Conservarea biodiversităţii şi dezvoltare comunitară în Transilvania
Welcome to the website of Fundatia ADEPT .....
protecting the rich biodiversity of Transylvania and using it to benefit local communities.
Pentru versiunea în limba română apăsați pe butonul de mai sus.Fundatia ADEPT is a charity promoting Agricultural Development and Environmental Protection in Transylvania, Romania. Our objectives are protection of biodiversity and landscape, linked to economic regeneration of the area, such that each supports the other.
This is one of the last great European landscapes, a mosaic of rich habitats and rare animal and plant species including some of the finest wildflower-rich grasslands in Europe. The landscape is still a functioning ecology, man and nature in balance. This low-intensity sustainable agriculture is under threat, although it is increasingly relevant as a model in the world today. Only through the farmer and his continued management can this landscape be conserved.
Why support Fundatia ADEPT?
Fundatia ADEPT is working successfully on several levels: with farmers in innovative ways to make their traditional small-scale communities more viable. With regional, local and central government to promote helpful policies. And with other NGOs, community groups and the general public to spread the word about the social, cultural and biodiversity importance of these landscapes and their communities.
The landscape of Southern Transylvania is perhaps the most extensive working High Nature Value Farmed landscape in lowland Europe. It is of European and global importance.
This landscape of exceptional biodiversity has been created by farmers over hundreds of years, and it can only be preserved by continued traditional management by the farmers there today.
ADEPT has been working since 2002 with farmers, local communities, universities, other NGOs, and government at all levels in order to solve the range of problems threatening the survival of this remarkable landscape and of the small-scale farming communities living within it.
Saving this area is of great importance not only for its own sake - the species and habitats, the agricultural system in harmony with them, and the livelihoods of small-scale farming communities who live there – but also for what we can learn from it about saving or restoring similar areas in Europe.
Fundatia ADEPT is carrying out an integrated programme linking economic and social benefits with biodiversity conservation, and raising local capacity for good management in the future. We bring together Romanian and wider European expertise to carry out innovative nature conservation and rural development projects that are firmly rooted in local communities.
ADEPT activities
Our team
News Headlines
International Conference: High Nature Value grasslands – securing the vital ecosystem services of European farming. Read moreDarwin Initiative and Fauna & Flora International Read more
Fundatia ADEPT Food Barn as a useful model for other regions Read more
See all news headlines
Future for dairy farmers = a future for the landscape
Small-scale dairy production is key to the survival of the HNV landscapes of Romania. In the Târnava Mare area there is a collapse in the market for milk. Cow numbers have fallen by 25% in the last year alone. The cause of the loss of market is that small farmers cannot guarantee the quality and quantity necessary to attract the milk processors. Many villages have been left without any milk collection.
ADEPT, in a project funded by Innovation Norway, is working with farmers to improve milk hygiene through workshops with farmers, discussions with village dairy associations, on-the-spot testing at communal milk collection points. Through this project, two villages have had their milk collection points improved and milk collection reinstated, giving income again to 65 small-scale farmers. Another 6 villages will follow.
Visiting this special area
Please visit www.discovertarnavamare.org.
This website provides information, in English and Romanian, for people interested in visiting the area, or obtaining the special local products the area offers.
Click here and see Tourism Operator Partners for a list of tour operators we recommend for visits to the Tarnava Mare area and more widely in Transylvania.
