Pictures © Rodics Gergely and Barbara Knowles

 

 

Mountain hay meadows – hotspots of biodiversity and traditional culture

We have recently launched this project, 50% funded by the G|obal Environment Facility. The project aims to facilitate the sustainable use of hay meadows, to maintain high biodiversity, traditional agriculture, important ecosystem services and healthy local communities.

 

This land is of exceptional natural value, with many protected areas, but many yet unknown that are not protected. These include different types of meadows still managed using traditional practices. Traditional land use practices are still present and viable in the local communities of our area. It is of utmost importance to preserve traditional knowledge on land use management because this provides high resilience against global challenges such as climate change and economic crises.

 

Traditional land use practices in our area are threatened by forces of the market economy and economic development. For example, EU regulations put severe restrictions on milk quality, which imperil traditional sources of income for the local population. We believe that the traditional systems for milk production are of key importance to the local maintenance of agroecosystems with a high biodiversity and providers of a wide range of ecosystem services, including carbon storage with direct effect on global climate change, and sustainable income generation through ecotourism and ecological products.

 

Our project aims at maintaining, revitalizing, and optimizing traditional practices where possible; motivating communities to maintain traditional knowledge of local agricultural production; and raising community awareness of the values and services of which they are themselves the managers. We will perform a thorough survey of the biodiversity of hay meadows for two communes, and we will prepare and promote integrated management plans for two demonstration areas. We will help increasing incomes from traditional land use practices through increasing the price of raw milk, and facilitate the manufacture of new milk products through training, and prepare materials to be used in the school curriculum.

 

Through these we hope to add value to hay meadows and motivate farmers for a sustainable use of their land.

 

Project conference: week beginning 7 June 2010. Details coming soon.

 

This project is part-funded by the Global Environment Facility. Our supporters include The Environment Protection Agency for Hargita County, Hargita County Council and Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in Csikszereda.

 © Barbara Knowles 2009