Yesterday, the large herbivore reserve was presented the prestigious E.ON Energy Globe Award, also known as the ecological Oscar
The prestigious E.ON Energy Globe award was presented yesterday to the large herbivore reserve, situated on former military training area in Milovice, near Prague. The CEO of E.ON Group Czech Republic, Claudia Viohl, presented the award to Dalibor Dostal, the director of European Wildlife, a nature conservation organisation which founded the reserve via its local branche in collaboration with scientists in 2015.
During the Brno Ecofestival, where yesterday’s award ceremony took place, the reserve was also presented the Sympathy Award. “We greatly appreciate the fact that the expert jury has chosen us to be one of six finalists from 167 projects. It’s a great achievement for us. We also thank the public for their support, thanks to which we’ve now been given this prestigious award. It’s an important signal for us that our work makes sense,” said Dalibor Dostal, expressing his gratitude. He continued: “Our thanks also go to all those who’ve been supporting the project since the moment it emerged only as an idea written on paper, who helped it get through difficult periods, to all scientific colleagues, donors and volunteers, thanks to whom an initially neglected corner of nature full of illegal waste dumps has been turned into a natural paradise where rare organisms, including flowers, butterflies and bison, thrive.”
According to Dostal, the important award will help promote natural grazing of large herbivores in Europe. “Large ungulates bring about a key system change to European nature conservation. This is a close-to-nature and financially efficient solution.”
Wild horses, bison and back-bred aurochs have transformed the originally degraded site of the former military training area into a biologically diverse location. Instead of the previously dominant three species of aggressive grasses, hundreds of hectares at the site now bloom and scientists have counted over 111 flower species. The numbers of the rarest flower, the star gentian, have risen noticeably thanks to large ungulates. The quantity of small plants of this species has increased by 5,553 per cent. The numbers of rare Alcon blue butterflies have risen by 1,700 per cent.
Also, the reserve is the first place in the world where all three key species of large European ungulates live together; last year it became the only location in the world where scientists have also discovered the presence of the rare water flea, Daphnia inopinata.
First place in the contest also involves a financial reward of approximately twenty thousand euros. “In the very near future we’ll carry out general restoration of the oldest watering place in the reserve at a cost of more than 600,000 Czech crowns. We’ll cover most of this cost from the reward we received,” noted Dostal appreciatively.
The Milovice reserve project has received several other notable awards in recent years, for example, the SDGs Award in the Climate Change category for accomplishing UN global goals in sustainability, the President’s Prize at the Ekofilm festival of documentary films on the environment, as well as the Sustainability Star award.
