On the 25th of November 2009, the Trans European Wildlife Networks Conference was held in Bucharest, at the Rin Grand Hotel. The conference – organized in partnership by the Milvus Group, the National Environmental Protection Agency, as well as Euronatur – was the closing event of a one and a half year long project, bearing the same title. The international project, implemented by partner organizations and institutions from 6 countries (with the Milvus Group being the Romanian project partner) focused on the following:

• mitigation of fragmentation in South Eastern and Central European countries with focus on existing and planned transport infrastructure & general landscape change; species focus: large carnivores
• establishment of an expert network on national and international level
• capacity building, mainly in Bulgaria and Romania

The conference was attended by the project partners (presenting their experiences from Romania and abroad), the representative of the European Commission, Environment Directorate-General (for Romania), as well as by stakeholders from Romania, such as representatives of the National Company for Highways and National Roads, companies performing environmental impact assessments for various transport infrastructure projects, Regional Environmental Protection Agencies, protected areas’ representatives, interested NGOs, etc. The total number of more, than 60 participants confirmed the importance of the subject.

We consider the event a very important stepping stone in this perspective, since this was the first such occasion in Romania, when all interested parties met and had the chance to openly debate on the issue.

The presentations from the conference can be downloaded from here (in PDF format).