The goal of the project is to develop and apply conservation management tools for increasing structural and compositional biodiversity in NATURA2000 oak forests.
Project acronym and code: LIFE4OakForests, LIFE-16/NAT/IT/000245
The biodiversity of oak forests is declining as a result of intensive human use. With the nature conservation interventions of the LIFE4OAK FORESTS project, our goal is to reverse this process. The project aims to promote the regeneration of the forests and to restore the diversity of forest structure, native tree species composition and micro habitats. As a results, the protected forest mammals, birds, insects, plants and fungi will be preserved and their populations will increase. The project is co-financed by the European Union’s LIFE program.
Objectives
- This project aims to identify the natural oak forest conditions what should be the target of the nature conservation management because there is not any natural oak forest left in Hungary and Italy.
- This project aims to increase the biodiversity of EU priority oak forests (*91AA, *91G0, *91H0, *91I0) & 91M0 in the National Parks’ managed protected Natura 2000 sites. In Hungary about 1555 ha and in Italy about 511 ha will be restored by the project and will provide guidance for about another 21 500 ha peotected oak forests in Natura 2000 areas in Hungary and about another 180 500 ha in Italy.
- This project also aims the suppression of invasive species. In Hungary about in 50 ha, in Italy about in 30 ha invasive species will be eliminated and the areas will be converted back to oak forests.
- This project aims to demonstrate the best practices of the oak forests nature conservation management too. Altogether there are nearly 21500 ha protected oak forests managed by the national parks in Natura 2000 areas in Hungary and about 180.500 ha in Italy and the project will demonstrate for the nature conservation managers of those areas the best practice how to manage them.
- This project also aims to increase the public awareness about the importance of the forests’
biodiversity. Although the forestry is not an economic issue in Hungary but until now the economic importance was mainly communicated.
Total project budget: 7,980,586 €
EU financial contribution: 73.87% (5,895,289 €)
Co-financing contribution: 8.89% (709,405 €)
Coordinating Beneficiary: MAR
Associated beneficiaries: BfNPD, BNPD, DINPD, Ecological Research Centre, ETTE, WWF
Co-financier: Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture
Project website: http://www.life4oakforests.eu/
Budapest, 2021.04.26. Péter Koncz (konczp@dinpi.hu)
