Ecological corridors network in the Eastern Carpathians - areas of connectivity conservation

Abstract

Europe is characterized by a fragmented natural landscape, interspersed with high human population densities. In Romania, in 2016, highways occupied less than 1,000 km, of which approximately 200 km crossed forested areas. While development of highway infrastructure is vital to country's economic development and prosperity, long-term conservation of the biodiversity can be achieved only by implementing successfully mitigation measures and by harmonizing the sectorial policies for development with conservation strategies. The brown bear require the use of extensive habitats due to their large home ranges. Based on available data (at national level) and the ecological needs of the species, we generated maps of potential habitats and resistance maps to movements for determining the location of potential corridors. We used 6 environmental variables for identifying the potentially suitable areas and 6 variables for quantifying the brown bear preferences/barriers for/to movement. The model identified around 42000 km2 of suitable habitats for the brown bear in the Romanian Carpathians. Potential ranges were also compared with the existing network of protected areas; however, only 41% of the protected areas were found suitable for bears. We identified approximately 7000 km2 of suitable ecological corridors outside the suitable habitats, however 61% of the network is located outside the protected areas. Moreover brown bear conservation will depend on managing ecological corridors, based on supportive science outputs, deeper collaboration and strong policy on connectivity together with plans and strategies that champion large landscape conservation via state, regional and local initiatives.