English Summary Pays Mosan

The overall objective of the project is the restoration of a mosaic of threatened pastoral habitats and species habitats within the basin of the Meuse River and its tributaries between Andenne and Maastricht.

Connectivity of the Natura 2000 network in the Dutch-Belgian Meuse basin

To achieve their common goals and ensure the coherence of the restored habitats network, partners from Wallonia (Natagora, DNF), Flanders (Natuurpunt, ANB, De Scheepvaart, Ghent University) and the Netherlands (Natuurmonumenten), have chosen to combine their efforts through the presentation of a single LIFE project.

In the project area, highly rich-species habitats have become extremely fragmented, and are undergoing progressive qualitative and quantitative regression.

Within the two Dutch Natura 2000 sites that constitute the project area (90 ha), the main operational objectives are:

to improve the conservation status of the 5 habitats
to improve grassland ecological connectivity in the Natura 2000 sites and between them ;
to improve the efficiency of the implemented restoration actions by enhancing the state of knowledge on the distribution of habitats and testing of new methods of management / restoration ;
to develop exchanges of expertise between scientific partners, NGOs and public sector agencies in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Expected results

the restoration of 90 ha of habitats and the establishment of the infrastructure necessary to the recurrent management to carry on after the end of the project;
the reduction of the fragmentation level and the improvement of the connectivity for the target habitats ;
improving the local expertise in terms of restoration and management of the habitats;
the purchase of 29 ha of private land, which can therefore benefit from the nature reserve status.
and finally, adhesion of the public and land managers to the project goals, thanks to widely available communication tools.

Beneficiary