this is the Ciliz Brook a small stream which used to be an artery of
biodiversity in the landscape bringing much needed water to humans and Wildlife
alike as it meandered through the forests and Fields but over time it has
become a destroyed and beaten up Little River polluted by this huge pile of
trash and crisscrossed by human infrastructure which has led to it
actually being stuck in a dead end now here behind me you can see the problem
this is supposed to be a Running Brook full of life but instead we have this
messy stagnant pool that is not really good for anything and this here is a
field full of invasive species which is conveniently located at the end of this
River I think you can see where we're going with this so our plan is simple we
want to restore the flow of this River by giving it an end point you by giving
the water away out through the digging of a new channel and then we want to
direct all that water into this tiny Forest Island here and also this field
so that we flood an area of about 33 hectares and in the process create an
extremely rare ecosystem Wet Sedge Meadows
if you hadn't noticed already here at most years we really love flooding stuff
that is actually because this is our second project of this type you see last
year we began work on flooding a forest and the early results have been
absolutely incredible plants and trees are thriving endangered Wildlife has
returned and overall biodiversity is booming so naturally when our ambitious
Slovak friends at BROZ came up with this new idea we jumped at the opportunity to
fund this work because we know that this is exactly the kind of project that our
community wants to fight there is a lot to talk about here there is the polluted
river the small Forest island with a pond and of course the field and what
will happen to it that is so special for biodiversity while reading through the
comments in recent project videos I noticed that many of you were asking for
more regular and incremental project updates and we are of course listening
to this feedback so our goal with this video is to be the first in a series for
you to follow along as we go through the process of rewilding the area and the
best way to do so is of course to subscribe to our channel here on YouTube
I know that all of you love our videos but many of you aren't actually
subscribed to our channel and might be missing out on future updates so if you
hit the subscribe button and then click the little notification Bell next to it
YouTube will let you know each time a new update comes out and this ultimately
also gives YouTube a positive signal which helps us reach more people thus
allowing us to find more members and fund even bigger projects so in this
first video I want to give you an overview of what we are planning to do
and of course also give you a tour of the project area and an existing wet sedge
meadow that is a great example of what we are trying to achieve now let's start
with the origin of the problem the little Ciliz Brook so this road here
is the actual problem the brook behind me in in this Forest it comes up against
the road and then it simply gets stuck and the water is sort of backlogged and
it gets stagnant using a drone I can show you the types of obstacles this
creek faces and here at the end you can see clearly where it gets stuck now the
full story of this stream is one that I want to explore in depth in an upcoming
video because it is really interesting but right now I think you need to know
two things about it how it is polluted in some areas but clearly still suitable
for wildlife and that it has been heavily modified by roads agricultural
channels and fields to the point where certain parts of it have been dry for
years this is something that BROZ has been fixing up for a while now with
dozens of interventions such as this one where they've tunneled the stream under
an existing agricultural channel to allow it to continue running along its
old course and thus bringing water to places where it's been gone for a really
long time now and of course they've also been dealing with the obvious problem of
the huge trash pile and they're doing so in a really cool way by engaging the
local community in volunteer days to come and clean up this mess I think it's
really cool and we were able to attend one of these days and to see all these
people from different backgrounds and different walks of life come together to
try and repair something is really inspiring all of this to say that our
intervention at the end of the Ciliz Brook is just the final effort part of a
long-term work that bras has under taken but as I said that is a story for a
future video now let's look at the area we are flooding our channel will be dug
from here to here and the first area it will bring water to is this small Forest
Island surrounded by agricultural Fields it is a bit deeper than the surrounding
area and an ideal place for newts and toads to reproduce in the shallower
depths I think this would be a worthwhile project on its own so it's
really cool to have it as a bit of a bonus outcome for this bigger
intervention so now I'm trying to reach the area where the amphibian pond will
be I mean this whole part here will be flooded but I'm trying to look for the
exact place where most of the water will hopefully accumulate and provide this
important habitat as you can see here there's quite a bit of vegetation in the
way but once we get to the centre yeah there's already some water
accumulating here so yeah did not pick this spot at random of
course they looked at some really detailed maps to understand that this
would be a good spot but it's nice to see that there's already some water here
because it means once we divert the river this way it will become a really
nice wetland we're also looking at the idea of blocking this area here off to
fish so that the Danube Crested Newt and the European Fire-Bellied Toads
populations get a chance to reproduce so that they can grow in number because the
fish are generally doing quite okay in this region but these amphibians are
struggling a bit more and I know that it is like picking favorites essentially
and that it isn't rewilding in its purest form but we have to mix the idea
of conserving species and trying to give back space to Nature and I think this is
a good compromise from here our channel will continue towards the field passing
under this small Road and finally opening up into this wide area
this is it this is the field we're going to flood and I must say it's quite
strange because it's such a normal agricultural field but it's really
exciting to think that that over there is going to become a wetland but as you
get closer you can see that this field is not in an ideal State this field here
might look really Pleasant to the untrained eye and it is enjoyable to sit
here of course but it's actually covered in invasive species such as this plant
right here next to me which is a type of solidago species so so our project will
aim to do two things in one go we'll aim to get rid of the invasives because they
don't like water and it will bring back the rare sedge meadows wet habitat and
this is something that is very rare with one intervention that you can
essentially get rid of an invasive species that is not good for the native
biodiversity and bring back something which is so rare and precious a natural
habitat that is under pressure the area we are flooding is around 33 hectares in
size and for you imperial people out there that is around 81 Acres 46 normal
football fields or 61 American football fields so you can pick whichever metric
works best for you and from a pie you can really see the scale of what we are
working with it's actually pretty epic to imagine how our small intervention
will transform this whole area for the better well when I say for the better I
haven't really told you much to back this up so let's look at the benefits of
this project in terms of the species that will benefit from this project I
already mentioned the European Fire-Bellied Toad and the Danube Crested Newts
which we hope will benefit from the amphibian ponds in the small forest
islands and then in the main area we hope to support fish such as the Amur
Bitterling and mammals such as the Pannonian Root Vole, various shrews and
also the Eurasian otter now of course there are hundreds if not thousands of
other species including birds of course that will benefit from this but this
should provide you with an overview of the species that we are targeting and
also how broads the benefits really are then at a landscape level the Wetland
will also have the added benefits that it will effectively create a shelter for
wildlife and what is essentially a very agricultural landscape and creating
these small Refuge areas is really key to maintaining biodiversity in these
regions in the long run in terms of a timeline for the work we hope to start
in spring or summer depending on how fast the licenses come through then we
hope to have it completed by the fall so it can start flooding then and hopefully
in one year we can see the first significant results already so dwart
from the future here as we were going through our Reddit we actually noticed
that we were missing an important bit of information which is of course what this
project is going to cost so we budgeted around 80 000 Euros to complete the full
project including the channels under the road and and all kind of safety measures
and with this as you know we are planning to achieve around 40 hectares
of these amazing wetlands so I think that's really good bang for your buck
and if you're wondering where all that money is coming from well the answer is
our community our members people who essentially watch our videos and decide
to contribute small amounts every month to help us fund these projects so yeah
just a small reminder that that's how we fund this stuff it's not some big
corporation giving us loads of cash to do this we do this with you our members
so if you'd like to contribute to something like this then yeah be sure to
check out the link in the description and in the pin comments down below now
back to the rest of the video and to better show you what this might look
like in the future we visited an area that has been undergoing restoration for
some years now right now I'm in Ciliz Radvan which is another property
managed by our partners BROZ along the Ciliz Brook and this area they've been
doing interventions since 2016 to help restore the flooding regime and also
help ridded of invasive species so that essentially you can bring back a proper
Wetland ecosystem and it's a great example of what we would like to do with
our area further Downstream so what's really great to see is the return of the
Native species so in this piece of wetland that you can see right here we
have the all-important Carrick species that are essential for the Pannonian
Root Vole and these reeds here that you can see they're different kinds of tipa
species which are also really important for this habitat and the way this works
is that essentially by having water here it helps reduce the suitable habitat for
the invasive Solidago species but in order to accelerate this process BROZ
also has to do these cuttings here which might seem a bit counter-intuitive but
what they do is they come in and they cut the whole area and when it floods
again these solidago species do not return okay so in case you were confused
by my explanation please let me give it another try from up here you start with
an area that is dry and overrun by non-native invasives like our areas then
you restore the water regime and start doing some cutting in strips each year
as you cut a different strip you slowly without the invasives through a mix of
The cutting itself and the excess water from the new flooding regime while on
the other hand the native Wetland species come back stronger and stronger
each year then of course further down the line there is a point where all of
this is left alone but for now it's a really effective way of accelerating the
transformation of the area and there is proof that this is working really well
here in these two shots you can see the light green solidago species and they've
been reduced quite a bit in just one year of doing this practice what I think
is really exciting about this project is also the speed at which nature can come
back I mean this Wetlands four or five years ago looked completely different
there was no water it was full of invasive species and now it's thriving
it's provided important habitat for a wide variety variety of wetland species
so I really hope that our area can follow suits and do exactly what
happened here and if you think this kind of work is worth supporting then please
consider heading over to mossy.earth to learn more about becoming
a member and supporting a lot of rewilding projects just like this one
here until next time cheers