Mission

Executive Summary

The main objective of the Zimbral for LIFE project is to improve the conservation status of the priority habitat 2250* Coastal Dunes with Juniperus spp. in mainland Portugal, and reverse its current trend of degradation. To this end, it includes an ambitious strategy applied at ecosystem level, which addresses the main factors preventing the improvement of the ecological condition of this habitat, namely pressures and threats, a lack of basic ecological and technical knowledge and the lack of a national conservation plan to define objectives and priorities for action at national level.

The Zimbral for LIFE project has two different scales of action: a local scale, made up of 6 intervention areas distributed over 3 SAC’s (Comporta/Galé, Costa Sudoeste and Ria Formosa/Castro Marim) where concrete habitat conservation and restoration actions will be demonstrated; and a national scale, made up of all the SAC’s where the habitat is found in mainland Portugal, which will be used for knowledge acquisition, dissemination and communication, and the implementation of an Action Plan for the Habitat.

The work will be carried out by a partnership of complementary organisations, coordinated by the University of Évora in partnership with Rewilding Sudoeste, Floradata, CICYTEX and the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF), including a set of 25 tasks to be executed over 6 years, starting in October 2022. The aim is to: complete ecological and technical information on dune junipers; produce more than 50,000 plants; improve the conservation status of dune junipers and increase their area of occurrence in the 6 intervention areas; publicise the importance of their conservation to the entire local and national population; qualify land managers and other local players; ensure the transfer of the knowledge acquired and the long-term sustainability of the interventions; create an Action Plan for the dune junipers of mainland Portugal.