lies, a road crossing it, ricefields at either end and the Arzila reserve headquarters with its adjoining amenities for visitors. The same breakdown applies to Madriz and Taipal, where no more than 40 ha and 80 ha respectively are true wetland.

Conclusion: Only between 240 and 285 ha were truly relevant for the LIFE-Nature project in all three subsites together - only a third of the value given in the project file! This certainly gives a very different, and more positive, perspective on the value of the work done! It is vital that project areas as defined in contracts and reports, correspond to what is really relevant, and not to some fanciful figure which has little or no meaning on the ground. Inflation of project area size can actually make project achievements seem less valuable and worthwhile than they are, as happened here.

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Rice fields are a key habitat for foraging birds when not levelled Photo ICN

• Invasive exotic species, in particular • The canalisation of the river the aquatic weed Myriophyllum Mondego has caused a general fall aquaticum, which forms carpets in groundwater levels. choking areas of open water, and the crayfish Procambarus clarkii, The avifauna inhabiting the wetlands which appeared in the valley in were further threatened by changes to 1987. their foraging habitats. The traditional rice fields in the Mondego floodplain • Water pollution from industrial and had an uneven microtopography, so residential sources, which is brought that they were speckled with patches of down from the hills by the tributary open water and were infested with streams crossing the three LIFE- weeds, which provided good foraging Nature wetlands. Arzila is the most areas. However, more and more fields affected - its catchment area is are being levelled (often with co- larger, more densely settled and finance from the EAGGF Guidance with factories (ceramics, meat Fund, whose panels can be found all processing). Some of the water is so over the valley), so that there is an polluted that it is not even equally thin layer of water over the recommended for agricultural use. entire surface, which allows a dense A ditch ringing Arzila drains away growth of rice but no weeds or open the polluted water, so that the water water - birds lose foraging in the reeds is reasonably pure, but opportunities. in winter floods can cause the ditch to overflow and pollute the core Pollution from pesticides is said to be wetland. The ensuing eutrophication only a problem at certain times of the helps explain the proliferation of year. Although agriculture is being Phragmites, which thrives on modernised, the levels of fertilisers and nutrients. The two other wetlands pesticides being used in the Mondego have smaller and less densely plain are still well below those of rice- settled catchment areas, but they too growing areas in the Ebro delta or the are affected by eutrophication. Camargue. Consequently, amphibians are still relatively abundant, providing a good food resource for storks and other birds.

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LIFE objectives itself began, SNPRCN was overhauled, modernized and renamed Istituto The project’s approach was twofold: Conservaçao da Natureza (ICN, i.e. Institute for Nature Conservation), 1. Secure and improve the three which thus became the beneficiary of wetlands, as refuges for birds and the project and responsible for follow- other wildlife. The main tool was up. land purchase; first, to halt further conversion of wetland to ricefield ICN has a central office which takes (at the time, not all sites were care of overall administration, finances adequately protected), second, as a and legal matters and includes two precondition for work to improve directorates for protected areas and the habitats. These interventions conservation policy in general, plus sought to reduce the area covered local offices across the country which in Phragmites, eliminate the manage the protected areas of national invasive weed Myriophyllum and interest. Each of these local offices is open up new areas of water. assigned an annual operating budget by the central office, in function of 2. Try to address the broader context various criteria. in which these wetlands were located, which means: The local office covering the Mondego • improve foraging opportunities district was responsible for for birds in the farmland and implementing this LIFE project and in limit negative effects from it on effect took funds out of its annual the core wetlands (translated into envelope as co-finance for the EU a programme to promote organic support. Funds for follow-up work to farming), the LIFE project equally have to come • promote ecological awareness out of the envelope assigned to it by among the local population the central ICN office (translated into construction of a visitor centre, production of How did the project function? information material and development of nature education As was often the case in the early years initiatives). of LIFE-Nature, the project contract had vague terms of reference and Finally, work begun prior to LIFE- almost no quantified outputs. The Nature, such as wardening and interim and final reports submitted by scientific surveys and research, would the project were not always very be integrated into the project and detailed or precise either. This made it continued. difficult to come to grips with this project when analysing the files. Much Who was behind the project? remained obscure or even contradictory, and was not cleared up The original application was made by until the site visit. Which proves a the Serviço Nacional de Parques, point: if a project document or Reservas e Conservaçao da Natureza evaluation is badly written, it can (SNPRCN), i.e. the national parks, really confuse a third person who reserves and nature conservation wants to consult the file years later. service. In May 1993, after approval of LIFE co-finance but before the project

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Paul do Taipal – area of open water excavated only begun to make a dent - much of after land was purchased Photo: A Gazenbeek the core zone of Arzila is still In the field, implementation was dominated by Phragmites. In Taipal a reasonably smooth, but land purchase first patch of open water was made and negotiations proved lengthier and more another pool was created in Madriz. difficult than expected, so that a Removal by hand of Myriophyllum prolongation of one year was asked began, which proved laborious, but and given by the Commission. some patches were cleaned, for instance in Madriz. As for the crayfish, ICN experimented with What did the project achieve? various control methods (e.g. Land purchase systematic capture of the crayfish at In 1990 the Mondego office of the points where it enters the reserves), SNPRCN had inherited 8 ha of land but here too a final solution was not originally purchased by a public works achieved. entity for a failed project, but the financial envelope assigned to it by Scientific and monitoring work SNPRCN central administration was Birds continued to be monitored by the not big enough to buy land directly. wardens during the project, and other LIFE-Nature made a big difference useful research (not charged to LIFE- here: 64.5 ha were bought, allowing Nature) was done by various experts the Mondego office, now part of ICN, and entities. to gain control of ¼ of the total relevant area of 240-285 ha. Institution-building When ICN set up its Mondego district Habitat work antenna in 1988, 4 wardens were hired, Here too, LIFE-Nature allowed plus technical staff. All were squeezed conservation work to get started in into rented premises in Coimbra with earnest. Labourers were employed, an outpost inside a building belonging who clear-cut a total of 10 ha to the Arzila municipality. The new Phragmites (6 ha in Madriz, 2 ha each purpose-built office and visitor centre in Arzila and Taipal). Still, this has at Arzila was one of the most visible

Life after LIFE Page 94 achievements during the LIFE-Nature project. LIFE did not fund all of it, but did give a major impetus. After the centre opened in Aug 1997, work became a lot easier and more efficient.

Relations with the wider community

Promotion of benign farming: Arzila information panel at start of track Photo: A Gazenbeek This part of the LIFE-Nature project consisted of definition and field Visitor centre and public information: testing of methods and techniques designed to make rice and maize The new visitor centre at Arzila houses farming less ecologically aggressive. a permanent exhibition and stocks a The methods could be quite simple, range of publications. Posters, such as using mulch to keep down postcards, pins, T-shirts, pencils and weeds, instead of herbicides. The plan pens were made during the LIFE- was to then promote these methods Nature project, and some of these among farmers, who would hopefully gadgets are still available at the visitor adopt them and so reduce pesticide and centre today. fertiliser use. Beside the building, a nature trail was This work was undertaken with laid out, with an open air exhibit of enthusiasm right from the beginning of ancient methods of water regulation. the project. Experiments were indeed By the end of the project, visitor centre done, in collaboration with an and trail were already popular with agricultural institute, with various schools. 44 nature education sessions techniques of crop growing. Meetings were held in local schools in 1994 were organised with farmers, lectures alone. given on ‘agriculture and nature conservation’ in local training courses, Although information panels were and two brochures were produced erected around the centre, almost all giving advice how to use agrichemicals panels and publications were funded safely and efficiently and describing from sources outside the LIFE-Nature alternatives to herbicides and project. This may explain why Natura pesticides. 2000 and LIFE-Nature are only Yet no tangible results in terms of mentioned in a summary way, if at all, farms actually converting were and EU and Council of Europe are reported. The main thrust of the often muddled. ‘organic farming’ campaign would however come after the LIFE-Nature project, which had prepared the content.

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Life after LIFE

Arzila Taipal The LIFE-Nature project bought 7 A block of 52.7 ha, ²/³ of the entire sections of land totalling 11.8 ha here. wetland, was acquired by the LIFE- Land purchase has continued since: 47 Nature project. After the pool dug sections after the end of the LIFE- during the LIFE project, several bigger Nature project, together 12.1 ha, ones were made in 1999 on the land bringing total land in ICN ownership at purchased, bringing total open water to 1 2 ha. Ducks quickly began using them Arzila to 32.4 ha (about ¼ to /5 of the core wetland). The rest of Arzila is as refuges, congregating here and split between 120 landowners, each feeding in the ricefields out in the with very small sections, which makes Mondego plains. acquisition complicated and slow. ICN wants to create areas of open water in The eastern side of Taipal, at the foot Arzila, but because landowners resist of a steep slope, is the only part still in this, this means owning the land first. private ownership (30 ha). It is a hay Small pools could be dug inside the meadow used to produce stable litter; scattered sections which ICN already as this mowing creates extra foraging owns, but for larger ones it needs to area for birds and there is no use of build up blocks of several properties agrichemicals, there is no reason to first. intervene, as long as this beneficial land use continues. The western and To the west and east the wetland rises southern sides of the wetland are to forested slopes, so there is a fairly rimmed by natural boundaries (ditches natural boundary and buffer here, but and a road). to the north and south the transition is very abrupt - reedbed and willow To sum up, Taipal is a success – as a thicket are hard against ricefields. result of LIFE-Nature, no further investment is needed and regular There are even a few maize and rice management and monitoring of fields inside the core wetland, but these developments suffices. are not considered a problem by ICN View of Arzila across the core of the wetland as the fields are small and produce for Photo: A Gazenbeek home consumption only. All in all, there is still a good deal of work to do in Arzila, but this will depend on acquisition of the remaining private land (over half the core site). Disentangling farming and nature around the edges would also be positive.

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Madriz: vegetation and keeping site hydrology in order. Furthermore, ICN has also This wetland occupies a shallow basin gained control of quite large tracts of hemmed in between hills covered in land on the slopes surrounding the eucalyptus and pine, with a railway wetlands (future buffer zone). embankment forming a natural boundary at the downstream end. Nothing was purchased here during Management planning LIFE, but land acquisition got going The LIFE-Nature project did not make afterwards. The few ha acquired in a management plan, which was to be 1990 were tripled in the 1997-99 prepared afterwards using data period so that today about 40% of collected via the project. A general Madriz (i.e. 16 ha) is owned by the conservation plan is now indeed being ICN. The other half of the site is made for Arzila (Taipal and Madriz owned by two people who are willing will only follow when they come under to sell (but the Mondego ICN office national protection). Detailed SPA has not yet been assigned a budget management plans will be made for all sufficient for such a large one-off three, however, we were told. investment). In the meantime, management work on their land is Continuation of habitat work tolerated. Two of the labourers hired during No more pools were opened after LIFE-Nature were given permanent LIFE-Nature, but Myriophyllum jobs afterwards, and are still assisting eradication has continued vigorously, with the recurring management using the new technique of planting (control of vegetation and opening up lilies (see below). To stop water in patches of water). Since the LIFE- parts of the wetland overheating in Nature project, there has been a summer and becoming oxygen- breakthrough with the eradication of deficient, circulation has been Myriophyllum. After clearance, water improved by opening up ditches, lilies are introduced, which expand and benefiting fish and other aquatic smother any remaining Myriophyllum. organisms. Although there are plenty This technique was discovered when of willows around the edges of the ICN workers noticed there was less wetland, succession is not considered a Myriophyllum wherever there were problem as few trees manage to lilies growing, so they began scattering survive in the central part, which lily roots and seeds over water cleared becomes a mass of floating vegetation of Myriophyllum. This is now being rafts in winter when water levels rise. done systematically in all cleared In fact, some patches of mixed alder- areas. willow swamp forest around the edges have a natural value of their own as a Eradication of the crayfish relict of what once covered large tracts Procambarus has stopped temporarily; of the Mondego district. instead a thorough study is being done to see which predators hunt crayfish The overall situation at Madriz is and which impact it has on its own essentially positive. Apart from getting prey species, to see if this can bring the funds to buy out the two owners new ideas for control measures. A new left, the only work left to do is project concerns deliberate release of recurring management of the Porphyrio porphyrio. This is being

Life after LIFE Page 97 undertaken by another LIFE-Nature project, begun in 1998, in which ICN is a partner. Porphyrio porphyrio was released by this project in Taipal and Madriz, and the ICN wardens responsible for the two sites collaborated in the release and the follow- up fieldwork - so there is a perfect collaboration.

Scientific work and ICN collaborators – two of the wardens Photo A Gazenbeek monitoring

The sites are still being monitored by assigned to the Mondego by the the wardens, other ICN technicians and national ICN structure. the University of Coimbra. Water quality (phosphates, nitrates) is Relations with the wider community monitored monthly. All monitoring is coordinated from the Arzila centre, The visitor centre built during LIFE- which is now feeding data into a GIS. Nature is still in operation, with more than adequate opening times, a Research projects currently under way permanent staff presence and a broad examine the effect of pesticides on choice of information material. amphibians and how fish populations fluctuate under influence of drainage, One quibble: it is not easy to find irrigation and pesticides. These because of poor signposting (one has projects are explained in detail to the to find the village of Arzila first, then public via panels in the Arzila visitor follow signs ‘Paul’ = “swamp”!). centre. All in all, this aspect is being continued well. The nature trail in Arzila is well- marked, but lacks information panels Direct employment or a suitable self-guiding leaflet, which Four full-time wardens, three based in is a pity. However, the policy is to Arzila, 1 in Madriz, were employed focus on guided tours, especially for before, during and after LIFE-Nature, schools, rather than individuals. and have now been joined by a fifth (for Taipal). LIFE-Nature itself did Extremely detailed statistics are kept create new jobs: labourers to manage on visitors, which show that Arzila vegetation (2 of whom were kept as has, in spite of occasional slippages, permanent staff; the others are still climbed in popularity over the years. being hired on a seasonal basis) and a Starting at 48 guided visits in 1988, it hostess at the visitor centre (still reached 334 in 1993 and 411 in 1999. employed). So a net gain of 3 jobs, The number of visitors followed the financed from the annual budget same trend: 864 in 1988, 3514 in 1992,

Life after LIFE Page 98 peaking at 4472 in 1998. Half of all Why should farmers change if they are visitors come here in school doing well as it is? Development of excursions, ¼ in other organised niche markets where they can do even 1 groups and /8 as families on weekend better would be the crucial step trips. Individuals and foreign tourists towards success, and here ICN can are both very much in the minority. learn from LIFE-Nature projects like the 1996 project ‘Improving habitat What the Mondego ICN office would management in the Ebro delta SPA’, like to do, if it had enough investment which did look at the question of funds, is to convert the static marketing rice with an eco-label as exhibitions in the visitor centre to part of its wetland strategy. interactive, moving displays, build additional information centres for Surveillance Madriz and Taipal and do more information and education work. Thanks to the presence of the wardens, and the education work in local Promotion of benign farming schools, past problems with hunters and anglers (disturbance, shooting of The LIFE-Nature project had focused birds) have greatly decreased. on experimentation and definition of techniques, with a beginning of Reed cutting as sustainable economic dissemination. Really disseminating activity benign methods among farmers was supposed to go on during a second 30 years ago the Arzila wetland LIFE-Nature project, but as the supported the whole village through applications never got approved, reed cutting and fishing. Reed cutting nothing further was done. is potentially positive, by helping to keep down Phragmites, but this However, this can not be the only traditional local economic activity is reason. Investing personnel time in being abandoned: 10 people still cut promoting benign methods only makes reeds in Arzila, 3 in Madriz, nobody in sense if farmers are likely to be Taipal. The work is a sideline - nobody receptive, and that may be the issue. lives entirely off reed cutting. The

Arzila – showing sharp boundary between rice field and core wetland Photo A Gazenbeek

Life after LIFE Page 99 problem is marketing the product - Subsequently, the LIFE-Nature there is no support, no advertising. The project’s investment in the wetlands 13 people still cutting are old - the has been managed well. Three persons younger generation is not interested. hired by LIFE have been kept in Attempts to make the work easier by employment, and a fourth person hired using machines have failed so far. since. Above all, daily management is running well: operating the visitor Agri-environment schemes are not centre, organising nature education, used - the Portuguese operational monitoring and research, recurring programme in force up to 2000 did not biotope work and wardening. For this offer any possibilities. What the new regular maintenance work, follow-up programmes may bring is still moot. funds are available from the ICN national budget. Nevertheless, it is curious that less effort appears to have been put into Both in land purchase and one-off contacting landowners and reed cutters biotope work, the foundation laid has about the future of this activity, than in been built on. However, land purchase trying to persuade rice growers to is still far from complete (Madriz, and change their ways, even though the in Arzila over ³/4 of the core site is still impact of reed cutting on the habitats in private hands). The local ICN could be very significant indeed. section had counted on a second LIFE- Nature project to finish off land purchase in one go and continue the Overall assessment programme to promote organic farming (which is why the Flashback project is called ‘primeira fase - phase Incentive effect one’). Three applications were lodged between 1996 and 1998, but each Work in the three wetlands began in 1988 and by 1992, there was site staff, failed, for various reasons. Land in rather cramped accomodation, and 8 purchase was slowed down but the ha had been acquired. However, work programme to promote benign was hampered because the budgets agriculture was simply stopped, assigned to the Mondego office by its abandoning the previous work under parent body were too small in LIFE-Nature. This shows that reliance comparison to ambitions. This was a on a follow-up LIFE project in order to reason to turn to LIFE-Nature! finish off investment programmes is risky. The LIFE-Nature project allowed 64 ha to be bought, a proper office and Conservation benefit visitor centre to be built, labourers to The bird observations before and after be hired and biotope management LIFE-Nature show some improve- work to get started in earnest. ments. Ducks colonised the new Systematic information work patches of open water very quickly. (promotion of more benign crop Marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus) farming, nature education) was have increased in Madriz and have launched. Consequently, this project now also settled in Taipal, where they comes under the heading ‘LIFE-Nature did not breed before LIFE-Nature. The provides a huge boost to previous number of purple herons (Ardea small-scale work’. purpurea) in Taipal has also increased,

Life after LIFE Page 100 as well as the number of coot (Fulica which the blueprints exist since 1991. atra). On the other hand, ringing of This does underline how important staging passerines shows a declining LIFE-Nature can be as an investment trend, but as these birds are in decline fund for organisations who otherwise across Europe this should be have sufficient budgets to cover interpreted with caution. operational costs.

Altogether, conservation-related results However, the Mondego ICN is not a are so far rather modest, but stand-alone organisation, but unsurprising given the sites’ isolation embedded in the national ICN in a context of conflicting land use. structure. In theory at least, its annual envelope could be increased to allow it What is more, Taipal was still not an to buy land and build centres, if the SPA by 1998 (though Arzila and central ICN structure considered that Madraz were). An infringement this was a priority when allocating its procedure against Portugal had been funds to the different local offices. So, launched by then for insufficient the fact that the Mondego office does designation of SPAs, and it used Taipal not receive enough budget to follow as one of the examples. Finally it was the LIFE work through to its logical designated an SPA by the Portuguese conclusion, may simply mean that this authorities in September 1999. Of the work is not considered important or three, only Arzila is now also pSCI. urgent enough by the central ICN administration. Further funding In that case, should the Mondego The annual budget the ICN local office office lodge a successful application for the Mondego district receives from for a second LIFE project (which it ICN central office, has to be spread tried in 96-98, and is trying again in over 6 different nature reserves plus 2001), it will have ‘jumped the queue’ some species programmes. The in relation to other local ICN offices by Mondego office has full autonomy in securing outside funding to get what its deciding what to do with the funds it central administration does not give it. receives, but how much it receives is decided by the central office in Lisbon. The strategy, during LIFE and since, has been to gain full control of the wetland cores via land purchase in The amount assigned at this point in order to carry out the required time is sufficient for running the three conservation management and LIFE-Nature sites, but there is a improvement. However, more attention chronic shortage of investment could be given to the options for funding, for land purchase or to build sustainable resource use. Traditional the two additional visitor centres for reed cutting kept the Arzila wetland Conservation Incentive value Demonstration Public interest benefit potential Significant parts LIFE kick-started action Use of lilies to Public awareness of the wetlands through initial injection of control regrowth programme has been now under funds. Work continued but of Myriophyllum good but relations to other conservation the project did not achieve could be of land use practices and management; breakthroughs in extra interest integration of effect on birds national funding or elsewhere. conservation needs into positive but as integration into other land these still leaves much to yet limited. use policies. be desired.

Life after LIFE Page 101 open, and a revival of this activity now more or less stabilised, but in very might remove the need for land dry years there are problems keeping purchase and biotope management this wetland wet, which ICN attempts work. to correct by blocking outflow ditches. One of the LIFE-Nature investments Although an economically viable was a small dam and sluice across such revival may not be feasible in practice, a ditch to keep water in during summer it should at least be explored. Why not drought. ICN would like to tackle organise a round table with the Arzila’s hydrology but this would only landowners? Similarly, making rice be possible with the cooperation of the growing near the wetlands ‘greener’ various competent authorities for would be beneficial, but will only work water, which is not yet acquired. if it brings advantages to the farmers. Examples such as the 1996 LIFE- The Mondego west of Arzila is now Nature project ‘Improving habitat being canalised, and this will affect management in the Ebro delta SPA’ Madriz. ICN was able to persuade the show that this is possible and an engineers to carry out the work in such exchange of experience would make a a way that if water levels do drop, it lot of sense. will be possible to pump water from the Mondego into Madriz. ICN is monitoring evolution closely and is The future optimistic, as Madriz is hydrologically not all that dependent on the Mondego. The project’s continuation is an example of how context matters – the local ICN office can handle most of the In spite of the goodwill being shown challenges inside its sites well enough, by the engineers, the canalisation of but cannot do much about the Mondego is not a good thing, fundamentals like hydrology and ecologically speaking. When the entire pollution on its own. Here, it is lower Mondego still flowed free, there dependent on other authorities for were floods across the whole valley, so results. Other players beyond its that Arzila, Madriz and Taipal were in control can directly threaten the direct contact with the river, allowing integrity of the sites (road building and fish to migrate. river canalisation) or reduce foraging opportunities (through e.g. ricefield Water pollution microtopography levelling) for the wildlife from the three wetlands. This too is a problem which has not been solved yet. Treatment plants for Hydrology residential wastewater are being built or are planned. In a few years, For instance, a fundamental question therefore, this issue should be much for the sites must surely be hydrology improved. However, there is also – what is the situation with water aquatic pollution from industrial levels in the sites and with the sources, particularly affecting Arzila. watercourses (streams and ditches)? This is a harder nut to crack, it seems. Who controls the flow? When the Competence is split between different Mondego was canalised, of the three authorities. There is some sites, Arzila suffered most from falling improvement in local factories, but groundwater levels. Groundwater has their treatment plants, once built, are

Life after LIFE Page 102 not always maintained well, leading to It now appears that a compromise was spills and overflows. The local made by the government in May 2000 ceramics factory is making a special to finish the road to the border of effort because it wants to get an eco- Arzila, then link it to the existing label, but faces a legacy of its past - narrow road through the Arzila buffer tonnes of toxic silt which have zone and have the traffic shift back to a accumulated on the bottom of several new road once past Arzila. This will brooks and ought to be removed. All spare Arzila, at least for now, but does that the local ICN office can do in look like a recipe for congestion and these situations is lobby and keep the accidents, which may in turn lead to pressure up. At the end of the day, pressure to upgrade the Arzila road. combating water pollution is the responsibility of other authorities than ICN. However, there are EU Finding a way forward obligations (e.g. the new Water Framework Directive), while Together, these threats will continue to degradation of the core wetlands as a eat away at what is left of the wetlands result of pollution might contravene unless all the authorities involved can Art. 6 Habitats Directive. sit down together and hammer out a more integrated approach to land use New threat - road building in the area.

A new road from Figueira da Foz to Given this, systematic efforts to Coimbra threatened at one stage to cut approach other local authorities and across Taipal, but as Cohesion Fund interest groups in order to try to build support was sought, the Commission up good working relations with them was able to intervene and change this and convince them of the value of the route as condition for financing. The Natura 2000 sites, should be one of the latest plan is to build the road hard prime tasks for the Mondego along the north boundary of Taipal, conservation management. with toll gates right at the north tip, intruding into the SPA.

A new east-west road branching from the Coimbra-Lisbon motorway at Taveiros to go to Santo Varão, Alfarelos and beyond, is also being built. Originally, this road would run through the north tip of the Arzila buffer zone, which led to a complaint to the Commission in Dec. 1998. For further information, contact: Manuel Ferreira dos Santos While 5 possible routes for the Arzila Instituto da Conservação da Natureza SPA were under discussion between Reserva Natural do Paul de Arzila, the authorities, the part already being Mata Nacional do Choupal, built advanced right to the edge of 3000 Coimbra Arzila, with bulldozers still moving tel +351 239 49 90 20 fax +351 239 49 90 20 earth on the day of our site visit! email: [email protected]

Life after LIFE Page 81 neighbour to the north (the are involved, adding up to 2 full-time equivalents. Job creation! Management plans La Rocchetta was chosen as a pilot project for drawing up Trento’s first pSCI management plan, which was completed at the end of 2000. For the other sites, management plans are still to be drawn up.

Relations with the wider community The video and brochure produced by the LIFE-Nature project continued to be distributed to interested schools and municipalities around the LIFE subsites. Response from teachers has been very positive and many school excursions have been organised to the sites.

Since LIFE-Nature, the ex-beneficiary has invested a great deal in visitor La Rocchetta – in the middle are the new channels access to its subsites. For instance, at excavated by the Necton Project Photo : A Gazenbeek the La Rocchetta site a project is under Bozen/Bolzano Autonomous way to convert the railway station of Province), where a three-year project Crescino to a visitor centre from which to restore part of the Lago di Caldaro a track (already finished) leads to wetland was drawn up and successfully boardwalks into the alder-willow submitted for LIFE-Nature support in swamp forest and the river’s edge. 1998. The Caldaro wetland is also Along this nature trail a series of open- located along the Adige flyway and air exhibits explaining certain aspects this project will, if successful, enhance of ecology - but in a very original, the benefits for migrating birds almost unorthodox, way - will be obtained by the NIBBIO project and its located. successors. In fact, Trento seems to have a Surveys penchant for experiments in communication: In March 1999 a Scientific monitoring and surveys have guidebook was produced for the certainly continued well. Further Inghiaie site with some unusual surveys, to monitor evolution of the touches, e.g. a step-by-step description new habitats, colonisation by (« now, to your right, you see….. »), a amphibians and trends in fish logbook to record observations such as populations, were carried out at the the weather on the day of the visit, an LIFE project subsites after 1998. A opinion poll one can fill in and return consultancy is charged with much of and even a form one can use to report this monitoring and altogether (ex- vandals! LIFE sites and the follow-up and parallel projects in Trento) 6 people

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS Wintering ground for capercaillie in the Jura. Taken from ‘Des Beneficiary: Fôrets pour le grand Tétras’ by the beneficiary and partners Parc Naturel Régional du Haut-Jura with ONF and DIREN de Franche-Comté Case Study VIII: Budget: 1.176.000 € Round tables for EC co-finance: 34% capercaillie Duration Sept 1992 – Oct 1997

Location The context Jura Mountains The capercaillie Tetrao urogallus is Habitat /species: Capercaillie (Tetrao the giant of the grouse family; the Urogallus), a colourful males weigh in at 3-5 kg. It priority species is a sedentary bird, dwelling in its for funding 20-160 ha patch of woodland for its under entire 15-20 year lifespan. LIFE-Nature Capercaillies have a complicated lifestyle. In winter they seek open forests where they subsist entirely on the needles of firs and Scots pines, meagre food which digests slowly and gives just enough energy to keep the birds ticking over. This makes them very vulnerable to disturbance: any sudden burst of activity needed to flee can wreck their metabolisms.

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In spring, when shoots provide better occur. This is the capercaillie winter sustenance, males congregate at certain resort. It is also interesting for winter forest clearings, used from year to sports! When the Massacre plateau was year, for courtship displays. developed for mass ski-ing in the Disruption is to be avoided if mating 1980s, its once healthy capercaillie and reproduction are to stand a chance population crashed. at all. The females lay their eggs in hollows on the ground, which is risky At lower levels, forests are naturally in itself, but even after successful mixed (fir, beech). Traditional hatching (May-June) many chicks are exploitation enhanced them as habitats lost if the weather happens to be too for capercaillie. Foresters here used the cold and wet during their first days. ‘futaie jardinée’ technique Forests with broad clearings decked in (management by uneven-aged stands), vegetation bearing the grains and a method of ancient origin in which insects the chicks need, where there are individual trees covering a wide also dense patches of young trees for spectrum of sizes and species are taken cover, is de rigueur now. As autumn out, leaving a forest dotted with approaches, adults and surviving clearings, undergrowth and tall old chicks (80% do not reach their first trees, just right for the capercaillie. winter) move to areas where the forest Although after 1850 new ideas about floor is rich in bilberries and forestry prevailed, where all the trees strawberries, to fatten up for winter. in a particular stand are cut and replanted together (‘futaie régulière’, Outside Scandinavia, Russia and the management by even-aged stands, Carpathians, Tetrao urogallus has which creates more monotonous become rare. Extinct in central and forests unsuitable for capercaillie), the western European lowland forests for a older technique was never abandoned century or more, it is now restricted to in the Jura. mountains like the Pyrenees, the Cantabrian Ranges and the Alps, or In beech forests, coppicing (‘taillis’) massifs in Scotland and central Europe for firewood constantly created micro- (Jura, Black Forest, Vosges and clearings where berries could grow, Thuringia-Bohemia).These populations but a switch to other fuels after 1950 are fragmented and often declining. killed off the practice and allowed the No surprise the capercaillie is on canopy to close, so that the forest floor Annex I of the Birds Directive. became devoid of undergrowth. Because of ancient customary rights, The project area much land was simultaneously used for trees and for grazing. This created a The French Jura from the Doubs gorge landscape of meadows dotted with in the north to Bellegarde and the trees and patches of forest, the ‘prés- Rhone gorge in the south is marked by bois’, excellent for nesting and raising long parallel valleys, farmed and chicks. In the late 19th century, settled, separated by ridges rising to production forestry began prohibiting 1700 metres, covered in forest and the practice; a century later upland meadow. Above 1200 metres, abandonment of upland grazing has the climate is so cold and windy and taken over as main cause of decline. snowfalls are so heavy that trees Either way, trees spread back into the (mainly Scots pine and spruce) do not meadows, closing them. grow well. Many naturally open areas

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As habitat loss and disturbance spread, so that a 22-month prolongation had to the range occupied by Tetrao urogallus be granted by the Commission to let it shrank from about half the French Jura finish its work. in 1964 to a band along the Swiss border, with some isolated groups to The actions the west, by 1992. Over this period, the subpopulations of capercaillie declined Partnership building by 40-60% in terms of bird numbers. One of the main objectives of the When the LIFE project began in 1992 LIFE-Nature project was to conclude a the total population was only 320-370 partnership convention between individuals, with another 500 across stakeholders. This was done at an early the border in the Swiss Jura. stage of the project, when a steering committee was set up between PNR-J, iv v LIFE objectives GTJ, ONCFS , ONF, DIREN de Franche Comté and the CRPFs for The LIFE-Nature project thus faced Franche-Comté and Rhone-Alpesvi three challenges to the survival of the capercaillie: Information to the general public • disturbance at critical places during An excellent layman’s introduction to critical times (winter, courtship, capercaillie ecology, ‘Des forêts pour nesting) whether by forestry le grand tétras’ was produced by the workers or tourists; LIFE-Nature project and published in • forests which were once very 3,000 copies. Otherwise, the project diverse and full of clearings and deliberately invested little in patches of berries and other information to the general public. Even undergrowth, becoming more before the project began, rumours were monotonous, with undergrowth circulating that EU funds were being disappearing or being dominated by sought to limit forestry work and young beech; public access, all for the sake of a few • reversion of upland meadows to rare birds. Widely publicising the unbroken forest. project would only fan the flames, it Turning back the clock to restore was thought, so a low profile, focusing forests’ former structural and on the real stakeholders, was adopted. biological diversity was seen as the lynchpin of actions to stabilise and re- Here too initial suspicion had to be launch Tetrao urogallus. So the aim overcome. Municipalities had to be was not to end forestry, but to adapt it convinced that the project was not to capercaillie requirements. Foresters against exploiting forests, but wanted were indispensable partners in to help them use their forests in a managing the woods to produce manner that did not harm capercaillie. capercaillie as well as timber.

This is reflected in the project itself, which was conceived by the PNR-Ji and GTJii, but where the ONFiii was a partner. Its main target was to have directives for appropriate forestry management in place by project end, but this, and other targets, proved more difficult to implement than estimated,

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Mapping Guidelines for forestry adapted to To kick off the forestry work, the capercaillie LIFE-Nature project mapped 8600 ha The next step was to translate forest (66 different maps!). Instead of accumulated scientific knowledge into hiring professionals, the GTJ drew on practical prescriptions for forestry. observations from the owners and This was a two-way process: the ONF users of the land. The idea being that held many meetings in the field to by helping with habitat mapping, they discuss the project with its staff, and might see their land from a capercaillie organised 18 three-day training perspective, hopefully making them sessions on capercaillie-friendly more amenable to subsequent management for its forest workers (91 proposals on how to manage their attended). Reactions among the ONF forest for the benefit of the birds. field staff varied, but the ensuing These maps, plus data on sightings, robust debate did yield many new were fed into a GIS to correlate the perspectives, which were fed back into presence of capercaillie with types of the guideline development. Experience forest structure and grade the potential already gained with forestry work of habitats to host them. This yielded before and during LIFE was taken on the ‘Fiches des Facteurs limitants” - board too. for 34 sites, individual sheets comparing current capercaillie This culminated in a working paper at populations with potential capacity, the end of the LIFE-Nature project assessing limiting factors and entitled ‘Orientations de gestion proposing actions. sylvicole tenant compte des milieux à tétraonidés’. A sort of manual, Before LIFE, the GTJ was monitoring consisting of an introduction to two sites for Tetrao urogallus capercaillie ecology followed by 11 intensely, using them as indicators for chapters, each describing a forest type, the population as a whole. During the its potential value for capercaillie and project two more were added. This the principal threats to the birds, then monitoring, already sustained over 23 giving technical principles on how to years in the Risoux site, has yielded manage the forest type. Presented to valuable data, fuelling hypotheses on the Comité du Pilotage in April 1997, population dynamics in relation to the paper was published in 3,000 rodent cycles and predation. copies. However, it was not yet distributed widely as the ONF and CRPFs first wanted other stakeholders to also commit themselves to management guidelines.

Diversity of shape and size - another perspective on the Jura Photo: Marc Thauront, Ecosphere

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Already clear was that the forestry This did not prevent the ONF from guidelines were not compulsory already choosing to apply the prescriptions (‘directives de gestion guidelines. We were shown documents obligatoires’) as the project contract from 1999 concerning lots of timber up (rather naively) assumed, but for harvesting where the contractors voluntary. As illustrated by a comment were banned from working between from ONF collaborators that the LIFE- certain dates, to protect capercaillie produced manual does not prohibit nesting or courtship. The CRPF forestry work in nesting areas, it meanwhile vigorously promoted the recommends not to do it. The CRPF guidelines among its membership. It too was opposed to compulsory rules. told us that through the LIFE-Nature According to it, much more productive project, private foresters and is when conservationists tell forest conservationists first learned to work owners, ‘you have this natural habitat together and learned from each other. with great potential, we can help you This breakthrough in attitudes was realise it, but only if you want to’. already a success for LIFE, CRPF said.

‘Greening’ the forest management plans Forest biotope works to reverse capercaillie habitat loss In the French forestry system, management plans are compulsory for all individual forests except the smallest The LIFE-Nature project also offered private ones (below 25ha). The ONF grants to private and municipal forest writes the plans for state forests. owners who agreed to one-off works Municipalities (which own vast woods in such as preventing open spaces the Jura) are obliged to delegate their overgrowing, opening up stands of forest management to the ONF, which does however need to get the approval of beech which are too dense, creating the municipalities for the plans it draws up small clearings, etc. If anyone was and any specific work it does. Therefore, interested, the project would make a writing the capercaillie guidelines into plan of the works it considered best for these compulsory forestry management that particular forest, and if the owner plans would be as good as having them declared binding in the first place. By the formally agreed, the works would be end of the LIFE-Nature project the ONF carried out and the grant paid. had successfully introduced the guidelines Altogether, LIFE-Nature financed into the plans for 486 ha state forest and work to restore capercaillie habitat in 1265 ha municipal forest. 63 ha state forest, 1113 ha municipal For private forests matters are more forest (involving 39 communes) and complex. They are often fragmented 597 ha private forest (involving 23 between many owners, none of whom owners). Stopping beech from have 25 ha, so none are obliged to draw crowding out other species was the up a management plan. These owners are most common intervention. almost impossible to come to grips with. There were 9 public meetings during the LIFE-Nature project to present the new Grazing as a forest management tool guidelines to private forest owners - 130 Finally, a sylvi-pastoral experiment turned up, but this was considered not begun in 1993 to see if grazing could very efficient, as it represented less than be used to re-open forests was 10% of those invited. absorbed into the LIFE-Nature project.

Preliminary results were promising.

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The Jura’s high-altitude zones where nesting takes place, during the critical capercaillie live, 27,000 ha in all, also contain periods (which fall between April 15 other Annex I birds such as the owls and June 30, depending). The same Glaucidium passerinum and Aegolius applies to wintering sites. In effect, funereus and the woodpecker Dryocopus martius, which would benefit indirectly from forestry work in capercaillie habitats the LIFE-Nature project. In the project as will only be possible without any approved by the Commission in 1992, the constraint between July 1 and hazel grouse, Bonasa bonasia, the December 15. The other aspect of capercaillie’s smaller cousin, was a second forest management, namely to target, as its lifecycle and habitat requirements are broadly similar. It occurs maintain or improve capercaillie over a much greater area than the habitat, is also included in the new capercaillie - in effect the whole Jura above framework document for stakeholders. 800 metres altitude. Because it is a very reclusive bird, even more difficult to observe The crucial question of whether the and monitor than the notoriously shy capercaillie, the project ended up doing very capercaillie guidelines are little direct work on this species, but by economically neutral or a financial maintaining and improving forest habitats for burden, was supposed to be examined capercaillie, did indirectly help Bonasa by the LIFE-Nature project. In spite of bonasia. questions about this from the Commission after the final report was submitted, the project partners could Life after LIFE only come up with very rough guesstimates. ONF and CRPF even Follow-up to actions initiated under had different opinions about this the LIFE- Nature project matter. The initial state of the forest is certainly important: applying Partnership capercaillie guidelines to a well- The steering committee set up under managed ‘futaie jardinée’ should entail the LIFE project continues to meet little or no extra cost, but to forests regularly, still using the name “Comité where the starting point is less du Pilotage LIFE”, and has gained new favorable, they would imply major members, such as the cross-country changes and higher costs. Re-training ski-ing sector and hunters’ staff is also a cost factor. The question associations. remains open today, though in Feb. 2000 ONF, CRPF and the Société Guidelines for forestry adapted to Forestière de Franche-Comté published capercaillie a study, cofinanced by the EAGGF, on Because other stakeholders have, since the costs engendered by application of LIFE, joined the Comité du Pilotage the Habitats Directive to forests in the and have agreed to guidelines for their Franche-Comté in general. activities, by March 2001 the LIFE- Nature forestry guidelines had been ‘Greening’ the forest plans formally adopted by the Comité and Work initiated under LIFE-Nature has are expected to be distributed among been kept up since. Whenever a plan the forestry sector (public and private) covering a site important for during the spring of 2001. capercaillie is up for renewal, the ONF inserts the guidelines, consulting with In this document, the foresters commit the municipality if it is a municipal themselves to avoid or severely restrict forest. So far only one municipality has work in sites where reproduction and

Life after LIFE Page 109 refused, while 25 have agreed to the guidelines.

Data supplied shows that the total area of public forest now under management according to the guidelines has reached 16,180 ha (almost 75% of which is in the Département du Jura), which is very good indeed. In most cases, the municipalities commit themselves to applying the ‘futaie jardinée’ technique which yields forests ideal for capercaillie. Other clauses from the guidelines may also be inserted in the plans, depending on the specifics of the site. Furthermore, 3,306 ha already appropriately managed before LIFE, e.g. as ‘futaie jardinée’, is maintained, almost bringing the total to 20,000 ha.

For private forest owners, bilateral contacts in the field are now held to be more effective. The CRPF sends documentation packs to all owners who have to renew their From booklet ‘La taiga du Haut-Jura’ by the PNR du Haut Jura plan, advertising the capercaillie guidelines. About 70 private forest Grazing as a forest management tool plans are renewed each year, but exact Sylvi-pastoral projects have multiplied figures on guideline take-up rate are and now cover at least 560 ha, difficult to obtain. according to ONF data, mainly in the Doubs, and more are planned. This is Forest biotope work to reverse all the more noteworthy in that capercaillie habitat loss foresters have long been opposed to The demand for grants didn’t stop after livestock in the woods! As the ONF the LIFE-Nature project, but there Doubs remarked, a ‘major evolution of were no more funds to satisfy it! mentalities’ has taken place. This too Regulation 1257/99 may, in theory, can be seen as an incentive effect of bring new opportunities for sylvi- LIFE-Nature. environmental subsidies, but the opportunity must be seized by the French authorities.

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Mapping and monitoring and reduce disturbance. The LIFE- Since LIFE-Nature the context for Nature project organised a mission to monitoring and capercaillie research the Black Forest in Oct. 1997. Judging has become shakier. At project end, by reports, this was an eye-opener - lack of finance meant that the two part- participants were inspired by the time GTJ employees hired via LIFE- Germans’ model of involving all Nature had to be dismissed, leaving the stakeholders and their successful GTJ with volunteers only. Because collaboration with local winter sports they have increasing difficulties coping operators, whom they met. Back home, with the work, from 2000 onwards the the Jura ski operators were contacted annual capercaillie counts will be done by the Comité du Pilotage LIFE in only once every two years. Moreover, early 1998, and this did indeed prove the local ONCFS, which gave logistic fruitful. support throughout the 1990s, is under instruction from its hierarchy to stop Reciprocally, conservationists in doing this. Baden-Württemberg asked the French to help them prepare their own LIFE- The GTJ decided to try, through Nature application for a Black Forest subsidised youth employment capercaillie project. When this was schemes, to hire staff for daily approved for funding in mid-1998, the administration, freeing its volunteers to GTJ was asked to participate in the concentrate on fieldwork. This project’s advisory committee. There is succeeded: in Sept. 2000 one person already exchange of experience - thus was hired under a 5-year scheme, to there are plans for a German firm to take care of administration and public visit the Jura to demonstrate using relations and to assist with monitoring. cables instead of tractors to haul logs

Another positive development is an Oct. 99 agreement between GTJ and ONF, in which the ONF’s foresters will record any sightings or indirect indications of tetraonidae on special forms. In return, the GTJ will make collated data available to ONF so that it can plan its forestry work better. A year later the PNR-J contracted the GTJ to monitor winter sports activities in the Risoux, Massacre and Champfromier massifs and their effect on capercaillie, while it will also finance the July 2001 count.

Networking The GTJ had contacts with capercaillie conservationists elsewhere in France. Especially useful was the experience of a sister NGO, the Groupe Tétras Vosges, whose 1988 ACE-Biotopes project ‘Securing capercaillie in the Vosges’ also tried to modify forestry Espace Nordique Jurassien’s brochure on wildlife and skiing

Life after LIFE Page 111 out of a forest. So here we have a An excellent idea, worth promoting textbook case of networking proving among winter sports operators mutually beneficial. elsewhere!

Contacts were also made with forestry Conservation and business logic and ornithological associations in coincide here. “3000 km of cross- Switzerland, inspiring a Geneva country ski-ing routes” used to be the consultancy to develop projects and Jura’s proud slogan, but ENJ believes seek local funding. As a result, there this no longer has commercial value. are now two pilot projects in the Swiss Customers are more easily attracted by Jura to test forestry and tourism advertising the technical challenge of management in favour of capercaillie. the skifields or the beauty of the landscape. Also, it costs 2,000 €/year to maintain the routes, so downsizing Progress in other areas to the best routes or to closed loops around the skifield portal, saves on Forestry is but one of the land use operating costs. activities to affect the capercaillie. During the course of the LIFE-Nature Climate change could spoil this project it became clear that tourism budding relationship. If milder weather and hunting were equally important means less snow, more ski-ing routes and should be addressed in the same may be moved up to the summits manner through contacts with the where the capercaillie spend their interest groups. winters. ENJ has made this caveat clear, but in its guidelines it also says it Winter sports will, in such eventualities, consult with Talks since LIFE between PNR-J and the Comité du Pilotage in order to ENJvii, representing the cross-country avoid sensitive areas. The winter of ski-ing sector, have been very 2000/2001 already gave a foretaste. successful. ENJ has joined the Comité Snowfall was light and winter sporters du Pilotage and has prepared a crowded into the highest massifs like guideline text on how to render cross- Risoux, Massacre and Haute Chaine to country ski-ing compatible with find decent layers. This invasion of capercaillie. This will be annexed to prime capercaillie wintering areas led the regional master plan (‘schema to the monitoring contract given by directeur’) for tourism. Whenever an PNR-J to the GTJ to assess the operator renews his infrastructure, the consequences. guidelines will be taken into account so that eventually all the cross-country The ENJ will help bring snowshoe ski-ing areas are covered. Already a enthusiasts, who appeared on the scene majority of cross-country ski-ing as a new source of disturbance enterprises have formally committed towards the end of the LIFE-Nature themselves to applying the guidelines. project, under control. Mutual interest again: besides wandering across Anticipating this, ENJ has added a capercaillie habitat, they use the routes LIFE logo to its standard brochure for laid out for cross-country ski-ing by winter sports enthusiasts, and an ENJ enterprises, hindering skiers, but explanation how ski-ing routes are do not pay the fees. The solution chosen to avoid disturbing wildlife, envisaged is to demarcate snowshoe urging people to stay on these routes. routes away from the cross-country

Life after LIFE Page 112 ski-ing routes, but limiting their Dog sledding is a new and anarchic number and avoiding sensitive areas. A pastime; there is no professional protocol to this effect is being offered association the Comité du Pilotage to the operators of ski-ing areas. So far could speak to. Apart from bilateral 18 have signed up to this protocol and contacts, it can try to persuade 2 more are expected to follow soon, municipalities who sense a lucrative covering 2/3 of all ski-ing areas. Local new fad, to designate sledding routes businesses selling or renting snowshoe away from sensitive areas. This has equipment are being approached to already worked with one (La Pesse). make them aware of the problem and enlist their aid. Guided snowshoe tours Summer tourism are being promoted. Most summer tourism is concentrated in the period July 15-Aug. 15, after the What about winter sporters who do not capercaillie breeding season, but may stick to the tracks offered? This become a problem if more people take became acute during the 2000/2001 holidays before and after the peak winter, when signposts prohibiting season. entry to parts of the Risoux and Massacre capercaillie habitats were The LIFE-Nature project started to simply ignored too often, with tackle disturbance caused by snowshoe enthusiasts being the worst unauthorised use of forestry tracks, culprits. The legal protection under erecting 19 barriers. ‘Objectif 2008’, national law which these massifs enjoy the PNR-J’s ten-year action plan, restricts movement, but there is not refers to a master plan for forestry enough surveillance, enforcement and tracks which aims to prevent them prosecution of offenders. The ONF’s becoming linked into routes straight forest wardens, the ONCFS through forest massifs, and to examine gamekeepers and the regular police all alternatives to tracks for taking out have the necessary powers. The PNR-J timber from sensitive areas, like cables is now trying to start a debate with the and horses. Owners and operators, we local authorities (‘prefecture’) and the were told, are often already tourism sector about this problem. spontaneously making tracks unattractive to outsiders. Downhill ski-ing Although there are no plans to build new resorts, existing New leisure activities like mountain stations may be beefed up (more biking or trailblazing (on foot or on chairlifts, faster throughput). However, ski) do pose a problem and first this automatically entails statutory contacts have been laid with local consultation. Meanwhile, the Comité clubs and the national association du Pilotage will try to collaborate with Fédération Française de Course operators to channel ski-ers and d’Orientation. Hiking and biking trails snowboarders, e.g. by erecting netting have successfully been moved away along the routes. First contacts have from sensitive capercaillie areas in been made and the resort operators massifs like Massacre, Risoux and appear willing, but do expect the Risol. Under Objectif 2008, the Comité to pay for the installation of municipalities in the park commit such devices. themselves to consulting the PNR-J before changing trails or making new ones.

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Hunting du Pilotage and kills are analysed to Wild pig brought the hunters’ monitor population trends. These associations into the Comité du indicate that wild pig populations have Pilotage. Proliferation of pig is a stabilised, thanks to the increased problem as they are said to devour hunting pressure. Whereas annual kills capercaillie eggs and chicks, but it also rocketed from 400 before 1991 to 800- means hunters’ federations/ONCFS 1000 between 92 and 96, they returned will have to pay out more to the 700-800 bracket in 1998 and 99, compensation to farmers for damages but then moved back up to 860 in to crops. So, at first sight, hunters and 2000. This year’s season will show conservationists have common cause. whether this heralds a new population explosion. The LIFE-Nature project financed a study on this issue, produced in Oct. Although there is still scepticism 1997 by Patrick Longchamp, an expert towards capercaillie conservation at from the hunters’ association. It the grass-roots level, we were told, concluded that pig have spread, there are also encouraging initiatives. perhaps because of milder winters, A group of hunters is offering to take restrictions on hunting (ban on hunting charge of keeping some clearings made in snow) or the refuges created by the by the Dec. 99 storm permanently ‘reserves de chasse’ (protected areas open, while 45 woodcock hunters have where hunting is prohibited) which been passing on their sightings of cover 10% of the Jura. Bonasa bonasia for 6 years now as a contribution to monitoring. Finally, the A 1998 paper from the hunters based ONCFS has purchased 55 ha of forest on this study and proposing action on at Foncine to develop into appropriate pigs, was the starting point for a debate hazel grouse habitat. during which several amendments from other stakeholders to their first proposals were accepted by the hunters. The end result was a set of Overall assessment guidelines. Thus the FDCsviii will ask members not to release farmed Relations with other stakeholders gamebirds in capercaillie habitat and not to start artificial feeding of pig One of the most interesting discoveries there. When hunting roe deer, of the Flashback mission was that recommendations to avoid disturbance since the project ended, a great deal of by dogs or in capercaillie wintering effort has been invested in building up areas are to be followed. The option of working relationships with regularly dislodging pig from the representatives of the hunting and ‘reserves de chasse’ will be examined winter sports sectors. This has been and GTJ and FDCs will decide jointly successful, and two new sets of about pig hunting in snowtime. guidelines for capercaillie conservation have been negotiated. The hunters say they do not want to eradicate pigs completely, as they are Together with the guidelines to limit fine game, but, as stated in the disturbance by forestry formulated by guidelines, they do agree to keep them the LIFE-Nature project, they form a under control. Since June 1998 culling package which was formally adopted targets are determined with the Comité by the stakeholders represented in the

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“Comité du Pilotage LIFE” platform in In hindsight, the LIFE project’s focus early 2001 as a series of guidelines to on forestry stakeholders was a barrier. limit disturbance to capercaillie, Lesson: projects which aim at only one whether by hunting, winter sports or of several stakeholders, run the risk of forestry. fuelling resentment in the targeted stakeholder - why me and not the A four-page illustrated folder others? Why should I be the only one summarising the guidelines, for public to make sacrifices? distribution, was printed in March 2001. PNR-J and ONF will present the Incentive value full text of the guidelines, together with the ‘Documents d’Objectif’ Continuation of the actions initiated (Natura 2000 management plans) to under the project has been excellent. the mayors in the Département Jura Although the project did not achieve this spring and summer. Similar its original aim of having forestry presentations to the mayors in the guidelines officially adopted by the Départements Doubs and Ain are end of 1997, it did not let things just foreseen for 2002 and 2003. drift on after LIFE-Nature, but continued to work towards the goal of This is a happy ending, but for four gaining stakeholder consensus on years ONF and CRPF resisted formal integrating capercaillie management adoption of the LIFE-produced into land use, and has now reached it. forestry guidelines until similar guidelines had been elaborated for However, it took nine years after the tourism and hunting. They reasoned LIFE-Nature project began to get that otherwise forestry would appear to there. The LIFE (and post-LIFE) work be the only threat to capercaillie on capercaillie conservation was done conservation, which it was not. It by employees and volunteers of PNR-J would also be incoherent for foresters and GTJ besides their many other to have to refrain from working at tasks, and this is a weakness. LIFE- certain times so as not to disturb the Nature was barely asked to invest in capercaillie, if recreationists and personnel (only a few % of the budget hunters were under no such constraint. went to project coordination); a full- In short, all whose activities impinge time ‘animateur’ dedicated to on the capercaillie should shoulder capercaillie work exclusively might their part of the responsibility and the have speeded things up. burden, not just some.

Conservation Incentive value Demonstration Public interest benefit potential 20,000 ha forest Major incentive to create Stimulated Cooperation with main now managed good cooperation between efforts for the stakeholders is with capercaillie in conservationists and other species in undoubtedly the mind although land users. Now a series of adjoining project’s greatest part of sites still guidelines to limit damage to countries e.g. achievement. not designated. capercaillies have been Black Forest in Significant progress Population still adopted with hunting, Germany and made through dialogue declining, perhaps forestry and winter sports Jura in and voluntary as part of a cycle. groups. Switzerland. agreements but little interaction so far with the public at large.

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The PNR-J however had considered Investigation is urgently needed. this a risky option, for if funds ever Predation is one aspect (foxes!), dried up, the ‘animateur’ and all his another might be the wet summers of accumulated work would be lost. 1999 and 2000 which may have Instead, it integrated the task into its increased chick mortality. core staff, whose funding is more assured. They would do capercaillie- Natura 2000 designation related work besides their other tasks. During the LIFE project, 3-5 persons The legal protection of the sites were involved in this way; today 2 worked on through the LIFE-Nature employees each spend about 5-10% of project is also of concern. Although their time over the whole year. about half of the 27,000 ha core zone for tetraonidae in the Jura enjoys some Having said this, the fact remains that form of protection under national law, LIFE-Nature was successfully used to none of the LIFE-Nature project area expand small-scale preliminary work was in the Natura 2000 network when enormously and launch processes the project ended. which have continued under their own steam since, even gathering There was a window of political momentum as new stakeholders are opportunity to designate SPA in 1991 drawn in. A true incentive effect! but it was missed. The next try, in the mid-1990s, met resistance from the Conservation effect forestry stakeholders, suspicious of the consequences of SPA status, and a Ironically, Tetrao urogallus continues moratorium on designation was to decline since the LIFE-Nature imposed by the political authorities. project ended in 1997 - density in a prime site like Risoux fell from 3 Only two (the Massacre and Risoux birds/100 hectare to 1. Numbers only massifs, together 3250 ha) of the increased at 3 sites (with Crêt Chalam, important capercaillie habitats in the the best, going from 1 to 10 Franche-Comté part of the Jura have individuals). About 300 birds were left been included in the Natura 2000 in the French Jura in 1999. network, both as pSCI transmitted to the Commission in Sept. 1998, but So, like the great bustard projects in with abundant references to east Germany, this project faces the capercaillie conservation in the paradoxical situation that it did a great standard data forms. So here there is deal of work to improve the still work to do! Rhône-Alpes has done capercaillie habitat, which has been better. A pSCI covering 12,480 ha was continued vigorously since LIFE, but transmitted to the Commission in May the populations are not responding. 1999, again with references to Why this is so, is not really clear. If it capercaillie in the data forms. This is a normal cycle, as has been observed pSCI covers the high ridge (Reserve de in Russia and Scandinavia, or an la Haute Chaine) from Gex practically epidemic, populations may bounce to Bellegarde, including all the back. There was an earlier decline in capercaillie habitats along it. Sites to the Jura from 1976 to 1981, followed the west however, such as in the by an upswing until the mid-1990s. Champfromier area, are not included.

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Still, the DIREN has already charged ONF and PNR-J with preparing the For further information contact: M Christian Bruneel Natura 2000 management plan Chargé de Mission (‘Document d’Objectif’) for the Parc Naturel Régional du Haut-Jura Massacre and Risoux pSCIs, to be Maison du Haut-Jura ready by March 2002; the Haute F-39310 Lajoux Chaine pSCI will follow. The results Tel +33 3 84 34 12 30 Fax +33 3 84 41 24 01 Email [email protected] and experience of the LIFE project and Mme Alexandra Besnier its follow-up are proving very useful Groupe Tétras Jura for this exercise. 5 rue de la Millère F-39370 Les Bouchoux Tel/ fax + 33 3 84 42 78 67 The future Email : [email protected]

The adoption of the ‘stakeholder package’ of guidelines is an ending point, but there is still plenty to do. We have mentioned the need for research into why the capercaillie are not responding well (the GTJ is seeking funds to study the effect of the guidelines on capercaillie ecology). Evaluation of the work already done is also important for another reason. The i The Parc Naturel Régional du Haut-Jura (PNR-J) was CRPF told us that forest owners want created in 1986 by 46 municipalities which banded to know if their efforts to apply the together around a charter to safeguard the natural and cultural heritage and promote rational land use and guidelines have had any impact. This is sustainable economic development. This regional nature a very important point – adequate park covered 75,000 ha with 44,000 inhabitants. After renewal of the charter in 1996-98, participation rose to feedback must be given to stakeholders 90,000 ha and 96 municipalities spreading over 3 who voluntarily participate in departements (Doubs, Jura, Ain) and two Regions (Franche Comté, Rhone Alpes). conservation work! iiGroupe Tétras Jura (GTJ) is an NGO set up in 1975 to monitor tetraonidae. Its experts, MM Leclercq, Montadert Keeping tabs on how much forest is and others, laid the scientific basis for the project. Membership is open to all those interested in capercaillie being managed appropriately or has conservation and monitoring. been improved by one-off iii Office Nationale des Forêts (ONF) - the French national interventions would seem an obvious public body which manages publicly-owned forests (state or municipal). task, yet no-one could give us an iv Office Nationale de la Chasse et de la faune Sauvage overview. The ONF later supplied (ONFCS) – the French national public body in charge of good data on its work, but this is not hunting policy, game management and wildlife issues. the whole picture. The new GTJ v The Direction Régionale de l’Environnement (DIREN) are the regional antennae of the Ministry of the employee will, it seems, start a data Environment and Land Use Planning, responsible for site base for forest management. protection, Natura 2000 and cofinancing and monitoring selected local conservation projects. vi Centre Régional de la Propriété Forestière (CRPF) – The Finally, the upland meadows. So far, association grouping private forest owners at the regional level. they have not been drawn into the vii Espace Nordique Jurassien (ENJ) – this association capercaillie programme. Their groups all the cross-country ski-ing operators in the French Jura: 38 enterprises exploiting over 140 individual sites. preservation is linked to trends in Membership is compulsory in order to have a permit to agriculture, which at the moment are operate commercially. viii Fédération Départementales des Chasseurs (FDC) – not very favorable. Another new task associations grouping hunters at the local or regional level. for the future?

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SOME VITAL STATISTICS Customised tractor designed to scrape off the topsoil following Beneficiary: tree removal – Photo: RSPB activity report The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds RSPB

Budget: Case Study IX: 1.200.000 €

EC co-finance: Restoring Dorset’s 50%

Duration Lowland Heaths Jan 1993 – June 1996

Location The context Dorset, southern England Brought to fame by Thomas Hardy’s novels, the Dorset heaths in the south Habitat /species: Lowland Atlantic wet of England used to be an important heaths economic resource for local communities. Cattle and ponies were grazed on the heather, turf and gorse were harvested to fuel bakers’ ovens. Yet, because the soil was of low fertility and the environment harsh, such activities remained relatively low-key for centuries. For the local wildlife this proved to be ideal as it generated optimum conditions for a particularly rich diversity of plants and animals.

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Rare birds such as the Dartford warbler, NGOs, including the RSPB, and public Sylvia undata, nightjar, Caprilingus bodies to set up a Dorset Heathland europaeus, and woodlark, Lullula Forum to lobby against further losses arborea (all on Annex I of the Birds and to raise its profile both locally and Directive) have their stronghold in nationally. This proved to be Dorset. As do species like the sand successful: by the end of the decade the lizard Lacerta agilis and the southern loss of heaths to development had been damselfly Coenagrion mercuriale . brought down to zero.

Lowland Atlantic wet heaths once However, it was also at this time that an covered an important expanse of the even more insidious threat was English countryside but over the last discovered, that of neglect and the lack 200 years as much as 86% has of management. Heaths were formed, disappeared. What is left is nevertheless and maintained, by extensive land use still significant on an EU scale (20% of practices; once these were abandoned the EU resource) as the extent of decline large areas became invaded by scrub. In in other member states has been even a survey carried out in 1996 it was more dramatic. Around 10% of the estimated that the average rate of loss UK’s Atlantic wet heaths can be found due to scrub encroachment was around in southern England, in Dorset, but in a 1.5% a year (between 1978 and 1987). highly fragmented state. Whereas once there would probably have been only 9 large distinct areas of heath in Dorset County, by the early 1990s there were estimated to be as many as 141 small fragments of which only 14 were over 100 ha.

The threats

Eking out an existence on such poor soils proved to be hard work, so much so that farming and harvesting was largely abandoned by the end of the Second World War. In its place came a wave of large-scale afforestation programmes and agricultural improvement schemes. In two decades alone, around 5600 ha of heathland was planted over or ploughed up.

Its location close to a number of major conurbations, such as Southampton and Bournemouth, also contributed to its downfall as more and more areas were lost to development, especially through housing, transport infra-structures, mineral exploration and land-fills. The rate of such urbanisation reached a crisis point in the 1980s, stimulating the

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Decline of restoration programme could be lowland undertaken, and to inform future heaths in funding mechanisms. Dorset from 1750 to 1996 – from RSPB Armed with these preliminary positive leaflet results, RSPB applied to LIFE-Nature Such levels for funding. Why LIFE? Firstly, are because RSPB wanted to stress the particularly European importance of the habitat devastating resource. Secondly, because there were for the no national sources of funding at the smaller sites, which are not able to time for conservation projects on recover below a certain size. The same heathlands, other than Countryside survey estimated that of the 7,060 ha of Stewardship grants. The latter were heaths designated as Sites of Special introduced in 1991 but the levels of Scientific Interest (and subsequently as funding and the overall amount pSCI) as much as a third of it was in available was too low to incite large- unfavourable condition due to scrub scale restoration work. invasion. LIFE objectives Reversing this trend was further Thus, the overall objective of the LIFE complicated by complex land ownership project was to increase the area of good distribution. Major sections are owned heathland in Dorset by 10% (approx 560 either by the Ministry of Defence and ha) in ten years and to encourage the therefore ‘out of bounds’ or by the long-term funding for heathland Forestry Enterprise and therefore largely management at a national level. dedicated to forestry. A significant proportion is also in private ownership, The specific objectives were to: having been bought during the 1980s boom period. By contrast, only a very ¾ Halt and reverse trends for heathland small proportion – approximately 10% - loss, fragmentation and isolation of was in conservation-friendly ownership remaining areas, in particular those at the start of the 1990s. caused by encroachment of pine, birch, rhododendron and bracken The beneficiary ¾ Bring into conservation ownership The beneficiary of the LIFE project, the and/or management strategically RSPB, has had a long history of important areas to ensure their long- involvement in heathland management term protection in Dorset. In the late 1960s, it acquired a large area of heathland on the Isle of ¾ Put in place a long-term monitoring Purbeck in southeast Dorset, which, at programme to assess the state of the the time, held six of the last ten habitat remaining pairs of Dartford warbler in ¾ Develop a cost-benefit analysis of the UK. In the 1980s, it participated the different management techniques actively in the campaign to stop further and produce best practice guidance losses through development and, in the on the methods to be used early 90s, began to experiment with different management techniques to ¾ Finally, make such information assess whether a large-scale heathland widely available to other heathland managers

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The actions Results The project started in January 1993 with By the middle of 1996, some 560 ha of a total budget of 1.200.000 € of which degraded heath had been brought back 50% was to be paid by LIFE-Nature. into favourable condition, both through Originally, the intention had been to the LIFE project and through parallel spend half of this money on buying actions inspired by the former. What is heathland, but early on it became clear more, the number of fragments had been that this was going to be considerably reduced from 141 to 130 and the area in more difficult than foreseen as owners conservation-friendly ownership were reluctant to part with their land. So increased by 165 ha through the most of the money had to be shifted to purchase of a further four strategic sites. habitat restoration instead. This also meant that the project had to be prolonged by one and a half years to The results of the experimental June 1996 to allow time to complete the restoration work were written up as a additional management work. case study. The hundred page document gives advice on a whole range of issues One of the first tasks of the project was from site selection, management to prioritise the remaining 141 heathland prioritisation to specific restoration fragments according to threat, methods and their related costs. importance and opportunity. Threat was Different sites tackled through the determined by the level of invasion project were also described as (with priority being given to those sites illustrative examples of what can be with a longer history of scrub invasion), achieved. fragmentation and size (sites less than 20 ha were unlikely to be self- The document was widely promoted and supporting). Importance was established its recommendations used to run a series by its designation status and its link of heathland training workshops for potential (i.e. the feasibility of the sites other managers and policy advisors. A being linked to each other so as to form nationwide heathland project officers a greater single unit). Finally, the network was also instigated to opportunity for restoring an area also coordinate knowledge on management had to be taken into consideration – for instance, was the land owner likely to be Tree removal at a Dorset subsites – labour intensive work cooperative or hostile? From RSPB activity report issues across the UK. 21 sites were selected and targeted for restoration under the LIFE project. Having written a detailed management plan for each, work could begin on removing the invasive scrub using a dedicated team of 8 field staff, 4 of whom were permanent, and several seasonal workers. A variety of different types of scrub was tackled and various techniques tried out over the period of the project.

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Operation Man days Cost re-oriented early on. This is per ha per ha € an important lesson for the Pine clearance – over 20 17.26 2400 future; if land purchase is to years old 50-100% cover be accepted as a legitimate Pine clearance – under 20 10.6 1450 expense under LIFE there years old up to 50% cover Birch clearance – up to 35 18 2800 must be some assurances at years old and 50% cover the outset that the owners are Rhododendron clearance 80 10.000 willing to sell and that the Gorse management 62 7900 price is right. This was not Bracken clearance 0.625-2.86 165-750 the case in the present Extract from the case study re costings of various techniques used project.

Lastly, a long-term monitoring The other main achievement of the programme was put in place to record project was that it developed a series of the effects of the management methods cost–effective restoration techniques on a variety of parameters, including and demonstrated their practical Annex I birds and Annex II taxa and application. This gave other heathland vegetation communities. organisations the tools and the encouragement they needed to carry out Did the project achieve its objectives? their own restoration works. It also helped to formulate appropriate funding The answer to this question has to be a schemes to support the long term resounding yes. The final result was management of the heaths. much greater than hoped for - not only did it manage, through direct and English Nature for instance, the indirect means, to reach its objective of statutory conservation agency in restoring 10% of the heaths three years England, used the project guidelines to ahead of schedule, but it also succeeded develop prescriptions for its newly in reversing the trend of heathland loss in Dorset for the first time this century.

This success could be attributed to a number of factors. On the one side there is the fact that the project had set itself clear targets of what it wanted to achieve and put in place a sound management structure, including a dedicated staff who remained with the project throughout. On the other hand, the natural dynamics of lowland dry heaths were reasonably well understood in advance, hence appropriate management prescriptions could be drawn up with some degree of confidence.

This is not to say it was all a success. The fact that the beneficiary had been unable to purchase the land it had foreseen caused the project to be heavily

Life after LIFE Page 122 introduced Wildlife Enhancement Life after LIFE Scheme for heathlands. Launched in 1994, this provides a two-tier system of What then has happened since the end annual management payments for the of the project in 1996? re-introduction of light grazing (stocking levels are generally 100 times Restoration work lower than on best farmland). It also Looking first at the 21 sites targeted funds 100% of the costs of any capital under the LIFE project, scrub clearance works that are needed to introduce has continued on all of them and is now grazing, e.g. stock fencing or watering. complete on 16. For the remaining five, Just two years after the start of the there are programmes in place to scheme 1300 ha of the heathland was complete this in the near future. being grazed with a further 700 ha under Progress has also been significant in consideration. This is compared to just other sites within the Dorset heath 150 ha before 1994. complex (an extra 300 ha).

Was a follow-up required? The whole process has also now just As the above illustrates, the project was been given a significant boost through designed to demonstrate the type of the adoption in October 2000 of a new conservation actions needed to restore national initiative entitled ‘Tomorrow’s the heathlands and to stimulate a long- Heathland Heritage’ to restore a further term strategy for their recovery. It did 1000ha of Dorset’s heaths, at a total cost not to try to complete this recovery of 3 million €. For the first time, a programme in one single initiative, significant proportion of this will be on considering the vast areas involved and Ministry of Defence land. At the the large number of interests at stake. So beginning of the LIFE I project this area although the LIFE project achieved its was practically out of bounds (only two specific target of clearing scrub over sites worked on), yet this body owns 10% of the lowland heaths in Dorset, almost 1500ha of open heaths to the additional restoration work was clearly west and its conservation is vital to the required to remove scrub over the overall recovery plan. Again the criteria remaining 90% of the pSCI in order to for this national initiative were heavily bring back it up to a favourable influenced by the LIFE project. conservation state. Also, more national funds were needed for their subsequent long-term manage- ment. The Wildlife Enhancement Scheme and the Countryside Stewardship went some way down that path but did not have the resources to tackle the full extent of the problem at that stage.

Tree felling at Grange Photo: RSPB project

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A second LIFE project was also Extent of land in conservation-friendly launched in 1996, but this time the focus ownership was specifically on priority habitat types such as the southern Atlantic wet heaths Approximately 650 ha was bought or with Erica ciliaris and Erica tetralix leased by conservation bodies since the and dry coastal heaths with Erica end of the project (of which only 20 ha vagans and Ulex maritimus. The project was paid by the second LIFE project). also covered a much wider area, Two of the biggest privately owned involving not only the Dorset heaths but heathland sites have since changed also those in Cornwall and Brittany. hands too. Canford Heath, for instance, Thanks to this project a further 136 ha is now mostly owned by the local of heath was restored or, more correctly, authority who intend to manage it for ‘recreated’ in Dorset, as it no longer nature. Plans to swap other forms of focused on scrub clearance but on the land for heathland, however, failed to wholesale removal of a forest get off the ground, especially when plantation. targeting forested heaths. Part of this can be put down to the extremely high cost of land in Dorset, the lack of sites Long-term habitat available for sale and the current management reluctance of the Forestry Commission The situation regarding the long-term to give up commercially valuable land grazing of the Dorset heaths is also without a suitable alternative. encouraging. At the moment 2900 ha are in some form of grazing Nevertheless, the amount of land in management – this is more than double conservation-friendly ownership has the area being grazed at the end of the essentially tripled since the start of the first LIFE project. Interestingly the two LIFE flashback project (to national schemes created to support approximately 1600 ha). long-term grazing activities also saw substantial increases in their overall Monitoring budgets during this period. One of these, the Countryside Stewardship scheme, is The monitoring plots have been in fact supported by the EU agri- maintained throughout and provide environment regulation. regular updates on the effects of the management actions. The population increases of the three Annex I birds since the end of the first project in 1996 show some remarkable recoveries: Dartford warbler has increased by 72%, nightjar by 55% and woodlark by 107%. There have been some mild winters lately which will have contributed Examining the effects of scrub removal on site – from RSPB activity report

Life after LIFE Page 124 to the recovery of the species but the local communities. Since its inception in improvement in nesting habitats for the 1996 it has attracted on average 1000- birds will undoubtedly have had a 2000 people a year, depending on the positive influence on the populations as weather. well. Staffing Training and awareness-raising In terms of staffing, RSPB now employs The training seminars for heathland 8 full–time posts and four half-time managers have continued on an annual posts, and one of the project partners, basis since the end of the project. On the Herpetological Conservation Trust, average 20 people are trained each year has also since increased its team from 3 through these courses. The project staff to 5. Meanwhile the multiplier effect in continues to have as many as two to supply industries is also noticeable. The three requests a week from people annual revenue earned from forestry wanting practical advice on the clearance and fencing work is estimated management techniques to be used. at 150,000€/year which keeps the equivalent of 4 people employed full- With the approval of the second LIFE time. project much emphasis was also put on promoting heathland conservation internationally. In addition to the regular Overall assessment exchange visits between the French and British field staff involved in this Conservation effect project, an international conference was organised in October 1998 on heathland With a small amount of seed money and management. Around 200 people from a well thought out strategy, this LIFE across Europe attended. project has clearly succeeded in initiating a major recovery programme In terms of local awareness raising, the for this fragmented habitat. first LIFE project did not put great emphasis on this aspect, other than to Today, the restoration of Dorset’s organise a nationwide campaign for heaths is assured over 75% of the area raising funds for work on Dorset. Later (compared to 10% achieved through the on, it was decided to organise an annual first LIFE project). This has meant that heathland fayre to highlight the more emphasis can be placed on importance of this habitat amongst the reconnecting existing sites through

Close up of Erica ciliaris Photo: Nigel Symes, RSPB Male Southern damselfly Photo: Andrew Hay

Life after LIFE Page 125 habitat recreation (already a further 150 ha of newly created heaths have been added to the pSCI thanks to the second LIFE project). What is more, over 2900 ha of the Dorset heath is also now being managed for its long-term conservation through a variety of compatible funding regimes (compared to just 150 ha at the start of LIFE). Thus, in terms of conservation effect, the project has clearly played a major role in returning the lowland heaths within the Dorset heathland pSCI to a more favourable conservation state and stimulating the sometimes spectacular recovery of some of its endangered species such as the Dartford warbler or nightjar.

Incentive effect In terms of incentive effect, the beneficiary and the LIFE project have also had a strong influence on generating further funds – both national and EU - for Both schemes have extensively used the heathland restoration and management best practice guidelines, produced in Dorset and elsewhere. At the outset through the project, to determine the there was only the Countryside overall level of funding and the type of Stewardship scheme available, which management. Now, together with an provided too little money to kick-start enhanced Countryside Stewardship any major incentives for heathland scheme (supported by the EU agri- restoration. environment regulation), the total amount of national funds available for Since the start of the LIFE project two heathland management in Dorset is further initiatives have been introduced: around 1 million € a year. the Wildlife Enhancement Scheme, which is funded by the statutory This is ten times more than the annual conservation agency, English Nature, funds from LIFE (115,000 € per annum) and the Tomorrow’s Heathland Heritage and even more than the whole of the scheme, which is one of three UK seven year input from LIFE (800,000 €). biodiversity action plans funded through the National Lottery.

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Conservation Incentive value Demonstration potential Public interest benefit 75% of the heath The LIFE-Nature The development of Higher awareness restored and project had a strong innovative techniques was at local level but almost half is incentive in written up in a case study mostly with being actively generating further that was widely circulated to farmers and local managed through funds for heathland other users. The results of authorities – conservation- restoration and the project also incited others general public not friendly farming management in to follow suit when they saw so interested. agreements. Dorset and the possible results that elsewhere. could be obtained.

of a mystery to many. But at least the Demonstration value level of awareness is higher than before and there is recognition of the fact that There have been other positive spin-offs the sites are not only of local but also of too, thanks to the demonstration value European interest. of the project. The number of organisations now involved in heathland For the farmers and tourist businesses restoration in Dorset has increased the benefits from an economic substantially since the start of the LIFE perspective may become a little more project. Organisations, both public and tangible in the long run. It is already private, have been stimulated to carry surprising to see that so many farmers out their own actions on the heaths, decided to join the heathland firstly because the methodology is now management schemes. Perhaps this is an available to them through the best indication of a general shift away from practice guidelines and secondly, the more intensive practices of farming because they have been able to see for that have dominated the scene for so themselves the positive results of long. restoration work undertaken on the LIFE project sites.

It is estimated that over 150 people received training in heathland The future management from RSPB since 1993. The consequences of this can be felt not In conclusion, the situation looks rather only in a UK context, where the bright for the Dorset heaths. Most of the network of heathland managers set up scrub has been or is in the process of under the project continues to being removed, and more and more sites coordinate activities for heathland are coming under some form of long- management across a whole suite of term grazing regime. Thus efforts in the sites in the UK, but also in other future are likely to focus more on European countries, such as France, reconnecting the existing heathland where the benefit of working in fragments and integrating their partnership has resulted in some conservation into other policy sectors. valuable exchanges of experience. But whilst the situation for rural heaths What about the local reaction and in Dorset looks good, there is still a interest of stakeholders in Dorset? Well, major public relations battle to be won it is probably fair to say that the for the urban heaths. Many of these attention being focused on the areas are now also in conservation- conservation of the heaths remains a bit friendly hands but the owners are

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powerless to save them without local support. This is because the sites are too small or too close to towns to be grazed, and are suffering badly from the effects of vandalism (deliberate fires) and illegal dumping. Until this attitude changes their long-term survival will

remain in question. Nightjar on log, Photo unknown

For further information, contact: John Waldon South West Regional Office RSPB Keble House Southernhay Gardens, Exeter, Devon EX1 1NT, UK Tel +44 1392 432691 Fax +44 1392 453750 Email: [email protected]

Lesley Safford International Division RSPB The Lodge, Sandy Bedfordishire, SG19 2DL, UK Tel : +44 1767 680551 Fax: +441767 683211 Email: [email protected]

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Conclusions

Common denominators

As the case studies illustrate, much depends on the type of habitats and species, and threats, the projects are dealing with as well as the overall context in which they operate. Despite this, they do have several features in common.

Initial motivation Before the start of the LIFE-Nature projects, the beneficiaries, whether public or non- governmental, had identified the threats facing a particular species or habitat type in their area but they could do little to tackle this because, in all cases except one (where LIFE helped to speed up an existing project rather than initiate it), there was a lack of resources and especially finances to pay for the work. The actions often involved a heavy initial investment, which was beyond the resources of the organisations concerned. This is why they applied to LIFE for funds. Thanks to LIFE, all projects made a quantum leap forward in a relatively short space of time.

Equally interesting is that there were no examples of initiatives being created simply to tap into LIFE-Nature. The projects already existed in a variety of shapes and forms but needed an initial injection of funds to get started. The added value of LIFE- Nature, which catalyses new initiatives, is therefore very apparent here.

Continuation

This may help to explain why, in all cases, the actions initiated under LIFE-Nature were continued and built upon. Several projects went from strength to strength, using LIFE as a launching pad to attain new goals and further-reaching results. For instance, the Dorset Heaths project stimulated the conservation of a significantly greater area of heath than was tackled under LIFE and helped to secure long-term funding for their management through national funds. The project in the Jura promoted the use of the capercaillie guidelines over a much wider area of forests and succeeded in developing similar guidelines for winter tourism and hunting. In Trento, additional wetlands have been restored thanks to the initiative launched under LIFE and their protection is now being taken into consideration in the region’s rural development plan.

In others (e.g. the Lorraine salt marshes, the sea turtles in Crete) the actions initiated under LIFE are continuing and the results are being consolidated. Only one project (Fiener Bruch) has just maintained its LIFE-funded investments but achieved little more since.

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Elements of success

A number of elements stand out which might help to explain the lasting success of certain actions and projects:

Project design:

• Projects which set themselves clear and realistic targets based on a careful consideration of what needs to be done, what is feasible and who needs to be involved are able to carry out their project more efficiently and effectively. Time and resources are not dissipated on addressing problems which should have been foreseen beforehand or on re-orienting actions which had been ill thought-out.

• Clear objectives also help projects to see beyond LIFE, and plan ahead for what needs to be done afterwards to secure the results of the project in the long term.

Capacity building

• Projects which are able to focus enough time and resources on tackling specific conservation problems not only help to break new ground in terms of conservation science but also build up an expertise in the practical application of these techniques. This expertise can be used by the beneficiary, after the end of the project, to continue or expand its conservation work. Or it can be passed on to others in the form of best practice guidelines or case study examples.

• Projects that help to build up the beneficiary’s infrastructure – a dedicated office, sufficient staff, investments in equipment – put the beneficiary in good stead for further work later on. This is provided that funding is continued. In the case of NGOs this may mean diversifying sources of income, in the case of public bodies it may mean ensuring that there is sufficient political will from the hierarchy, after the end of the project, to ensure that the project is sufficiently resourced.

Relations with local community and interest groups

• Projects which put a strong emphasis on dialogue and cooperation with interest groups are likely to have much more sustainable results, even if the progress made in the first couple of years may appear to be slow. This is especially true for those habitats and species that are dependent on private land owners or are highly influenced by outside factors.

• Successful beneficiaries use the LIFE project as a focal point. They use the LIFE ‘label’ to draw attention to the fact that there is something of European importance in the area. They also use it as a means of ‘demystifying’ the Natura 2000 process and dispelling fears of unfounded restrictions on certain activities. Finally, they use it as a way to find agreements with the principal stakeholders on how to manage the areas – either through codes of conduct or agri-environment contracts – avoiding, if possible, to impose these management requirements unilaterally.

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• Particularly appreciated are those projects which make a special point of informing the stakeholders of the results of their actions in terms of species or habitat recovery – not just over the period of the project but also in the longer run. People are more likely to stick with an agreement if they can see the benefits themselves. • This has also been achieved through demonstration plots: for instance, a beneficiary purchases a parcel of land and applies appropriate management prescriptions for the habitat or species in question. This provides a very visual tool of what can be achieved and what is involved.

Long-term funding

• Having sufficient resources after the end of LIFE is vital. Successful beneficiaries have, already at the start of the project, built in actions to secure long term funding. For instance, finding other means of funding the management over a long period, ensuring there is a political will to continue with the actions afterwards within its own ranks, and persuading others to take up the bulk of the activities through codes of conduct or other forms of agreements.

• A third of the projects tapped into agri-environment measures for the long-term maintenance of the sites once the initial restoration work had been undertaken. LIFE not only helped to influence the types of management prescriptions introduced through agri-environment but also helped to promote its use amongst the land users concerned.

• Where additional actions are required after the end of the project it is essential that the resources available are enough to keep the momentum built up under LIFE going. Without this ‘critical mass’ it could take significantly longer to achieve any results and may even mean that opportunities are lost.

Networking

• Networking with other LIFE projects has helped to share experiences and to look at problems on a broader, more strategic, level for a particular species or habitat. The sharing of experiences need not only concern conservation methods but also different types of approaches to information dissemination or negotiations with local interest groups etc… It can also provide moral support! Projects often have to operate in difficult environments and may feel rather isolated when confronted with a lot of local resistance or indifference. Other LIFE projects may not only help to provide advice and support but also help to keep the motivation going.

A final comment

We found this exercise to be a very useful and revealing one in many respects, particularly as so much has happened since the end of LIFE funding. It would be useful for the Commission to repeat the exercise in due course for LIFE II, or perhaps the beneficiaries might be tempted to do so themselves, having found food for thought amongst the nine examples presented in this study.

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European Commission

Life after LIFE

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities

2002 — 131 pp. — 21x 29,7 cm

ISBN 92-894-0948-7

Life after LIFE This document is produced by Environment Directorate-General of the European Commission; author service: Unit. ENV.D.1 “the LIFE Unit”, 200 rue de la Loi, B-1049 Brussels, with the assistance of Ecosystems LTD.

Neither the European Commission, nor any person acting on its behalf, is responsible for the use which may be made of this document.

More information on nature conservation actions of the European Commission’s Environment Directorate- General can be found on its website: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/nature/home.htm

Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2002

ISBN 92-894-0948-7

© European Communities, 2002 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

Front cover photos: top left: Sirente-Velino, A Gazenbeek; top right: Sea turtle nesting beach, Crete, K Sundseth Bottom: Dartford warbler, Dorset. Photo: David Kjaer

KH-36-01-621-EN-C > 789289 409483 ISBN 92-894-0948-7 ISBN 9