The Danube meets the Black Sea in one of the world’s largest deltas (over half a million hectares) and is home to thousands of wetland birds, including Dalmatian pelicans and pygmy cormorants and each year is a vital staging post for tens of thousands of migrating birds of prey, and storks on their way too and from Africa.
Back in November, I told you about the lack of protection that the Romanian government is giving to the Danube Delta. Well there’s some positive news, following a complaint by SOR, our BirdLife partner in Romania, the European Commission have just sent a first legal warning letter to the Romanian government over an ill-planned tourism development on the Black Sea coast within the delta. This project to build roads and services next to the beach will destroy specially protected coastal habitats – including ones so rare in Europe that under EU rules, they shouldn’t be damaged for reasons other than human health and safety.
Dan Pullen works here for the RSPB providing direct support for some of the most high-profile cases in Europe where incomparable places for wildlife are at risk from threats such as development pressure. He’s clear this is a significant breakthrough: ‘It’s not that SOR are against tourism to the area – quite the opposite, but it should be based on the natural environment of this special place, it should help people appreciate the delta’s wonderful diversity of life and landscape rather than trashing the place beneath ill-judged tourist developments’.
It’s not just the building of hotels and all that’s associated with tourist development, but the sheer numbers of tourists will risk disturbing and further degrading the precious dune and steppe habitats that add further richness to the area’s wildlife.
The hope is that with the European Commission weighing in on nature’s side, the Romanian government will stop this poorly thought-out development and consider how to provide sustainable tourism facilities instead.