Buffalo help restore lake shores

Lake Mikri Prespa, which straddles the border between Greece and Albania, is one of the oldest bodies of water in Europe. The lake, which is connected to Lake Megali Prespa,  is home to a total of 261 species of birds (including 164 nesting birds), 81 of them listed in Annex I to the EU Birds Directive. Notably, the lake houses the world’s largest breeding colony of Dalmatian pelicans (Pelecanus crispus) and one of the most sizable colonies of Pygmy cormorants (Phalacrocorax pygmaeus) in Europe.

As a result, the lake has been classified as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention and has been designated as a Special Protection Area under the Birds Directive included in the Natura 2000 Network.

However, poor management of the lake’s watersand lack of vegetation management (reed beds) have significantly degraded the birds' nesting and feeding grounds, as the surface of wet meadows has been reduced. Wet meadows are shallow areas with low-lying vegetation that are inundated each spring and summer. These wet meadows, which are home to a host of aquatic organisms, serve as the key breeding and spawning grounds for numerous fish and amphibians, and are the feeding grounds for multiple species of rare waterbird.

“When reed beds are not managed, they easily extend to cover potential wet meadow area,” explained Yannis Kazoglou from LIFE project beneficiary, the Society for the Protection of Prespa (SPP), speaking at the SER 2008 conference in Ghent, Belgium earlier this month. Records showed that the area of wet meadows had declined from 129 ha in 1945 to just 32.5 ha in 2002.

To arrest this decline, in 2002, the SPP launched a four-year project backed by LIFE funding to oversee the restoration of much of the vital wet meadows, as well as the implementation of an integrated management strategy for Lake Mikri Prespa. Specifically, the project aimed to improve the conservation status of the Dalmatian pelican and the Pygmy cormorant, but the activities also directly benefitted at least 18 other species covered by the Birds Directive.

As well as reconstructing the sluice gate that linked lakes Mikri Prespa and Megali Prespa to improve water-level management in the former, a key project action was the restoration of water meadows on 10 littoral sites covering a total of 70 ha where dense reed beds proliferated.

The beneficiary took a mix’n’match approach to this activity, trying three different approaches to reed bed management. At six sites, project participants and local inhabitants cut down the reeds in shallow areas near the lake every summer, enabling autumn grazing by water buffalo. At three sites, only cutting took place, while at one site, only grazing occurred.

The effects on wet meadow cover and species composition were monitored in July of each year from 2002-2007. These results were presented by Mr. Kazoglou at the conference in Ghent. It was found that the cover of high emergent helophytes (HEH), mainly the common reed (Phragmites australis), was reduced by all three treatments, especially the ones involving grazing. In 2007, cover values were significantly lower in those two treatments (5.9% and 7.8% respectively for grazing only and grazing with cutting) than in the one involving only summer cutting (22.9%). The cover of wet meadow species such as Carex pseudocyperus was increased with all three treatments, but with no great difference between the three (60.9%, 70.5% and 68.8% respectively). The project therefore concludes that despite their differences in the effectiveness of controlling HEH, all three treatments should be combined in an integrated management scheme for wet meadow restoration and maintenance in the littoral zone of Lake Mikri Prespa.

The restoration activities increased the total wet meadow area to some 100 ha by the end of the project. They have also resulted in the improvement of the breeding and feeding conditions for the Dalmatian pelican and the Pygmy cormorant to the extent that their populations have now stabilized at a high level over the last five years. Mr. Kazoglou indicated that as of 2008, the number of Dalmatian pelican breeding pairs has reached 1 200. In addition, some 500 breeding pairs of Pygmy Cormorants were observed in 2007.

Furthermore, populations of more than 20 other waterbird species have also benefitted. Beyond this, populations of fish and other aquatic organisms have directly benefitted from the expansion of the total surface area of the wet meadows -  particularly the carp, an important species for local fishermen.

For more information read the project summary.

Wet meadow restoration at Lake Mikri Prespa, Greece
LIFE02 NAT/GR/008494