BIODIVERSITY

The Saxon Villages Area is one of Europe’s last medieval landscapes and the grasslands probably the most extensive flower-rich grasslands remaining in lowland Europe. The project area is approximately 90,000 hectares, with a population of about 19,000 scattered in about 30 small villages and settlements. Low intensity agriculture coexists with an abundance of flora and fauna, including many Red List species.

The area is dominated by EU Habitats Directive Annex I* and Annex 1* priority habitats.

These districts are fragile and require specific conservation measures if their precious heritage is to survive.

The scientific and cultural importance

• Few such extensive tracts of ancient landscape survive in Europe, and where they do persist they rarely retain intact villages and associated agriculture. Both fauna and flora are outstanding.
• The lowland possesses not only Europe’s most extensive non-alpine hay-meadows, with an astonishing diversity of wildflowers, but also the continent’s last lowland bears and wolves.
• The villages, layout, farming practices and landscapes provide an opportunity to study historical ecology by direct observation.
• Village farm gardens are authentic practical assemblages of fruit trees, flowers, herbs and vegetables – living elements in a medieval landscape.
• Villages retain a rich heritage of the sort of ancient medicinal plants that are again attracting attention from the pharmaceutical industry.
• The flora is an important genetic resource, especially rich in forage crops such as sainfoin and clovers, and crop relatives such as wild cabbages.

Flora and fauna

The landscape is home to numerous EU Habitats Directive Annex II, II* and IV fauna and flora species, and over 40 Birds Directive Annex I species of which 4 are Ornis priority species. Threatened and near-threatened species so far identified include:

Flora

The area contains

• 10 plant taxa threatened in Europe, included in the Annexes of the EU Habitats Directive and the Bern Convention (including Polish Larch, Angelica, Arnica, Lady’s Slipper Orchid, Red Viper’s Bugloss, Pheasant’s Eye Narcissus and Meadow Pasque Flower)
• 77 plant taxa threatened at the national level, included in the Romanian Red List.
• globally significant agricultural biodiversity, in the form of wild relatives of crop plants and animal breeds. Over 50 wild plants native to the region are related to cultivated plants and constitute a potential resource for plant breeding. Local land-races of forage legumes in particular, such as sainfoin and clover sub-species, remain an important element of agro-biodiversity. 

Fauna

• 23 mammal species threatened in Europe and protected under the EU Habitats Directive and the Berne Convention, including wolf, bear, wild cat, otter, water shrew, bicoloured shrew, fat dormouse, common dormouse and several bat species
• 55 bird species threatened in Europe, included in the EU Wild Birds Directive, including the sparrow-hawk, goshawk, corncrake and ferruginous duck, and 76 species protected at national level
• 10 reptile and amphibian species protected under the EU Habitats Directive and the Berne Convention (including the fire-bellied toad)
• 11 fish species protected under the EU Habitats Directive and the Bern Convention
• Of the 600 species of butterfly recorded in the area, 6 are protected under the EU Habitats Directive and the Bern Convention, and 22 threatened at the national level.

For further details, see The Historic Countryside of the Saxon Villages of Southern Transylvania (John Akeroyd, 2006), and article by John Akeroyd in Plant Talk magazine (2002, available in English and Romanian).