For many years there has been a dras­tic decline in the ampib­ian pop­u­la­tion in Ger­many and even world­wide. The most com­mon cause of this devel­op­ment is the loss or degra­da­tion of aquat­ic and ter­res­tri­al habi­tats. In the area of the Low­er Oder Val­ley Nation­al Park, the amphib­ian pop­u­la­tions, in par­tic­u­lar the fire-bel­lied toad, appear to be exclud­ed from this gen­er­al devel­op­ment. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this can­not be said about the pop­u­la­tions in Den­mark and Slove­nia, because the cur­rent repro­duc­tion rates there are too low to be able to main­tain the pop­u­la­tions. Anoth­er rea­son for the decline in the num­ber of amphib­ians in Slove­nia is the com­paction of the road net­work, over 300,000 ani­mals die on the roads every year. The “LIFE AMPHICON” project, an acronym from “AMPHIb­ian CON­ser­va­tion and Habi­tat Restora­tion”, sums up the prob­lems at the root. The EU-LIFE project runs for sev­en years (Novem­ber 2019 — Decem­ber 2026). The total bud­get is around 8 mil­lion euros. The financ­ing con­sists of the part­ners’ own con­tri­bu­tion and 60% fund­ing from the EU-LIFE pro­gram (EU fund­ing instru­ment for the envi­ron­ment). The Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion has around 866,000 euros avail­able for the project. The project is shoul­dered by three EU coun­tries and car­ried out in cer­tain Natu­ra 2000 loca­tions in these coun­tries: In Slove­nia (Ljubl­jan­sko bar­je, Raden­sko pol­je, Bohor, Jovsi), Ger­many (Fel­chowsee area) and Den­mark (Tårup Strand).

The spe­cif­ic goals include the pro­tec­tion and secur­ing of endan­gered amphib­ian pop­u­la­tions, the exchange of expe­ri­ence between the project part­ners and the strength­en­ing of inter­na­tion­al nature con­ser­va­tion net­works. But the pop­u­la­tion of the regions should also be made aware of envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and the devel­op­ment of amphib­ian pop­u­la­tions. The red-bel­lied toad is the focus in all three project coun­tries; the Alpine crest­ed newt, yel­low-bel­lied toad, agile frog, moor frog, Euro­pean tree frog and north­ern crest­ed newt are also tar­get species in Slovenia.

The sit­u­a­tion of the red-bel­lied toad pop­u­la­tion is to be improved through the revi­tal­iza­tion of exist­ing and the cre­ation of new habi­tats such as spawn­ing or sum­mer waters and through breed­ing. Liv­ing spaces are addi­tion­al­ly secured by pur­chas­ing land. In Slove­nia, amphibi­ous con­trol sys­tems are being built for the first time along the roads that are most­ly affect­ed. The wealth of expe­ri­ence of the Dan­ish and Ger­man part­ners is extreme­ly valuable.

In 2020, the first areas were pur­chased and inten­sive mon­i­tor­ing of the cur­rent sta­tus of the pop­u­la­tions in all project areas was car­ried out. In Tårup Strand the first tad­poles from a suc­cess­ful off­spring have even been released. In the next few months, the data will be eval­u­at­ed and, if nec­es­sary, sup­ple­ment­ed by fur­ther mon­i­tor­ing. The action plans for the imple­men­ta­tion of the mea­sures are then drawn up. Amphi Inter­na­tion­al ApS assists the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion in imple­ment­ing the project goals.