LIFE SNAILS Project with initial actions in private areas

Aug. 3, 2023

The strong regression of suitable habitat for the snail species targeted by the LIFE SNAILS project requires that its recovery goes beyond the Pico Alto biodiversity refuges, which remain in publicly managed areas. Thus, the project aims to promote ecological corridors that enhance the extension of a good habitat to other areas of distribution of the target species, through interventions in streams, complemented by voluntary interventions in private agricultural and forestry areas, in a compatibilization of interests and uses.

To encourage interventions in private areas, both in terms of creating/maintaining hedges and improving forest areas, the project provides a voluntary system of incentives based on results that is being developed in close coordination with producers and whose current situation was presented at the 2023 edition of the Santa Maria Agro-Commercial Biennial.

In continuity of this work, given the close collaboration between all involved - producers, the Regional Secretariat for the Environment and Climate Change (SRAAC) and the associated Beneficiary Desafio das Letras, which supports the technical development of the system - it was possible last June, going beyond what was expected, to proceed with the installation of two demonstration plots, one in an agricultural area and the other in a forestry area, with which practices and results that the system will support are illustrated.

Installed with the support of volunteers and the participation of the respective owners, these plots already allow the illustration of some of the solutions and results of improvement/increase of the available habitat that we intend to promote, both in agricultural areas - with the planting of a hedge of Azorean Picconia (Picconia azorica) in a pasture area - and in forest areas - with the reduction of the presence of Sweet Pittosporum (Pittosporum undulatum) and Kahili Ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum), invasive species whose presence we intend to control.

The work now started will continue, both in maintaining and strengthening the demonstrative value of these areas, and in completing the definition and launch of the incentives system, with which SRAAC will support producers interested in obtaining identical results.


Learn more about this project at www.lifesnails.eu.