A press conference on the „Conservation of the European Roller in the Carpathian Basin” project was held in the Ópusztaszer National Heritage Park, Hungary on the International Mother Earth Day (22.04.2015.). 

Meeting media representatives in front of the Puszta house (Photo: Béla Tokody). 

The project started in September 2014 with the support of the EU LIFE+ programme. As part of the project, Hungarian and Romanian experts join forces to achieve a 20 % increase in the roller population within the Carpathian basin.

Béla Tokody, project coordinator gave an introduction to the main elements of the project:

• Habitat reconstructions will be carried out in order to increase the size and the number of suitable feeding and nesting sites for the species.
• Since the greater  part of the population occupies agricultural habitat, a volunteer network of landowners will be involved in practical roller protection activities as part of the Farmers for Roller project.
• Research will be carried out to find the exact migration routes and stopover sites, and we’ll work together with the concerned countries in order to reduce the threats and hazards the birds face during migration
• Even though rollers are very colourful, they’re not well known by the public, so raising awareness is crutial in the conservation of the species. The www.rollerproject.eu website will hold a lot of information on the activites relating to the project, whilst people will be able to follow the satellite tagged birds on their migration on an interactive map on the http://satellitetracking.eu/ website. We’ll also create a Roller Visitor Centre near Szeged, Hungary, where visitors can use a conference room, guest rooms, a nature trail and many other facilities.  

After an introcoduction to the project, the press had a chance to look at a roller nestbox installed in the National Heritage Park.

A group of children from a local school had the opportunity to try out the newly designed roller themed games. The games will help children learn about the species.

Introduction to the roller themed games (Photo: Béla Tokody).

Introduction to the roller themed games (Photo: Csaba Lendvai).

The introduction to the project and to the roller themed games was followed by a small presentation and open discussion. 

Photo: Béla Tokody. 

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