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\nThe European Council has renewed the
\nEuropean Diploma for Protected Areas, awarded to the Danube Delta
\nBiosphere Reservation in Tulcea, in southeastern Romania. It is not
\nthe first time this happens, since this is one of the highest
\ndistinctions in Europe, both due to the high scientific standards
\nthat are applied, as well as the continuous monitoring of compliance.
\nThe diploma has started being awarded since the year 2000, because,
\nwith its wetlands with such a diverse flora and fauna, the area has
\nmajor biological value, with great landscapes and inestimable
\ncultural value for Europe.
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\nThis is what reservation governor Ion
\nMunteanu told us:
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\nFirst of all, because of what
\nexists as natural heritage in the area. I am talking about flora and
\nfauna, habitats, and ecosystems. Secondly, they are optimally
\nconserved, and meet all the criteria demanded by the EU. I want to
\nsay that we met all of them because, besides the fact that we have
\nmany conservation projects, we’ve had many projects to revive nature
\nin areas that have suffered because of human meddling. I am talking
\nabout 16,000 hectares of areas that used to be farms or fisheries,
\nand which have been restored to nature gradually, impressing European
\nexperts, when they compared what used to be and what it is now. We
\nhave very well trained colleagues, who studied both in the country
\nand abroad. We also have a corps of rangers who know very well what
\nhappens in the field, and know very well the situation in each area.<\/p>\n
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\nWhen renewing the distinction the
\nthird time, the European Council also formulated a series of
\nrecommendations. One is to include in the Reservation Management
\nPlan, which is under revision, specific dispositions dedicated to
\nclimate change, more to the point those that are relevant to the
\nlong-term conservation of endemic species. Another is the need to
\nprovide a base budget for managing the reservation, and increasing
\nthe number of employees to ensure an effective means of carrying out
\nactivities. The process by which the diploma is granted includes
\nanalyzing technical documentation and field inspections by
\nindependent experts in protected areas. The role of the diploma is,
\non the one hand, to reward member states for protecting certain
\nareas, and on the other, because it is granted on a limited basis,
\nwhich can be prolonged, to encourage those states to continue
\nprotecting them. We asked the governor of the Danube Delta what the
\nmain problems faced by the reservation are:
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\nThis year was totally atypical,
\nbecause of the pandemic, atypical because people didn’t flock to
\nother countries to spend their holidays, but flocked to the Danube
\nDelta. In this situation, we believe that the number of tourists
\nskyrocketed, with the number of tourists on the beaches tripling. I
\nam talking about the beaches in Constanta County, Vadu and Corbu. It
\nwas the case with the ones in the Delta, but they are harder to
\nreach, so people focused on the areas that they could drive to. There
\nwere many boats in the Delta that worked overtime, sometimes at
\nhigher speeds than permitted. We took measures. We ran checkpoints
\nand inspections all the time, we took action to protect those areas
\nwith intense tourism, which were mostly prevention and awareness
\nraising among people on how tourism should be done in protected
\nareas. Another big problem is the overfishing that has been occurring
\nfor many years here, and poaching, which is in fact another kind of
\noverfishing, as well as failure to report the quantity of fish that
\ngets caught, and reaches black markets.<\/p>\n
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\n
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\nThe Danube Delta has a triple status
\ninternationally: it is a UNESCO MAB biosphere reservation, as part of
\nthe Man and Biosphere program, it is an international wetland for
\naquatic birds, as part of the Ramsar Convention, and it is also a
\nUNESCO World Nature and Culture Heritage site. It is an integral part
\nof the Natura 2000 European ecological network, and has 3 protected
\nareas. There are also 20 strictly protected areas for scientific
\npurposes. They are home to 4,000 pairs of pelican, the largest such
\ncolony in Europe, 320 fertile pairs of Pelecanus Crispus, an
\nendangered species, 70 colonies with a variety of other birds, namely
\n36 mixed and 34 monospecific, and 22 colonies of giant cormorant.
\nDuring the period of migration, the Delta shelters over 20,000 large
\naquatic bird species. The area is exceedingly beautiful, with huge
\nbiodiversity and resources, which makes it unique in Europe and all
\nover the world.
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Council of Europe has renewed the European Diploma for Protected Areas, awarded to the Danube Delta Biosphere Reservation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":148418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44315],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-153340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-planet"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n