TEN' s aims (phase I and II)

Wetlands are very important habitats in North-West-Europe. Their biodiversity has been greatly diminished, due to pollution and fragmentation. Mammals like the beaver and the otter as well as birds like the crane are extinct or very rarely seen. The TEN project is trying to solve the problem of fragmentation across borders by designing a Transnational Ecological Network for wetlands.

The aims are:

to re-establish an ecological network of waters

to initiate enhancement projects

to get an overall view of the national nature and water activities

to incorporate the spatial structures into the regional planning of the project partners

to establish an information network among the water boards

to establish a platform of experiences

to support a transnational partnership and the idea of European thinking

To reach these aims the following tasks were achieved in phase I:
_ evaluation of the quality of the wetland ecosystems and determination of the problem areas
_ visualisation of the spatial ecological structures
_ building up of a database in a geographical information system as a homogeneous basis for all partners

Since in phase I much of the work was concerned with relatively abstract aims and subjects while a common basis was found that all partners could agree to, in phase II TEN got down to 'the real work'. The intention of the second phase was to take a significant step forward towards the goal of a transnational network of wetlands and waterways. For this reason the focus of the daily work was the closing of the 'missing links' in the ecological network.

Based on the first results the tasks of phase II were:

supporting 'enhancement projects' in the identified enhancement areas to

close the missing links

maintaining and broadening the partnership

evaluation of the international spatial ecological structures