The director of the Comana Natural Park Administration Valentin Grigore declared on Monday for AGERPRES that the surface of Lake Comana has halved over the past 15 years, shrinking from 400 hectares of open water to about 200 hectares.

The current goal is to develop, with EU funding, a new ecological-reconstruction project under the 2021 - 2027 Sustainable Development Program, Grigore said.

'In partnership with the Giurgiu County Council, we want to carry out the project Ecological Reconstruction of Comana II Wetland under the 2021 - 2027 Sustainable Development Program; we have already sent the institution our letter of intent (...). This would be the second phase of the ecological reconstruction started in 2008 - 2012, when the Neajlov Delta was flooded as a repair measure after the forced drainage works carried out by the communist regime in the 1970s. In 2008 - 2012 the area was embanked and the delta was created; now we want to do the second stage - raise the dyke further, install more efficient spillways, have better control and obtain a larger water surface to counter water losses caused by climate change,' Valentin Grigore detailed.

'If we were to wait for another 15 years and did not initiate this reconstruction project, the effect would be silting. That is why we want to attract European funds, in partnership with the Giurgiu County Council,' he added.

The Comana wetland is home to 212 bird species and 31 fish species and is already known as Romania's 'second Delta'. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Camelia Bigan; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)

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