The site of community importance Nera Gorges-Beușnița (ROSCI0031) covers 37.719 ha within the county of Caraș-Severin, a Romanian region defined by a noticeable biodiversity (Anina Mountains). In spite of its relatively low altitude (max. 1.162 m), the site is diverse by its abiotic conditions and biogeographic influences. This site is at the same time a national park (the territory of the park do not encompasses the course of the Nera river downstream Sasca village). Habitat forests covers the majority of the national park area, with as the main owner the Romanian state, and administrator - the National Forestry Régie – Romsilva. The administration of the Nera Gorges-Beușnița National Park (NG-BNP) came into service in 2004, but repeated delays (national law system deficiencies) in having a management plan as well as the lack of technical forestry norms in protected areas (ABRAN, 2012) resulted in a treatment of forests inside the NG-BNP mainly as production ones. Because of a Sectoral Operational Programme – Environment (SOP-Env) project, we have mapped (2012-2015) the main habitats and recorded the pressures and threats to habitats. When the main impact affecting and threatening forest habitats (e.g. 9110, 9130, 91Y0, 91K0, 91M0), is the unappropriated system of forest exploitation, there is a need in changing sylvo-cultural practices. In terms of meadows conservation, the imbalanced use (overgrazing in some meadows, abandon of pastoral use on a significant part of meadows) constitutes the main impact on meadow habitats (6110*, 6210*, 6190, 6240*); giving the orchid diversity, we set in same situations more restrictive measures than those established under Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES). Riverine and water habitats (3220, 3260, 6430, 7220*) are under various anthropic pressures in the lower part of Nera river. Shrubs and rocky habitats (40A0*, 5130, 8160*, 8210) are in a relative good conservation status. We set conservation measures for habitats taking into consideration: the reports and recommendations made by other experts working in the same SOP-Env grant, the European Commission guidance documents and notes under the Art. 6.1, IUCN (DUDLEY, 2008) and WWF recommendations for protected areas management, the measures from some Prioritized Action Frameworks = PAFs (e.g. Hungarian PAF), Romanian documents (scientific papers, recommendations for forest management - Forestry Code, High Conservation Values Forests network, etc., AES proposals for 2014-2020), and various scientific references (BASTIAN, 2013; BATTISTI & FANELLI, 2015; KONING et al. (2014); VELÁZQUEZ et al., 2010; ZEHETMAIR et al. (2015) etc.). No matter the foundation and the accuracy of conservation measures we proposed, there is an urgent need to convince local authorities, entrepreneurs, farmers, stakeholders, all inhabitants about the high value of the site and the development opportunities offered by the sustainable use of its resources. Accepting and embracing the management measures to be included in the first Management Plan of the Cheile Nerei-Beușnița National Park is the key of preserving this consistent sample of Romanian still wild nature.

Natura 2000, Cheile Nerei-Beușnița, National Park, conservation objectives, conservation measures, habitats.

biology

Presentation: poster