'An advantage for nature and communities': Conservation Carpathia eyes vulture return, builds for ecotourism at planned national park in Romania's Făgăraș Mountains
<h4>Foundation Conservation Carpathia, which has been working since 2009 on the long-term goal of establishing a world-class nature reserve in Romania's Făgăraș Mountains, is looking to reintroduce the vulture in a bid that is meant to benefit both the ecosystem and the local communities. Meanwhile, it moving forward with constructing the ecotourism infrastructure needed for the planned national park.</h4>

<p>After bringing the bison and the beaver back to the Făgăraș Mountains, Conservation Carpathia (FCC) is looking to add the vulture to its list of reintroductions. The Egyptian, bearded, cinereous, and griffon vultures were found in the country in the past, but intense hunting, including the use of poisoned baits, and reduced food availability contributed to their disappearance.</p>

<p>"The vultures are the last family of species missing from the Romanian Carpathians, not just from the Făgăraș Mountains,"<strong> </strong>Christoph Promberger, co-founder of Conservation Carpathia, explains, pointing to their essential role in the ecosystem.</p>

<p>"They have a very important role. They don't kill; they only eat dead animals. They're somehow nature's sanitary police because whenever an animal gets sick and dies, the vultures eat it up quickly, so the disease cannot spread any further if other animals come to sniff on it. What we see now with the spread of the African swine fever, which is a big problem, vultures help to keep such problems under control."&nbsp;Of the four vulture species that could be found in Romania in the past, the bearded vulture, also called the <em>lammergeier</em> or <em>zăganul</em> in Romanian, has been here until the early 20th century, when the last individuals were killed. "It's been 100 years since they disappeared. We think it's time to bring them back."</p>

<p>The start of the reintroduction depends on securing all the necessary permits and funding. "We're looking to get the permits and the funding for it. I can't say how long it will take but we hope it's going to happen in the next years."</p>

<p>FCC plans to work on the reintroduction effort with the Vulture Conservation Foundation, a non-profit involved in various initiatives supporting the conservation and reintroduction of the species across Europe. The birds are first kept for a period of one to two years in aviaries in the reintroduction sites so they can get used to the area they are being released in and start breeding there. "If they are released immediately, they would just fly off and go somewhere else."</p>

<p>Meanwhile, several vulture sightings have been reported in recent years, but these were birds crossing into the country, many from Bulgaria. In Romania's southern neighbor, a project carried out between 2015 and 2022 established a nesting population of cinereous vultures, while another one aims to reintroduce the bearded vulture to the country and the Balkan Peninsula.</p>

<p><strong>Building a national park infrastructure</strong></p>

<p>Just as it happened with the bison and the beaver, the reintroduction of the vulture is meant to aid not only the area's ecosystem but also the local communities, which can take pride in the biodiverse landscape and derive economic benefits.</p>

<p>"We're trying not just to bring the animals back, but, as we have done with the other animals, we're trying to create an attraction where a local community can identify itself. That means that with the reintroduction of the vultures comes a vulture visitor center, come places where people can watch vultures and so on. That stimulates tourism and is an advantage for nature and the local communities," Promberger says.</p>

<p>The foundation opened last year a <em>Beaver House Visitor Center</em> in Rucăr, in Argeș county. It is the first in a planned network of visitor centers that are being built in the communities around the Făgăraș Mountains. The beaver center, built with local craftsmen, sustainable materials, and in keeping with the architecture of the local mountain villages, features a beaver's lodge, a construction that mirrors the 'house' the beaver builds in nature and an interactive exhibition that reveals the world of the rodent. A second center, dedicated to the bison, is to open in Lerești, one of the sites in the Southern Carpathians where the animal was reintroduced.</p>

<p>The centers are part of the developing infrastructure of the future Făgăraș Mountains National Park. This also includes an educational center that opened in 2021 in Sătic, Rucăr, also in Argeș county. The center can host nature exploration activities and programs for all schools in the area, universities, and organizations interested in nature conservation. The staff there come from the local communities, while the food is purchased through a food hub developed by the foundation to support small local producers.</p>

<p>"We have built two visitor centers, we have built an education center, we have built a handful of hiking trails, and we have started to build a big administration center for the southeastern part of the Făgăraș Mountains. Given the scale of the Făgăraș Mountains, there's still a long way to go. The infrastructure building is also very expensive, obviously, but we are making good progress, and we can already invite people from other parts of the Făgăraș Mountains to see actually what that means and what the advantage is to the local communities."</p>
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<figcaption><em>The Beaver House, the first in a planned network of visitor centers. Photo: Conservation Carpathia</em></figcaption>
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<p><strong>More wildlife, less conflict </strong></p>

<p>The program for the reintroduction of the bison is already seeing an increase in the population. "They are now breeding on their own. We have released 75 over the years. By now, there are almost 100 bison that live in eight herds in the wild, and they're reproducing on their own. Every year, ten or more calves are being born, so the number is now starting to increase."</p>

<p>The program kicked off in 2019, when four bison were brought from Germany, followed by seven more from Poland. The first individuals were released into the wild a year later. More bison from Sweden, Germany, and Slovakia followed in 2023, adding to the population released at four sites. The bison, which disappeared from Romania some 200 years ago, has also been reintroduced at sites in Neamț, Caraș Severin, and Hunedoara counties by other organizations. The herbivorous animal, the largest land mammal in Europe, spends up to 80% of its day foraging. With the grazing it does, it maintains the areas' glades and forests, thus supporting the balance between forest and grassland ecosystems. &nbsp;As the meadows are maintained, other wildlife benefits, among them the red deer.</p>

<p>The bison was followed by the beaver in 2021, when it returned to the beds of the rivers Dâmbovița, Argeșel and Târgului, also in Argeș county. The 'nature's engineer,' as the beaver is sometimes called, is known for its ability to transform its surroundings, building dams and creating wetlands, a needed resource in times of extended drought and against the backdrop of climate change. The wetlands they develop provide food and shelter for other species, while young shoots of woody species, especially the willow, find good conditions to develop. At the same time, the land's capacity to store water is increased, with positive impacts in mitigating the effects of flooding.</p>

<p>If the bison is already a reason for pride for local communities – Lerești, one of the sites in the Făgăraș Mountains where it was reintroduced, named its football team, supported by FCC, <em>Zimbrii Lerești</em> – the beaver is not everyone's favorite.</p>

<p>"I understand if you're a landowner and the beaver on a nearby creek dams up the creek and then it floods your land, then you're not happy as a landowner. But again, we're not just bringing the beavers back; we're also looking for solutions. There are good solutions now: for example, just to put a pipe in the dam so the water will flow off and not rise beyond a certain level. Like this, the beavers can have their dams and fulfill their very important ecological role, but, at the same time, in this particular situation, you can protect the livelihoods of local landowners."</p>

<p>In time, the foundation has also added various conflict mitigation measures concerning the carnivores that might kill livestock or the wild boar, which can dig up local farmers' gardens. It provided local livestock owners with electric fences, and has started a breeding program for the Carpathian shepherd dogs (ciobănescul carpatin), which have been used historically by shepherds to defend livestock against predators. The foundation's rangers are part of rapid response teams, trained to resolve wildlife-human conflicts, and, in 2020, it introduced in-kind compensation for livestock damage from carnivores through a joint venture with a local livestock breeder.</p>

<p>These are part of the foundation's manifold approach to help protect the natural landscapes. Among them are ecotourism projects, which include a refurbished sheepfold in the Tămaș Meadow, a chalet in Valea Vadului, wildlife observatories, as well as the biodiversity farm in Cobor. While allowing visitors the chance to discover the wilderness of the Făgăraș Mountains, they create local jobs and support the work on the future Făgăraș Mountains National Park as the profits from them are redirected towards its establishment.&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong>Up to the local communities </strong></p>

<p>The project of a national park in the Făgăraș Mountains is making headway, but it will be up to the local communities to decide on it.</p>

<p>"We are making progress. More and more people understand that this is something that can be really an economic future for the area. Of course, there is opposition. There is always opposition because some people use the mountains in another way and don't want to give up on that. At the end of the day, it's not us who will decide whether this will be a national park or not. It is the local communities that will have to decide whether they want the national park or not. But I'm positive. The feedback that you get from the villages is positive. There are more and more villages that want to become part of that journey. I think we will see big changes in the next five or ten years."</p>

<p>The planned park would have different zones, ranging from a strictly protected nature area to zones with hiking facilities and alpine areas for traditional practices like sheep grazing. How the zoning will be done is, again, a decision for the local communities, he explains.</p>

<p>"We're taking as a reference the Natura 2000 site in the Făgăraș Mountains; that keeps a good distance from the villages. I think that it is important that a national park would not start next to the village but two, three, or four kilometers away from the villages so that there is enough space for the villagers to live and not be restricted by a national park."</p>

<p><strong>Letting nature be nature</strong></p>

<p>Besides the biodiversity boost and the associated tourism opportunities, a national park also creates a host of ecosystem services that support the area's water supply and prevent flooding.</p>

<p>"If an area is natural, then the water runs off much slower, and so even in times of drought, there is still water coming from the mountains, and as we saw last summer a terrible drought, it helps a lot if you have a secure water resource. An intact forest will cool the area and prevent floods. So it has multiple positive effects for the local communities," Promberger explains.</p>

<p>Since it started working in the Făgăraș Mountains, FCC has taken various steps to return managed forests to their natural state, restored clear-cuts and alpine pastures, created tree nurseries, and conducted erosion control works, the beginning of what is a long-term process.</p>

<p>"It takes a lot of time. We give the kickstart. We plant trees, but we are very careful about what kind of trees we plant; we make sure that we plant those trees that would naturally grow there, and then, from that moment on, we think that nature should take care of itself. We want to let nature be nature."&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>(Photo:&nbsp;Făgăraș Mountains&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dreamstime.com/savcoco_info">Cosmin Constantin Sava</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos">Dreamstime.com</a>)</p>

<p><em>simona@romania-insider.com</em></p>