Investments of 2 million euros for the protected areas of Sanmartin,…

After six years of work, the Sânmartin City Hall completed a large project financed with non-refundable funds and aimed at protecting some protected areas in Bihor and in the neighboring county of Hajdú-Bihar, in Hungary.

With the call sign ROHU-53, the project was implemented in partnership with the Aqua Crisius Sports Fishermen’s Association, the Ecotop Foundation and the Hungarian association Zöld Kör – A Föld Baratái Magzarország, starting in May 2018, and ended on Friday, through a special conference organized at the headquarters Sanmartin City Hall.

The tower became a star

As its name suggests (Conservation and protection of cross-border natural heritage from Bihor – Hajdú-Bihar counties), the project aimed to improve and protect some natural sites, in Sânmartin it is about the Pețea reserve, which also has Ochiul Mare lake, and about the aven Betfia, a fossil site that is home to a huge colony of bats.

As the public administrator of Sânmartin commune, Ciprian Anta, mentioned at the closing conference of the project, investments were made in both protected areas aimed at preserving them. At Betfia, an access road to the avenue, a path, and a parking lot with a barrier at the base of the hill were built, so that tourists no longer drive up to the protected site. The car park with 97 spaces, including for coaches or disabled people, also has toilets.

Also in Betfia, a bat monitoring center was built, with an observation tower that has already become famous among Bihor residents, but is also highly sought after by tourists, because it is a good vantage point towards Băile Felix and Oradea.

“We didn’t think of it as a tourist attraction, but for bat-watching, but it has become the main attraction in the area,” Anta said, adding that the parking lot is full every weekend, but not only.

A path for visitors was also arranged towards the Betfia tower

Delimitation for Pețea

At the Pețea reserve, the place where the thermal water lily was born, a real natural symbol of Bihor, the Sânmartin City Hall set up an access road to the village of Rontău, a parking lot with 75 spaces in Haieu, but also a fence of the Pețea site’s visitable area. Concretely, a fence was made of wire mesh gabions filled with stones and tied together with boards, on a length of almost 2,000 meters, which delimits the natural area of ​​the Pețea reserve from the Băile 1 Mai resort.

In the same project, the dams of the Pețea stream were cleaned and new ponds were created to favor the natural accumulation of water, which would become “homes” for amphibians.

At the same time, together with the Aqua Crisius and Ecotop associations, Sânmartin City Hall organized educational events for children on Water Day, Earth Day and Biodiversity Day.

In addition, the project provided for the planting of a forest with tens of thousands of saplings in another natural site in Bihor, Valea Iadului, a task that fell to the Aqua Crisius association, and the purchase of a tractor for the Sânmartin City Hall.

The Hungarian partners also carried out different activities for the conservation of a protected forest near Debrecen.

“A few kilos of studies”

Also, in both protected areas, inventory studies of the species that live there were done.

“It was an extremely ambitious project, which started from our and the project leader’s desire to carry out a series of landscaping activities for the protected areas in Sânmartin, namely the Betfia site and the Pețea site. What we at Ecotop managed to do were a series of activities aimed at visitors, the local community and young people, and activities aimed at inventorying and monitoring studies of species and habitats in the protected area. What is visible left after this project from our side are three flora and fauna observation points from Betfia, a number of people trained as rangers, i.e. specialists in protected areas, and a number of documentations, actually several kilos of studies , regarding over 40 species of plants and animals of community interest”, said George Togor, leader of the Ecotop association, during the same closing conference.

The project had a total value of 2.8 million euros, of which 2 million euros went to Sânmartin City Hall and approximately 250,000 euros to each partner.