The remarkable habitat and species diversity of the Angofa Valley, and of the Târnava Mare landscape in general, is dependent on continued traditional management by small-scale farming communities, and on cattle farming to maintain haymeadows. As long as traditional management provides decent local incomes, incentives will maintain the management and the farmers will preserve the habitats and associated species, as they have done for centuries.

The project will demonstrate innovative techniques, products and cooperative management methods to protect the biodiversity of grasslands especially haymeadows. It will:

• establish a demonstration farm, to show farmers and policy makers how small-scale farming can still be economically viable, by a mixture of landscape-scale cooperation, well-targeted agri-environment payments, innovative low-input management techniques, and better marketing;
• carry out landscape-scale habitat and species mapping in order to include connectivity and mosaic landscape elements in biodiversity assessments;
• develop and implement cooperative conservation management with 10-15 neighbouring farmers, on 500ha.
• carry out concrete habitat restoration work and common use infrastructure that allows better conservation management, showing how cooperative planning and investment can reduce individual investment and help small-scale farmers to meet agri-environment criteria;
• use the farm and neighbouring schoolhouse to train 90 farmers per year in nature-friendly management, and in marketing linked to nature value. The farm and schoolhouse will also be used for wider environmental research, education and communication;
• create farm-based nature trails including interpretation signs, and a mobile phone app to give access to more information;
• complete a mountain bike trail link so that users of the existing mountain bike trail from Sighișoara have direct access to the school;
• use latest digitisation to develop mapping and to assist data visualisation and data gathering for farmers and researchers, and promote access to interesting information of the area for visitors. This will be replicable in other areas, to assist conservation projects more widely in Romania.