Czech Republic

The objective of this project is to strengthen the conservation management of globally significant biodiversity in species-rich mountain grassland habitats (grasslands and pastures) in two protected landscape areas (PLA) which are included in the Czech candidate list of Special Protection Areas under the EU Habitat Directive. The project is designed to test and validate the assumption that existing and future EU financial support mechanisms, properly oriented, will sufficiently offset the additional costs that landowners incur when managing the more inaccessible, biodiversity-rich mountain grassland habitats, so that  they will be willing to participate in the designed grassland conservation management plans. GEF funding will be targeted to developing the initial capacity to identify the most valuable mountain grassland areas, gain and share expertise in securing EU funding for grassland management projects, monitoring the outcomes of management, and disseminating the knowledge among others involved in mountain grassland management, particularly Parties to the Carpathian Convention. The project will provide tangible results that will enable the EU financial support mechanisms to be fine tuned at the national level to strengthen their applicability for mountain grassland conservation and as such to contribute to the sustainability of the Czech protected area system.

Ministry of Environment ;Fund for Organic Agriculture

http://gefonline.org/projectDetails.cfm?projID=1705