In the past few days, the Zagreb Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology held workshops and a consultation about the beaver for regional managers of protected areas, waters and forests as a part of the LIFE Beaver project.
The first workshop took place in Koprivnica on November 29th, the second one in Vinkovci on December 5th and the third in Kopački rit (Tikveš) on December 6th.
At the workshop, a Lutra representative presented the LIFE Beaver project and the positive role of wetlands created (also) by beavers. Professor Grubešić and Dr. Vucelja from the Faculty of Forestry presented the beaver in more detail and the positive and negative impacts of human-beaver coexistence. Marko Augustinović from OIKON presented the census and monitoring of the beaver population in Croatia.
At the end there was a discussion with the managers. Similar to Slovenia, a change in environmental and nature conservation legislation would be necessary in Croatia to improve beaver management and coexistence with beavers. The managers agreed that a good measure would be to protect the coastal land in exchange for financial compensation to the owners of the coastal land.
