Romania community action

The 580,000-hectare Danube Delta is home to massive amounts of water birds, most notably pelicans of two species, herons, storks, cormorants, and terns. It is a favourite staging area for passage migrants and wintering grounds for masses of migrating water birds from the steppes, the boreal forests, and the tundras further north. The region has some of Europe's few remaining grazed mosaic forest landscapes, kept in their natural state by the wild horses and wild cattle still present. Working with partners, the Rewilding Danube Delta team is working to significantly improve the ecological integrity and natural functioning of 40,000 hectares of wetland and terrestrial delta habitat, using rewilding principles on a landscape scale. Revitalised and self-governing natural processes, particularly flooding and natural grazing, will govern landscape formation, driving other natural processes, wildlife comeback, increased biodiversity, and the development of a nature-based economy. The Danube Delta rewilding area is part of the Tauros breeding programme, managed by the Taurus Foundation and Rewilding Europe. The programme aims to breed a cattle breed that resembles the aurochs by establishing viable free-ranging populations of cattle in several European locations. Due to translocations in 2016 and 2017, the number of Tauros cattle grazing near Sfântu Gheorghe, Tulcea is now 18 animals. Rewilding Europe works to create new opportunities for delta communities by supporting the development of nature-based business. 2019 saw the release of a water buffalo herd as a proxy for Bubalus murrensis; and 2020, of a Turkmenian kulan herd (a species present in European Russia until the 18th or 19th century, and close relative of the Western European wild ass that became extinct in the Chalcolithic).

The Southern Carpathians were considered a good place for nature conservation work. Rewilding Europe has concentrated on part of the region which counts more than 1 million hectares of protected areas already in place, rich wildlife, large intact forests, a high concentration of biodiversity, relatively intact wild landscapes, wild rivers, and large areas of mosaic vegetation largely shaped by traditional farming and grazing practices.

The work of Rewilding Europe and its partners is focused on bringing back the European bison. Since 2013, Rewilding Europe and WWF Romania have been working together in the Southern Carpathians rewilding area to reintroduce this iconic species. The major objective of this ongoing project is to create a demographically and genetically viable population in the Southern Carpathians, comprising free-roaming sub-populations in the Țarcu Mountains and nearby Poiana Ruscă Mountains.

So far, following bison releases in 2014 and 2015, in June 2016, a third bison release took place as part of the European Commission-funded LIFE Bison project, with a fourth release of nine animals taking place in April 2017. Rewilding Europe and WWF Romania have been working together to create one of the largest contiguous wild areas in Europe.

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It has a mainly continental climate, and an area of 238,397 km² (92,046 sq mi) with a population of 19 million people (2023). Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, followed by Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Timișoara, Constanța, Craiova, Brașov, and Galați. Europe's second-longest river, the Danube, empties into the Danube Delta in the southwest of the country. The Carpathian Mountains cross Romania from the north to the southwest and include Moldoveanu Peak, at an altitude of 2,544 m (8,346 ft).

Settlement in the modern-day territory of Romania began in the Lower Paleolithic followed by written records attesting the kingdom of Dacia, its conquest, and subsequent Romanisation by the Roman Empire during late antiquity. The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. During World War I, after declaring its neutrality in 1914, Romania fought together with the Allied Powers from 1916. In the aftermath of the war, Bukovina, Bessarabia, Transylvania, and parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș became part of the Kingdom of Romania. In June–August 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Second Vienna Award, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union and Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In November 1940, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact and, consequently, in June 1941 entered World War II on the Axis side, fighting against the Soviet Union until August 1944, when it joined the Allies and recovered Northern Transylvania. Following the war and occupation by the Red Army, Romania became a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition towards democracy and a market economy.