The Provincial Secretariat for Urbanism and Environmental Protection has published a Public Review and Public Debate on the Draft Provincial Assembly Decision on the Protection of Areas of Exceptional Characteristics “Middle Mostonga” and the Study of the Protection of Areas of Exceptional Characteristics “Middle Mostonga”. Public review is open until December 12, 2024, while the Public Hearing will be held on December 13.
This area of exceptional features is located in Vojvodina, Zapadnobački district, in the natural basin of the middle part of the Mostonga river, and extends within the municipalities of Apatin, Odžaci and the city of Sombor. It includes a lowland area with a uniquely preserved mosaic arrangement of swamps, meadows and forest-steppe habitats.
PIO “Srednja Mostonga” is placed under protection in order to achieve the goals of preserving and improving the state of natural, regional and cultural values of the protected area as a unique area of forest steppe on saline land. Also for the purpose of protecting the habitats of strictly protected species of swamp, wet, forest-steppe and forest habitats, and for improving the condition of sensitive and priority habitat types, as well as populations of endangered species. Finally, it is placed under protection in order to preserve traditional knowledge, cultural and ethnographic values of traditional grazing, as well as the integration of these cultural values into the development of local settlements.
As stated in the document, saline meadows, pastures and meadows predominate in this area, while the forest-steppe on the saline substrate appears in the form of a mosaic of forest and grass vegetation with rich marginal forest-steppe habitats.
54 significant species and subspecies of vascular flora were recorded, namely, 23 species and subspecies in marsh habitats, and 14 species and subspecies in steppe and forest-steppe habitats. Among the more floristically valuable localities are the peripheral parts of the Upper Forest, among which stand out the forested meanders of Mostonga along the northwestern edge of the Upper Forest, which represent one of the few, in Serbia, preserved habitats of the critically endangered violet (Viola pumila) and water lily (Limosella aquatica).
Strictly protected and at the same time internationally protected species of insects, such as the small shearwater beetle (Theophilea subcylindricollis) and the Pannonian endemic – the Pannonian grasshopper (Acrida ungarica) represent the fundamental value of the insect fauna of this area.
The protected area is also inhabited by the Danube marmot (Triturus dobrogicus), the only Balkan sub-endemic that is also the most endangered and valuable amphibian species present here.
This area is very important for the conservation of some of the most threatened representatives of the ornitofauna at the national level. The main feature of the ornithofauna value of this area is represented by species that require complexes of preserved forests and open habitats for nesting, such as: white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), black stork (Ciconia nigra) and black harrier (Milvus migrans), then forest birds, primarily black ruffed grouse (Dryocopus martius), white-throated flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis) and gray flycatcher (Muscicapa striata), as well as species of grassy habitats, blue crow (Coracias garrulus), tawny owl (Asio flammeus) and gray magpie (Lanius minor).
The wealth and value of mammal fauna is reflected in the presence of 10 strictly protected species, of which the strictly protected species of bats, pygmy mouse (Micromys minutus), otter (Lutra lutra) and wild cat (Felis silvestris) should be highlighted.
The rich and diverse living world and the preserved landscape have survived primarily thanks to traditional ways of using resources, especially in grassy and marshy areas, among which grazing and mowing play the most important role.
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