Drava LIFE – Integrated River Management

Project ”DRAVA LIFE – Integrated River Management” started on 1.12.2015. year in which will partners work together for five years to improve the activities of the ecosystem of the upper course of the river Drava in Croatia. The project is co-financed from the funds of the EU program LIFE 2014 in the amount of 2.755.739, 00 EUR, while the total project value is 4.592.898,00 EUR.

The main coordinator of the project are Croatian waters with intersectoral collaboration with partners WWF Austria , the Association for nature and environment protection Green Osijek, Public Institution for management of protected natural areas and ecological network Virovitica-podravina county, Public Institution for Management of Protected Natural Values ​​in the Varazdin County and the Public Institution for management of protected natural values ​​in Koprivnica – Križevci county.

Basic objective of the project is to create a new flood areas and increase natural and dynamic habitats of river Drava. For this purpose key is to increase awareness, establishing cross-boarder cooperation reduce human activities that harms birds fauna.

The main project activities are restoration of Drava habitats through the creation of new backwaters of the river, removal of water works and the protection of the steep river banks on these seven locations of river Drava: – Island Virje (312 – 314,3 rkm), Old Drava Varaždin (289,3 – 292 rkm), Lower Dubrava – Legrad (240 – 241,45 rkm), Bridge Botovo (226,6 – 227,9 rkm), Novačka (214 – 217 rkm),  Miholjački Martinci (104 – 106 rkm) i Podravska Moslavina (96 – 98 rkm).

Partners will work on the development of the Plan visiting valuable areas of the river Drava and the Action Plan for protection of the bird fauna.They will organize exhibitions, study visits to restored habitats, creating educational trails, development and implementation of educational programs for citizens and schools. Through organizing all that activities they will also organize international symposia so they can  mutually exchange experience with best practices of similar projects in other regions of the EU.

09-03-2016