Europe's hay meadows in decline - what are we losing and what can we do?
An agricultural seminar was held on Thursday, the 8th of November at the Brussels seat of the European Parliament with the special support of DAHR’s MEP Csaba Sógor. At the MEP’s invitation the seminar was also attended by a group of students from Transylvania.
Nowadays sustainable development is becoming a hot topic also in agriculture. Traditional hay meadows are a part of European culture due to their natural heritage value. Transylvanian hay meadows are among the richest plant groups in Europe, while the hill and mountain hay meadows of Szeklerland are special in their diversity of species and beauty. The particularity of the area is that small traditional communities that produce and sustain traditional hay meadows still live there and these communities depend heavily on their environment. Despite EU support, many regions see the disappearance of hay meadows because they are used as grazing grounds.
The seminar was centered on the methods through which European institutions can protect these values and help farmers through different programmes to use their environment in an efficient way. During the presentations it was stated that Romania has over 20% of Europe’s hay meadows, but since support programmes favor owners of larger areas, many meadows remain unattended.
Rodics Gergely from the Pogány-havas Association presented the association’s second 18 month long programme for the protection of hay meadows. The main goal of the association is to promote the natural, cultural and economic value of mountain hay meadows in order to help the communities to use their lands in a sustainable way from an ecological, social and economic point of view. The project will be implemented in the Pogány-havas area of Romania.
The Transylvanian project is supported by the UNDP GEF-SGP, the Barbara Knowles Fund, the European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism and the Réti Csík Association. The professional partners of the programme are the Ecological and Botanical Research Institute of the Hungarian Science Academy, the European Conservation Action Network, the Erdélyi Kárpát Association from Miercurea Ciuc and the Green Szeklerland Association.
The seminar was centered on the methods through which European institutions can protect these values and help farmers through different programmes to use their environment in an efficient way. During the presentations it was stated that Romania has over 20% of Europe’s hay meadows, but since support programmes favor owners of larger areas, many meadows remain unattended.
Rodics Gergely from the Pogány-havas Association presented the association’s second 18 month long programme for the protection of hay meadows. The main goal of the association is to promote the natural, cultural and economic value of mountain hay meadows in order to help the communities to use their lands in a sustainable way from an ecological, social and economic point of view. The project will be implemented in the Pogány-havas area of Romania.
The Transylvanian project is supported by the UNDP GEF-SGP, the Barbara Knowles Fund, the European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism and the Réti Csík Association. The professional partners of the programme are the Ecological and Botanical Research Institute of the Hungarian Science Academy, the European Conservation Action Network, the Erdélyi Kárpát Association from Miercurea Ciuc and the Green Szeklerland Association.
