News

An international initiative is directed to the conservation and the improvement of the nature conservation to one of the rarest birds in Bulgaria - Lesser Kestrel.
The project “Better life for the Lesser Kestrel of the South- East Balkans” with a project acronym ,,Life for Lesser Kestrel“ LIFE19 NAT/BG/001017, funded from Programm LIFE of the European Commission is implemented together with the Greek partners from the University of Thessaly (Laboratory for management of the ecosystems and the biodiversity) and the NGO - Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature.

The most important aim of the project is to upgrade and to develop extreemly successuful results achieved by Green Balkans for the return of the Lesser Kestrel as a breeding species in the country and to help increase the population of the birds in the country.

The activities via which we hope to succeed in this hardship include forming of new ones and improving the existing colonies of the rare kestrels by breeding some birds in the Wildlife Rescue Centre in Stara Zagora and releasing their youngsters to a preliminary selected areas. The activities which are not from a minor importance, pointed to help for the polpulation of the birds in the northern Greece, following the Lesser Kestrels via a satelite so to learn more about their way of life, the migration route and preffered places for finding some food, various scientific researches, genetic tests and analysis of toxicology and others. All these activities are going to help for profound knowledge referring the Lesser Kestrels, better understanding and respectively the success of our activities. Some activities are included too for a sustainable management of the rural lands, providing hunting territories for the Lesser Kestrels and other rare and protected species.

All this it is going to be followed by lots of volunteers’initiatives aimed to work with the local population and farmers, trainings and increasing the knowledge of young scholars and scientists, campaigns for making popular the ecological education as well, aiming to increase their knowledge concerning the species and the benefits from it.     
The activities are going to be focused over some protected zones, part of the European ecological network NATURA 2000, distributed mainly in South Bulgaria (for example, Sacar BG0002021), as well as in northen Greece.

For further information, please contact:
Gradimir Gradev, Project Manager „Life for Lesser Kestrel“ LIFE19 NAT/BG/001017
Tel.: 0885609289, e-mail: ggradev@greenbalkans.org