Status of natural values in Hungary at the joining to the EU on the base of common bird monitoring (MMM) program of the MME for the 1999-2005 period
Abstract
EU membership of Hungary starting from 2004, could cause large influence on the natural values of the countries at least because of the much larger investment on the agriculture and development of the infrastructure than it was in the former decades. Farmland and forest habitats need large attention on the base of the negative trend found in the biodiversity of these habitats in the former EU member states. Biodiversity monitoring based on common birds has increasing function in many Western European countries for detecting dangerous processes in the regional, country and continental level. The MME/BirdLife Hungary with the donation of the EBCC and RSPB, and contribution of near 1000 voluntaries has started a common bird monitoring program in 1999, based on random sampling design, called Mindennapi Madaraink Monitoringja (MMM), which among the first in Central-, and Eastern Europe is able to monitor the status of the natural values, using biodiversity indicators, in the main habitats (farmland, forest) of the country. The result of the 1999-2005 period, which based on the annual survey of the 2% of the country territory on randomly selected areas, showed that most farmlands birds species has stable or increasing population trends, farmland biodiversity index is stable and the density of these species in most cases is higher than in the former EU countries. However, in the case of the forest habitats, many bird species related to this habitat show declining population trend and the forest biodiversity index has a significant decline since 2003. The MMM provide a unique tool for monitoring the biodiversity in Hungary for the main habitats and at the same time could provide important information about the influence of EU memberships on the natural values of the region of Europe from where relevant data is not or hardly available.
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