Rare species in Carpathian Mountains under threat

Date: 22/05/03

By Karen Carstens

THE World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has warned more must be done to protect plants and animals indigenous to the Carpathian Mountains. Many species have all but disappeared from the rest of Europe.

A report released by WWF, ahead of this week's pan-European environment conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, finds that the Carpathians could be the continent's last refuge for the brown bear, wolf and lynx.

The Carpathians cover an area of 206,000 square kilometres and stretch across eight countries - Ukraine, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Serbia & Montenegro.

"Pollution, damaging development schemes, hunting, deforestation and fragmentation or loss of habitat are among the main threats to the Carpathian mountain range and its biodiversity," WWF warned in its study.

Some fish have been affected by dams and pollution, with Atlantic sturgeon and Atlantic salmon now classified as extinct in the region. Also, 41 of the region's nearly 4,000 species and subspecies of plants, representing around 30 of all European flora, are also critically endangered according to the report, The Carpathian List of Endangered Species.

The mountain range is home to almost 45 of the entire European population of the Imperial Eagle. Other rare animals listed in the study include the European bison. Some 400 bison were reintroduced in the area after disappearing 200 years ago, but they are now threatened by in-breeding. A chamois mountain antelope population of about 300 and moose numbering around 100 are also deemed "highly threatened".

In Kyiv yesterday (21 May), the eight countries affected signed the 'Carpathian Convention', aimed at promoting sustainable development in the region.

The WWF report "clearly spells out which natural treasures are most in need of the legal protection provided by the convention," said Claude Martin, the environmental organization's secretary-general.

It calls for the development of cross-border conservation plans and establishing national management schemes for large carnivores, including improved monitoring of their population.

The World Wildlife Fund has warned that animal and plant species in the Carpathian mountians in Central Europe are at risk of losing their natural habitiats because of pollution, deforestation and hunting.