Meeting in Kalnciems

municipality

First-round informal meetings about restoration of floodplains come to end

Informal meeting in Jeri municipality on the 8-th of April closed the chain of first round of introduction meetings about restoration of floodplains, organised by LIFE-Nature project. 19 meetings were organised during eighty days in sixteen Project territories. In total, more then 800 landowners were invited to those meetings. More then half of invited landowners participated or gave response to the project. 

Meeting in Seda municipality

First-round informal meetings about restoration of floodplains come to end

Informal meeting in Jeri municipality on the 8-th of April closed the chain of first round of introduction meetings about restoration of floodplains, organised by LIFE-Nature project. 19 meetings were organised during eighty days in sixteen Project territories. In total, more then 800 landowners were invited to those meetings. More then half of invited landowners participated or gave response to the project. 

The meetings were very important for landowners who have received a lot of actual information about management possibilities and opportunities to have financial support for restoration and maintenance of floodplains from Project or from Latvian Rural Development plan. Active discussions took place in every meeting and here we have summarised some problems that were similar for all project sites:

• Delay with adoption of „Compensation law” about compensation measures for restrictions of land use in protected areas causes negative attitude towards nature conservation among local landowners
• Practical difficulties with mowing floodplains due to very hard environmental conditions are obstacle to involvement of several landowners
• Negative effect of beaver activities causing over flooding of large areas is among main problems that concern local people
• Meetings have given positive impact for many farmers to start management activities. Several of them have started restoration actions in abandoned floodplains already.

This is only the end of first step in the Project. We will continue active individual negotiations with landowners in priority territories in order to involve them in restoration of floodplains. Is planned to mow more then one third of all floodplains until the end of summer (in areas where abandonment with shrubs is not so high and the initial mowing can be performed).

Andris Klepers, public awareness coordinator