Who do you know that spent their honeymoon in a log cabin in the Canadian Arctic during four freezing winter months? We’ve just had the good fortune of spending six days with two inspiring scientists who did just that! Most probably it was passion that kept them warm - and alive!
Since then this couple, Christoph & Barbara Promberger, have made Romania their home and founded Foundation Conservation Carpathia (FCC) which has as its ultimate ambition the creation of The Făgăraș National Park, the largest forested national park in Europe.
He hides his brilliance and commitment under a mop of unkempt grey hair, is charmingly teddybear-like, wears T shirts extolling the virtues of his favourite rock stars and appears delightfully soft hearted. Her brilliance and commitment shows more clearly. She’s strong and beautiful like a polished diamond. Both are fantastically well informed about the multi-faceted elements of their complex project.
Despite the couples eminence as scientists and conservationists they remain unpretentious and fun. Their efforts have turned FCC into the second largest private landowner in the country after Ikea. Funny that - FCC preserve forests, Ikea chops them down!
Jeremy, my husband, first read about FCC courtesy of Radio HP. Having made contact, FCC suggested we learn more by joining a tour organised by Journeys with Purpose (JWP). So that’s what we did in the company of this extraordinary couple, together with Alistair Driver, renowned ecologist, conservationist and re-wilding specialist and a small group of highly informed amateur enthusiasts. What a privilege.
We were initially concerned, both of us in our seventies, about our ability to keep-up on a trip which promised ‘an immersive journey into the wilds of the Făgăraș mountains.’ JWP assured us less demanding ‘immersions’ would always be available and in this they proved 100% reliable.
We decided to add a couple of days onto the start and the end of the FCC itinerary. Before to visit the Saxon villages and lands so beloved by our King. After to spend time in Bucharest, architecturally grand beyond our expectations, where we were interested to see physical evidence of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu’s appalling megalomania. His ghost inhabits even the furthest recesses of the Fǎgǎras Mountains where this monster regularly took the greatest pleasure in slaying the largest number of bears.
Enough of one couple whose legacy is unbelievably dark. Let’s focus on another’s which is brilliantly light and an extraordinary achievement in only 15 years.
Across the land now belonging to FCC illegal logging and hunting has ended. Clear felled areas have been replanted - 4.5 million trees to date. Large carnivore research and conservation programmes are in place. Beaver and Bison have been re- introduced and foundation land is home to all Europe’s large predators together with compensation programs to replace livestock loss. A conservation based income generating economy is in development together with education programmes for the young. On lower land a biodiversity farm now flourishes.
All this has been achieved through private sponsorship and a limited number of EU grants - an asset value, based on end 2023 accounts, of £49 million.
Every day of our short visit was extraordinary.
Horse drawn carts carried us across flower filled meadows in the company of Transylvanian Grey cattle and Carpathian Shepherd dogs. Supper taken en plein air in the company of ancient oaks, open grassland and long views. Riding for some - excellent horses they said - brilliantly sure footed. Deep in the forest a carefully concealed hide allowed spectacular bear sightings. In early light, walking through virgin forest up steep slopes filled with magnificent trees and shade-loving plants. A bone shaking drive up rutted tracks to a high Alpine meadow used by shepherds for summer grazing where we camped hoping to see bison and protected from bears by an electric fence. A spectacular helicopter ride raised us high over the mountains where we saw limestone peaks covered by a low shrub species of rhododendron in full flower - pink. Down to a river to inspect the lodges of recently re-introduced beavers and to a wood building of cleverly similar design where we learnt more about their lives. To lower level woodland filled with ancient pollarded beech trees where the partisans once hid from the communists post WW2. Tracking bison up vertiginous forested slopes cut through by mountain streams. Delayed en-route by a huge flock of maybe one thousand sheep with their entourage of shepherds and dogs heading up the mountain to summer pastures.
We did finally find those bison - or at least the flick of a tail and a dark rump semi-concealed by thick cover.
Such adventures.
If you’re thinking of following in our footsteps you’ll want to know how we were billeted. The trip started in the city of Sibiu and ended in Bucharest where in both we stayed in perfectly good hotels and enjoyed excellent food. For four nights in between we stayed in FCC owned accommodation and for another two in a family run guest house. All offered comfort, hygiene, wholesome food and no frills. Entirely suitable for us and, in our view, for the sort of people likely to choose a similar experience. Given its location in so remote a place our one night of glamping was by any standard ‘great luxury’.
Should you follow us be sure to ask for the company of Tudor Georgescu our exemplary local guide.
The greatest challenge that lies ahead for FCC, in pursuit of National Park status, is how best to transfer ownership of so precious an asset, in perpetuity, into the charge of a people and Government still emerging from the dark shadows of Communism.
This was a profound and inspiring experience which has led me to ask - who do I know that has made the most significant contribution to our planet?
On my list of contenders you will certainly find both Christoph and Barbara Promberger.
