UNHIDE Agroforestry booklet 2025.09.22 - Flipbook - Page 37
on calcareous soils; forests and aquatic biotopes
in process of, or to be restored based on the EU
habitats directive and Latvian regulations.
The farm’s owners, Ines Gmizo-Lārmane and Viesturs Lārmanis have worked with nature conservation for over twenty years. In 2016, they moved to
the family farm.
With the grazing of about 60 Scottish highland
cattle, removal of trees and bushes, milling of
stumps, sowing of semi-natural meadow plants,
and mowing of varied intensity, they have successfully restored overgrown oak meadows, improving
vegetation and species composition from forest
Hylotelephium telephium.
vegetation to biologically highly valuable grassland vegetation, according to data gathered in
collaboration with researchers from the University
of Latvia (GrassLIFE).
The Bekas farm hosts more than 50 protected and
endangered species of plants, animals and fungi,
such as the Orchis mascula orchid and the beetle
Osmoderma barnabita, the most symbolic of the
endangered species that characterize wooded
meadows, requiring decaying wood in a network
of veteran, hollow oaks, to provide suitable habitats and maintain viable populations.
According to Viesturs, the meadows here, creat-
Veronica longifolia.
