📋 Tender Overview
Start Date: 01/09/2021
End Date: 31/03/2028
Total Eligible Budget: 4,828,915 €
EU Contribution: 2,897,324 €
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The European Red List of Butterflies shows negative trends for over 30% of European taxa. One of the most threatened butterflies in Europe is the Apollo butterfly, Parnassius apollo (hereafter P. apollo), which is "vulnerable" and SPEC3 in Europe. Its numbers have decreased during the last 25 years by 20-50%. As a result, P. apollo was the first insect to be included on the CITES list. The species has also been included in Annex IV of the EU Habitats Directive, in Annex II of the Bern Convention, and in the Red Book of Animals in Poland as ‘critically endangered’, in Czechia as ‘extinct’, and in Austria as ‘near threatened’. Also, according to Habitats Directive Article 17 reports for the Continental bioregion, its condition is assessed as U2 (unfavourable - bad) for Czechia and Austria. In these countries, the population is obsolete (virtually extinct), occurring only in small, isolated populations of less than 100 specimens, which is not enough to sustain the population. In Poland, the FV (favourable) status in the Alpine bioregion is due to the success of restoring and stabilising a single population in the Pieniny Mountains. In the Polish part of the Continental bioregion, the species has become extinct and work is currently underway to reintroduce the population in the Sudety Mountains. The most important reason for the species’ decline is habitat loss and fragmentation due to: (1) changes in the use of agricultural areas, (2) drainage of wetlands, (3) invasion of alien plant species, and (4) expansion of urbanised areas, roads and recreation infrastructure. P. apollo acts as an umbrella species, for protecting biodiversity at ecosystem level and in habitat mosaics. However, conservation of ecological corridors conflicts with urban planning. In Czechia, attempts to re-establish the population were made at the beginning of the 20th Century; but now the Moravian population is on the verge of extinction, and no local breeding farms exist. In Austria breeding material exists for all P. apollo subspecies.
