Financiarul

Administrations of nine protected areas in Austria, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania have initiated the “Danube Parks” project, designed as a cross-border cooperation project to the benefit of the protected areas.

According to information supplied by the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (ARBDD), the project, worth 2.8 million euros will be implemented for a period of three years.

“We are glad that the appeal to cooperation launched in 2007 among the Danube’s protected areas had the expected echo and led to the success of this ambitious cross-border project and the setting up of the “Danube Parks” Network.

We expect to achieve, at the end of this project, a basis for continuous international cooperation and a wider recognition of Danube’s natural patrimony alongside boosting protection programs for endangered species and protection of th Danube’s natural habitat,” ARBDD governor Grigore Baboianu said.

The ARBDD will contribute to implementing the projects’ lines of action an coordinate works on the protection of endangers species such as the white eagle and the sturgeon.

Representatives of the protected areas in Bavaria, Serbia and Croatia , that are not eligible for the financing programs offered by the EU , will also take part in the project.

As of 1990, national parks and natural reserves have been sent up in the countries crossed by the Danube, the continuous cooperation among them being underlined in April 2007, when Tulcea hosted a meeting attended by representatives these areas in eight Danube villages that signed the Declaration in Tulcea, an appeal to taking action for the setting up of a protected area along the Danube.