Life project
Project Name | Implementation Management Plan for the Lake Engure Nature Park |
Project duration | 2001 – 2004 |
Participants | Latvian Fund for Nature & Lake Engure Nature Park Fund |
Funding | European Union LIFE-Nature program, Latvian Environmental Protection Fund, Engure and Mērsrags municipal authorities |
Project location | Mērsrags, Engure, Ķūļciems & Zentene Parishes |
Co-ordinator | Inga Račinska & Roberts Šiliņš |
Contact | |
Telephone | +371 7830999 |
Fax | +371 7830291 |
Address | Rīga, Raiņa Blvd. 31 |
LV-1050, Latvia | |
The project is based on the nature conservation plan for the Lake Engure Nature Park, prepared in 1998–1999 in the frame of a joint project between SEPA (the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency) and LDF. In 2001, with the financial support of the European Union LIFE-Nature foundation, the Latvian Environmental Protection Fund, the local authorities and Wetlands International, funds were obtained for the implementation of the activities envisaged in the nature conservation plan, and from 1 October 2001 the project ‘Implementation of the Lake Engure Nature Park Conservation Plan’ began.
Within the frame of the project, the following activities are to be conducted between October 2001 and September 2004, with the aim of conserving and protecting the values of Lake Engure and promoting the development of the adjacent parishes
MAIN HABITAT MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES. Among main management activities, such actions as reed cutting, restoration and maintenance of coastal and shore meadows and protection of forests should be mentioned as most significant.
We have been cutting the reed in lake since 2002 thus eliminating large stands of reed and improving breeding habitat for birds (Action D.2). Monitoring provides us with figures showing that on some of the islands the breeding success of ducks has increased from 0% in 2002 to 85% in 2003.
First project meadow was restored in 2002, followed by the second meadow in 2003 and others in 2004; cattle are already grazing on 3 meadows. The effectiveness of maintenance of meadows by grazing is proving to be very high - it can be explicitly seen on the first meadow, where large stands of reed have been eliminated and waders and geese are returning to meadows for resting, breeding and feeding. Cattle and horse grazing have raised high interest in public and media, especially our idea to bring Latvian native breed “Latvian Blue cow” to the area.
MONITORING. Monitoring the impact of management measures on species and habitats (Action D.3) is providing us with first positive results and the experience of project is proving to be very useful for other projects, planning grazing management of grasslands.
TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE. Development of nature friendly tourism in the nature park has resulted in increase of numbers of visitors to Lake Engure Nature Park (LENP) up to 5 times. There have been ca 5000 persons visiting LENP in 2003 and up to 8600 in 2004. We have designed and set up the nature trail, called “Orchid trail” (Action E.4) that was opened in June 2003 and experienced up to 1000 visitors in 2003. Information signs (Action E.3) have been set up, building of bird watching towers (Action E.2) is finished, and summer lecture house is in successfully working. As added value to the project activities Lake Engure Nature park fund was entrusted by municipality to manage one boating station in Mersrags and obtained funding from Dutch Embassy in Latvia to develop small information centre there. Not only project is financing development of tourism infrastructure in LENP. Following our initiative, also Mersrags municipality, Embassy of the Netherlands in Latvia and State Stock Company “Latvian State Forests” have invested in development of tourism infrastructure in LENP.
EXPERIMENT. Engure project is the first project in Latvia, introducing the system of breeding meat cattle for nature conservation purposes, combined with support to farmers. Due to the fact that there was no experience of this kind of activities in Latvia, it was hard to foresee fully the effects of different activities planned in the project. At the moment when project is finished we can with full confidence say that grazing management was the right solution for Engure to restore and maintain the habitats and to involve local community in nature conservation.
TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE. The experience of Engure project has been in several cases used as example, when planning management measures in other protected areas in Latvia, such as North Gauja Nature park, Kemeri National park, Lielupe floodplain meadows and others. Project managers have participated in countless number of seminars, disseminating our experience to other projects within and outside Latvia.
Thus, Engure project has been playing major role in developing semi-natural grazing approach in protected areas. Nature conservationists from all regions of Latvia were able learn from our experience, as they were presented the first results of the project during the seminar organised in August 2002 and final results in September 2004 (Action E.7.). We have also published 5 booklets/flyers within the project, exceeding the planned number (3).
During the project, we also accumulated experience of others and applied their knowledge in Engure. Two Study Tours (Action F.3.) – To Hiiumaa (EST) and Takern/Homborga (SVE) were very useful for project staff to gain more experience in management of wetlands by reed cutting and grazing.
DEMONSTRATION EFFECT. Project activities are serving the purpose of demonstration activities, especially all the recurring and non-recurring biotope management actions – reed cutting, restoration of meadows, introducing the cattle. The reed cutting machine bought for the project was the first one of this kind in Latvia and will be further used for management of Lake Engure and also other protected areas (e.g. Razna lake).
Lake Engure park map.
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