Wooly cows soon to graze in the Dviete and Pededze floodplains

A present from the Netherlands Fund for Nature ARK, 36 six Highlander cattle will arrive to Latvia on Saturday, 13 May. In the afternoon, 16 of the cattle will travel to their new home in the Dviete floodplain meadows, but already in the later evening another group of 16 will be released in the Pededze floodplains of the Litene parish.

Highlander cattle

Wooly cows soon to graze in the Dviete and Pededze floodplains

A present from the Netherlands Fund for Nature ARK, 36 six Highlander cattle will arrive to Latvia on Saturday, 13 May. In the afternoon, 16 of the cattle will travel to their new home in the Dviete floodplain meadows, but already in the later evening another group of 16 will be released in the Pededze floodplains of the Litene parish. The remaining four are meant to improve the heard in the Rucava parish by making the offspring of the Latvijas Bruna cattle become woollier and able to graze all year round.

Over a period of five years, the Netherlands Fund for Nature ARK has invested 995 thousand Euro in preservation of mosaic landscapes in Latvia. The money is spent on training land owners, regular consultations at sites, and introducing wild animals to Latvia.

ARK has allocated 20 thousand Euro for the preservation of the landscape and the water storage capacity of the Dviete floodplains; in other words, the investment is meant to decrease the dangers of flooding in the area.

Activity in the floodplains of the Dviete and the Pededze Rivers started around October 2004 when the project on Restoration of Floodplain Meadows administered by the Latvian Fund for Nature started its work in the Dviete Floodplains Nature Park, the Sita and Pededze Floodplains Nature Reserve and the Mugurve Meadows Nature Reserve. As of last year, funding from the EU LIFE-Nature fund and in cooperation with local municipalities is available for removal of bushes in the floodplains and for resuming their management. Last year the Latvian Ornithological Society developed a management plan for the Dviete Floodplain Nature Park. Already now many of the activities set in the plan are being implemented. 

Edmunds Račinskis, Chairman of the Board of the Latvian Ornithological Society, and the author of the management plan noted that “grazing of cattle economically benefits local landowners, and gives them opportunities for new types of activities. Furthermore, the cattle will graze the restored meadows, thus preventing their overgrowing in the future. Cattle will also graze in other pastures that once might have seemed hopelessly overgrown; hence, grazing animals really help to maintain the open meadow landscapes. As a result, farmers are able to qualify for a number of support payments; the value of their land increases, and the biological diversity gets richer. Wild horses are planned to be the next new inhabitants of the floodplains; they would make the site more attractive to visitors and would foster development of tourism here.