<
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/oct/22/a-yellowstone-for-europe-romanias-ambition-for-a-vast-new-wilderness-reserve>
"Up on the hill we spy them: dark, imposing forms moving through the dense
forest. It’s a group of bison wandering wild in Romania’s Făgăraș mountains. I
stand silently with my guide Răzvan Dumitrache as the animals graze.
This area of Transylvania, at the southern edge of the Carpathian mountains, is
among the wildest places in Europe. Brown bears, wolves and lynx roam the
forested hillsides – and bison were recently reintroduced after a 200-year
absence as part of the work of Foundation Conservation Carpathia. FCC’s
ambitions are not small: it aims to create the continent’s largest forested
national park. A 200,000- hectare (500,000-acre) wilderness reserve. A
Yellowstone for Europe.
“The idea is for a park that will not only protect forests and wildlife, but
also support local communities with ecotourism and nature-positive businesses,”
says Răzvan.
Romania has more than 6m hectares of forest, of which a significant portion is
still “virgin”, unfragmented areas with no human settlement, home to some of
the few remaining sectors of old-growth forest in Europe. But illegal logging
has cleared vast swathes of forest, and the destruction continues.
Since its inception in 2009, FCC’s biologist founders, Christoph and Barbara
Promberger, and a team of philanthropists and conservationists, have been
fundraising to purchase tracts of forests to stop logging – as well as buying
areas to reforest. It’s a conservation model inspired by the Tompkins project
in South America – with the goal being a vast park that’s “large enough to
support significant numbers of large carnivores and to allow evolutionary
processes to happen”.
So far, 26,900 hectares of forest and grassland have been bought and protected
and more than 4m saplings planted. FCC rangers patrol 75,000 hectares, and this
has led to a halt in logging in neighbouring forests too. In another innovative
move, an FCC association has bought the hunting rights to an additional 78,000
hectares, to protect wildlife from trophy hunters."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-education-girls-crime-uk-ocean-conservation-new-zealand/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
