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LIFE-nature project ZENO

English summary of the LIFE-Nature project ZENO

ZENO stands for Zwindunes Ecological Nature Optimisation and is a LIFE-nature project. The project's budget has been established at € 2.537.060. Fifty percent of this budget will be paid by the Agency for Nature and Forests (Flemish Government), the other fifty percent by the European Union. The LIFE nature project ZENO is running from 2006 towards to the end of 2010.

The project area has a total surface of about 222 hectares and includes the Flemish Nature Reserve 'The Zwindunes and Zwinpolders'. It is situated within one of the two largest remaining natural areas of the Flemish coast. ‘The Zwindunes and Zwinpolders’ consists mainly of rather low coastal dunes and a large fossil beach plain that were cut off from marine influence in the second half of the 19th Century. The Flemish Region acquired the land in 2002. During the 20th Century a large part of the Zwindunes and Zwinpolders is largely influenced by human activities: plantations, parcelling, installation of a golf course and a jumping, installation of an airport, the building of bunkers, concrete roads and other war infrastructure in World War I and II. Parts of the dune-system in the project area are now subjected to invasion by scrubs and grasses that both are superseding grey-dunes and wet dune-slacks. The nature values in a part of the project area also decreased by the too strong fertilization of the meadows on the fossil beach plain in the last decades.

The measures in the project area are recommended by the “Integral perspective for the Flemish nature reserve 'The Zwindunes and Zwinpolders' at Knokke-Heist, with attention for recreative joint use". This management plan was approved in 2007 and is the baseline for the LIFE-nature project ZENO.

A) Objectives

The main objective of the LIFE-natureproject ZENO is the restoration and maintenance of the natural habitats that are typical for coastal dunes and their transitions to salt marshes(‘1330 Atlantic salt meadows (Glauco-Puccinellietalia)’, ‘2130 Fixed dunes with herbaceous vegetation or grey dunes’, ‘2170 Dunes with Salix arenaria’, ‘2180 Wooded dunes af the Atlantic coast’, ‘2190 humid dune slacks’ and ‘3140 Hard oligo-mesotrophic waters with benthic vegetation of Chara formations’).

A second objective of the project is the dissemination of experience about the restoration and maintenance of transition grounds from dunes to polder and from dunes to salt marshes in Europe. 

B) Actions and means involved

  1. Drawing up of an Environmental Impact Statement;
  2. Drawing up of a hydrological study in preparation of the resalinization and rewetting of the fossil beach plain ‘Kleyne Vlakte’;
  3. Restoration of the microtopography of the fossil beach plain ‘Kleyne Vlakte’;
  4. The removal of shrub to restore wet dune-slacks and the removal of shrub and removal of soil to restore and create dune-pools;
  5. The removal of exotic tree species to create an open space in an artificial plantation;
  6. The removal of the shoreline vegetation (exotic trees, shrub, brushwood) and remodelling of the shores of the former hunting ponds;
  7. Demolition of an old jumping;
  8. Removal of old fences and the placement of new fences in order to start extensive grazing;
  9. Installation of permanent information-boards to welcome the visitors of the nature reserve;
  10. Organisation of a public informationday and publishing of an information brochure;
  11. Organisation of an exhibiton about the project and the importance of Natura 2000;
  12. An international workshop about the restoration and maintenance of the transition grounds from dunes to polder and from dunes to salt marshes in Europe;
  13. The placement of information boards, a website and a layman’s report;
  14. Scientific monitoring of the actions to gain knowledge about the effectiveness of the nature restoration actions.

C) Expected results

Restoration and maintenance of the habitats ‘1330 Atlantic salt meadows (Glauco-Puccinellietalia)’, ‘2130 Fixed dunes with herbaceous vegetation or grey dunes’, ‘2170 Dunes with Salix arenaria’, ‘2180 Wooded dunes af the Atlantic coast’, ‘2190 humid dune slacks’ and ‘3140 Hard oligo-mesotrophic waters with benthic vegetation of Chara formations’; creation of (semi-) aquatic biotopes fit for Apium repens, Triturus cristatus, Epidalea calamita and Hyla arborea; dissemination of international experience about the restoration and maintenance of transition grounds from dunes to polder and from dunes to salt marshes in Europe; an overall understanding by the general public of the benefits of the measures; an increased perception of the nature reserve.

Anysurfer