Restore4Life project

I have recently completed a continent-crossing journey to visit wetland restoration sites in the Danube Basin. Accompanied by my botanist wife, Natasha, we held talks with business stakeholders at Vlasina Lake (Serbia), Rudava River (Slovakia), March-Thaya floodplain (Austria) and, finally, the Razim lagoon wetlands at Enisala (Romania) adjacent to the Danube Delta. The sites are all involved in an EU-funded research project, Restore4Life, that is promoting restoring the ecological functions of degraded wetlands, including a component that I lead on nature-based solutions. More details of the project, which is led by the University of Bucharest, are on its website at https://restore4life.eu/. Here, I just want to pick up some of the highlights of the trip itself.

It took us about four weeks to drive or fly between the sites and we stayed in local guest houses at each place to learn more about them, the people living there and the nature they support. We also took the opportunity to sample the regional cuisines and wines and visit a variety of old castles that formerly guarded the river trading corridors (from where we could get super views of the countryside albeit nowadays mostly scarred by drainage ditches and turned to arable fields).

The Danube is Europe’s longest river after the Volga: it forms in the Black Forest of Germany and after flowing some 2,850 km debouches in the Black Sea with a world-class centre of biodiversity in the Danube delta, shared between Romania and Ukraine. It drains a basin of about 817,000 km2, covering 19 countries, and there are over 79 million inhabitants. The Danube counts as the world’s most international river and one of its most highly engineered with hydroelectric dams, flood control embankments, drainage channels, polders, and extensive fish-pond complexes. Moreover aggressive exotic invasive plants like the false indigo bush Amorpha fruticosa and fish like round goby Neogobius melanostomus are impacting native species. These factors all pose an enormous challenge for improving the river’s water quality, natural habitats and wildlife populations, as well as living conditions for many rural communities.

Yet, at each site we were enchanted by the landscapes and delighted to wander in primary riverine forests, floodplain meadows and around marshes filled with colourful flowers skimmed by clouds of butterflies and dragonflies, frogs and toads, a tortoise or two, and lots of birds (my list came to over 140 species). In the evenings there were swooshing bats, buzzing stag beetles in search of mates, and loud choruses of cicadas. The skies were often completely dark allowing constellations and planets to shine and sometimes in the dead of night there was just utter silence.

Our Restore4Life project is just getting underway and will run for another three years. We are really looking forward to working at these sites during this time and hope we can contribute something to their eventual improvement for everyone to enjoy. It has certainly been a wonderful start.