Bratislava, Slovakia, June 22nd. The Transgreen project was launched in both Slovak project pilot sites – Beskydy and Miskolc-Kosice-Uzgrorod - at the stakeholders kick-off meetings organised by State Nature Conservancy and WWF.

The meeting at pilot area Beskydy was held in Varin on May 30th with attendance of 40 participants and the second meeting at pilot area Miskolc-Kosice-Uzgrorod was held in Brzotin, at the beginning of June, with participation of 26 stakehoders. Both meetings followed a similar agenda. The first part of meetings created the project context by presenting the project goals, the planned activities and the general topic “wildlife and traffic”. The second part of the meetings focused specifically on the Slovak part of the pilot sites.

Both meetings proved that cooperation with self-government bodies as well as communication with land owners and land users in the area plays a key role in preserving biocorridors. State administration issues allow the occurence of various activities that influence the corridors, but it is exactly at that point that the importance of the corridor should be considered. It was emphasized that biocorridor protection needs to be integrated into landscape planning  and land owners should be aware of their existence and plan their business accordingly. The meetings showed that it will be necessary to organise separate meetings with each stakeholder group, mostly in terms of monitoring the mortality of large mammals caused by roadkill.