ABSTRACT
Summary: Environmental degradation of the Danube River Basin began centuries ago. Some of the causes of habitat alteration and biodiversity loss are found to be historic and irreversible, such as the 40-year period of socialist government in Bulgaria and Slovakia. Other causes are still driving biodiversity loss in the current period of economic and political transition and offer a place for intervention to halt the unsustainable use of resources. Research team: The methodology for this study was developed and piloted by AIDEnvironment of The Netherlands in cooperation with two WWF partners. The research team consisted of Mr Charlie Avis and Mr Jeroen Van Wetten (AIDEnvironment, Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Dr Jan Seffer (Director, Daphne Centre for Applied Ecology, Bratislava) who coordinated the case study in Slovakia and Mr Georgy Tinchev (Head of the Protected Areas Division, Committee of Forests, Sofia) who coordinated the case study in Bulgaria. The research team had full responsibility for authorship of this report. Terms of reference and overall project direction were given by Mr Philip Weller (Director, WWF Danube Carpathian Programme, Vienna, Austria) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315071688/121228f9-6d36-4e6a-810d-d7cef247a294/content/fig9_0_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
