[Barbara] Healthy forests are important for everything,
including the apex predators – wolves, bears and lynx.
[Christoph] When you enter into such a forest,
you feel immediately, this is something special.
[Barbara] The goal of our project
is to create a national park in the Carpathian Mountains,
in the Fagaras Mountains,
which would be the largest forest national park in Europe.
Carpathian Mountains
[Narrator] The virgin and old-growth forests of the Carpathian Mountains
span seven countries, making them the ecological backbone of Europe.
They are a stronghold for some of the continent’s largest predators,
including brown bear, wolves and lynx.
And Romania holds one of Europe’s last remaining truly wild places.
But climate change and habitat destruction
are leading to a rapidly changing environment for both wildlife and humans.
Romania
You know, I remember it was in 2012,
we were up on a high mountain, about 2,500m.
And then we looked down on the other side
and there was this mega clear cut.
It was about 300 hectares.
It’s just total destruction and it makes me really sad.
Unfortunately, here, you know, there has been a lack of control
and so many areas have been just clear felled on a large scale.
And that caused a lot of problems
in respect to climate change, all the way to erosion.
[Narrator] The destruction of their forest home
is pushing the area’s large predators into closer proximity to humans,
driving conflict.
This is being amplified by climate change,
which is altering habitat, food availability and migration patterns.
[Narrator] These conflicts are a reality
for local communities throughout the Carpathians
and need to be addressed to protect the forests
and the animals that call them home.
Local Communities
So we are trying to mitigate these conflicts between humans and wildlife
by basically doing three things.
We’re helping to prevent conflicts to happen,
we are trying to intervene if they are happening
and giving something back to people that have suffered losses.
[Christoph] When it comes to working with the local communities,
the most important thing is to listen to them.
We can protect the forest here,
we can protect the wildlife,
but we’ll never get a national park without the local communities.
[Narrator] If properly protected,
forests like these can be powerful allies in the fight against climate change,
as well as bringing more direct benefits to the wellbeing of local communities.
Healthy Forests
[Christoph] A healthy forest cools the area, especially in the hot summers.
It protects the local communities from floods,
at the same time it delivers clean drinking water to the local communities.
The vision is still to create something that is not then just, sort of, a piece of nature,
but it is something that is a piece of nature in the benefit of the local communities.
And this is really the challenge.
[Narrator] For protection measures to work,
the team need to gain a better understanding of the health of the forest.
This includes getting to know the bears, wolves and lynx that call it home.
Brown Bears
Me and my colleague,
we’re out here looking for a non-invasive DNA samples of a brown bear.
That means we are looking for scat and hair.
You can get precise estimations of abundance density
and also quite precise estimations
of the magnitude of problem bears in a population, for example.
And that’s actually very helpful
because you can do decision making out of this.
The biggest problem is brown bear at the moment,
but I’m really hoping we will find the resources
and patience and the wisdom to overcome this conservation challenge.
And I really hope we will have all the three species
coexisting in harmony with local people as well.
Conclusion
[Narrator] Carnivores are key to maintaining balance within the ecosystem,
creating healthier and more biodiverse forests
by regulating the numbers of prey species.
[Christoph] A lot of people ask, “Why should we protect large carnivores?”
That’s a simple answer,
it’s a part of nature,
they have the same right to live here as we have.
[Barbara] There has been some destruction already in these areas.
But also seeing how nature can come back if we allow it to come back,
is really giving me hope, and it’s also promising for the future.
