📋 Tender Overview
Start Date: 01/09/2021
End Date: 31/12/2027
Total Budget: 3,394,616 €
EU Contribution: 2,545,962 €
Project Location: Hungary
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The project area (4,235 ha) is located within a special protection area (Kiskunsági szikes tavak és az orjegi turjánvidék) and mostly also within a special area of conservation (Felso-kiskunsági szikes tavak és Miklapuszta), both of which are situated in South-Central Hungary.
LIFEforBUGS&BIRDS targets 3 types of habitat covered by the EU Habitats Directive, all of which have unfavourable conservation status overall: Pannonic salt steppes and marshes, Pannonic loess steppic grasslands, and Semi-natural dry grasslands.
The conservation issues to be addressed are:
Land abandonment, which is a major cause of the decline of biodiversity adapted to low-intensity agriculture;
The decline of farmland birds due to agricultural intensification;
The decline of arthropod populations and the related loss of ecosystem services as a result of habitat loss and the increasing use of insecticides in agriculture; and
The decline or loss of insect diversity and decomposition due to the wide use of anthelmintic veterinary drugs (i.e. drugs used to treat animals with parasitic worm infections such as ivermectin).
OBJECTIVES
LIFEforBUGS&BIRDS’s primary objective is to improve the conservation status of Pannonic salt steppes and marshes and Pannonic steppic grasslands. In addition, the conservation status of some Semi-natural dry grasslands on calcareous substrates will be improved. The project aims to achieve this by implementing a balanced mix of conservation management, including both best practice actions for traditional management and innovative approaches that raise the added value of the project to the European scale.
The specific objectives are to:
Re-establish low-intensity and insect-friendly sheep grazing on the most valuable 120 ha of the project area;
Implement mowing, prescribed burning and cattle grazing, allowing the extension of insect-friendly sheep grazing to the entire leased core area (more than 760 ha);
Work with local farmers to further extend insect-friendly sheep and cattle grazing to at least 2,000 ha;
Increase habitat diversity for arthropods by introducing insect hotels, anthelmintics-free dung piles and wood piles on 60 ha of conventionally grazed grasslands;
Improve grassland quality and eliminate habitats of unwanted game species by controlling invasive alien shrubs (Eleagnus angustifolia) in the worst affected 15 ha; and
Reduce damage to grasslands and predation pressure by controlling unwanted game species.
KEYWORDS
bird species
public participation
public awareness campaign
invasive species
sensitive area
