LIFE Clima-Bombina wins Danish biodiversity award

Vordingborg has been awarded the title of ‘The Wildest Municipality in Denmark’ thanks to the LIFE project’s work in the coastal area. 

Vordingborg beat 91 other Danish municipalities in the competition. And LIFE Clima-Bombina was awarded the best biodiversity project in terms of originality, commitment, area converted into wild nature, and dissemination of information to the public.  

Coastal species in the country, like the fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina) and natural habitats, are in danger from climate change and rising sea levels. Threats include loss of genetic diversity due to small, isolated populations, fragmented habitats, poor water management and inadequate grazing.  

LIFE Clima-Bombina is developing climate-safe habitats for amphibians, birds and several threatened habitat types at Knudshoved Odde, near Vordingborg.  

The team is collaborating with a private landowner, the Rosenfeldt Estate, to transform 180 hectares of former agricultural land into new habitats. 

They are restoring natural hydrology, creating new pastures and ponds, and bringing back a biodiversity-rich landscape with stones, thorny bushes, and solitary trees.  

The project already benefits coastal biodiversity with rapidly increasing breeding numbers of the target amphibians and birds. Also, 100 hectares of new dry grasslands are now blooming. 

Partners predict that the population of the fire-bellied toad will increase from 350 to 2 000 individuals by the end of the project. They also hope to achieve a favourable conservation status for seven other amphibians, one reptile, four bird species and nine habitat types.  

The clear gains for nature and future commitment to biodiversity convinced the Jury and Denmark’s Minister for the Environment, Lea Wermelin, that Vordingborg should win the prestigious award. 

The prize money of €133 000 will go towards a potential new LIFE nature project called LIFE Orchids. 

LIFE Clima-Bombina supports the EU’s Adaptation Strategy and its Floods Directive. The project also contributes to the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and Nature Restoration Law.