📋 Tender Overview
Start Date: 01/09/2022
End Date: 31/03/2029
Total Eligible Budget: 5,498,521 €
EU Contribution: 3,299,109 €
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Butterfly populations have declined in the project area, mainly due to the degradation and disappearance of highly diverse ecosystems, the abandonment of traditional forms of land use and the loss of landscape heterogeneity and connectivity. The intensification of farming has resulted in the creation of large homogenous grasslands, degradation of unique ecotone habitats (i.e. transitional areas of vegetation between two different plant communities), the decline of wetlands and wet meadows, and abandonment of less accessible localities. The main threats for target species and habitats in the project area include unsuitable farming and forestry practices, habitat fragmentation and small populations of target species.
OBJECTIVES
LIFE Metamorphosis focuses on the conservation of 15 species of butterfly with unfavourable status, listed in Annexes II and IV of the EU Habitats Directive, in Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, in particular the Danube clouded yellow (Colias myrmidone) in central Romania. This is the first LIFE project to target butterflies in Romania. The project will also restore dry to semi-dry chalk grassland habitat, home to many of the target species and other important pollinators. It will not cover areas where conservation efforts have already been made, but rather enlarge the restored habitats or connect them via stepping stones. Work will take place in 30 sites of Community importance (SCIs), most of which are located in Slovakia (20 SCIs).
