ForestConnect Expert meeting involving protected aria managers
Last week, an expert meeting was held at the University of Applied Sciences in Villach (Austria), bringing together managers of protected areas, large carnivore monitoring experts, and specialists in forestry, climate change, and forest ecosystem connectivity.
Our goal — which we successfully achieved — was to discuss existing solutions and explore new ways to improve the connectivity of forest ecosystems, which are highly threatened by climate change. The primary reason for this international gathering was to ensure the survival of large carnivores in their natural habitats and to prevent increasing encounters between bears, wolves, and lynxes with humans, which are becoming more frequent due to shifts in their movement corridors.
ForestConnect partners (WWF Bulgaria, EFA Bulgaria, WWF Romania, USAMW, APM, WWF Slovakia, WWF Adria, CZIP, JPNP) and other interested stakeholders had the opportunity to exchange valuable insights from their extensive experience and present successful examples of large carnivore habitat preservation and human-wildlife conflict prevention.
Through discussions and knowledge sharing from Slovakia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania, Montenegro, Austria, and Italy — along with analyses of existing documents from the Carpathian Convention and UNESCO initiatives — we identified new ways to mitigate the effects of climate change on corridors used by large carnivores.
Highlights of the meeting include:
· Inspiring keynotes
· An engaging workshop on fostering habitat connectivity
· Valuable insights into the current status of large carnivores in Europe
Luckily, there was also time to visit the Dobratsch Nature Park and the Nockberge Biosphere Reserve, where the managers of these protected areas shared helpful advice on improving protected area management in our own countries.
28/02/2025
By Aleksandra Ugarkovic
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