Mist-netting of bats during the summer bat monitoring activities in the Verkhovyskyi National Park.

Forests occupy 40.2% of the Ukrainian Carpathians (Western Ukraine) and harbour about 20 forest bat species. However, current forestry practice in the Ukrainian Carpathians is not friendly to bats. There is a need for substantial expansion and coordination of forest bat protection and forestry management in the region.

Foresters as one of the most important focal group could have a strong influence on the bat conservation in the Eastern Carpathians. However, they have relatively poor knowledge about bats and the importance of bats for forest ecosystems. As a consequence, most foresters do not support bat conservation in the forests. This leads to problems for the surviving of forest bat populations in the region. Lack of information and low awareness to bats seem to be the main reasons of it. Experience throughout Europe has shown that creating a positive attitude to bats can take many years and requires continuous supply of information and publicity.

One of the main results of the projects would be possibly reducing the negative influence of current forestry practices on forest living bats by developing and obtaining new bat-friendly and improved skills by foresters and forestry students as future foresters. This will lead to an increasing general level of forest bat protection in the Ukrainian Carpathians area. This project aims to increase the capacity and practical knowledge on forest bat protection among foresters and forestry students through workshops and field trainings.

During the project realisation we will develop a database concerning the bat distribution and localisation of bat roosts in the Ukrainian Carpathians. So far data about forest bats are largely lacking, in particular about their distribution, ecology, ecosystem functions and service.

Bat monitoring would be an integral part of our conservation efforts and will be provided by practical foresters. Knowledge and expertise among Ukrainian current and future foresters in forest bat biodiversity management (e.g. management planning, data acquisition/collation, reporting) would be increased.