About This Project

"Paredes de Coura" is a northern region of Portugal in Europe. During centuries the lands of this region were exploited for agriculture, destroying the ecosystem balance. In the last decades, due to people migration, nature is claiming these lands again and wildlife is returning massively. However, the imminent possibility of a new exploitation of these lands for high yield crops risks everything once more.

We aim to monitor the biodiversity in order to support the conservation of this area.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

After centuries of human agriculture exploitation in the river lands of "Paredes de Coura", nature is returning. During centuries these lands were used by local farmers for crop plantation and domestic animal feeding, destroying the riverlands ecosystem. However, in the last thirty years most of the population abandoned these region and migrate for big cities, and consequently lands near the river stop to be cultivated. Once again there is a risk of these lands to be exploited for high yield crops.

This monitoring project will focus attention mostly in predators (manly mammals and birds), since about 90% of them live these areas decades ago. Recently some of these predator species were spotted in this land, which constitute a promising evidence for the recovering of the ecosystem balance.

What is the significance of this project?

Biodiversity monitoring is a critical step for conservation. With this project will will be able to identify a huge number of species that are coming back to the riverlands of Paredes de Coura and most important try to find out if any specie is included in the list of endangered species. Additionally the identification of these species and the assessment of the ecosystem balance will be used to ask for legal conservation of these natural areas.

What are the goals of the project?

With this project we intend to characterized all biodiversity established in this areas (aproximately 20 ha) and the new relationships between these living organisms. Hopefully we will gather enough information needed to allow the legal conservation of this area. The conservation of this ecosystem is the main goal. Making a ecological report about this ecosystem will be the best way to convince the Portuguese authorities for conservation of this area.