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An EU-funded cross-border cooperation project implemented by the World Wildlife Foundation
(WWF) has managed to identify a number of critical ecological corridors for the brown bear in
the Carpathian Mountains along the border of Romania and Ukraine. Maintaining the
connectivity of habitats is important for the conservation of these large carnivores.
In the past two years, five brown bears have been monitored via a radio collar. Infrared
cameras with motion sensors were also installed. Field work was supplemented by
consultations with foresters, rangers, hunters, protected area managers and local
communities. To announce the final results of its findings, WWF recently organized an
international conference dedicated to securing ecological corridors of the brown bears,
which brought together experts from Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia, Croatia, Italy, Spain and
Portugal.
It also marked the official end of the “Open Borders for Bears between Romanian and Ukrainian Carpathians” project, funded by the European Union within the Cross-Border Cooperation Programme Hungary-Slovakia-Romania-Ukraine 2007-2013, and implemented by WWF in partnership with the Ukrainian NGO RachivEcoTur.
The project covered the province of Maramures in Romania and the Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakarpatska regions of Ukraine, and aimed to reduce habitat fragmentation, identify the critical corridors and the related reconstruction needs and secure sustainable use of natural resources...(link)