Course: Back to a healthy landscape: supporting the biodiversity
The focus of the course is to qualify the attendants in the proper care of selected biotopes of agricultural landscapes (meadows, fields, wetlands and rural areas). The first three biotopes mentioned are at considerable risk of degradation due to improper maintenance, which leads to loss of biodiversity as well as an impairment of ecosystem services. Rural areas, on the other hand, become replacement biotopes for many species that originally occurred in open landscapes. However, the targeted group of attendants often do not have sufficient information about the importance of these biotopes, their ecological function, appropriate maintenance and suitable examples of good practice that can serve as inspiration. The proposed project aims to respond to this problem by developing an educational course focusing on appropriate care using new scientific knowledge and approaches.
The course will be introduced as part of the lifelong learning program and, due to its high level of specialization, will be aimed primarily at nature conservation professionals. This will lead to an increase in the qualification of the targeted group, to connecting scientific knowledge with application in the field and ultimately to an improvement in the quality of environmental care. The completion of the course will also be beneficial in regard to their applicability on the labour market: By participating in the course, they will acquire qualifications for the identification of risks threatening agricultural landscapes and for developing appropriate methods for managing certain biotopes of the agricultural landscape. They will also become familiar with possible methods for assessing biodiversity, which will facilitate the interpretation of professional documents in their regular work practice.