The DANUBEPARKS Network of Protected Areas is richer for one more full member, Protected Area from Romania: Comana Nature Park (Romsilva-Parcul Natural Comana).
Comana Nature Park is one of the 27 national and nature parks of Romania and is located in the southern part of the country, in the Romanian Plain, between the cities of Bucharest and Giurgiu, at a distance of about 7 km from the Danube River. After its establishment in 2004, the area was classified as a Natura 2000 site for community importance and for avifauna protection and also a wetland of international importance, respectively Ramsar site. Its management aims to maintain the harmonious human interaction with nature by protecting the diversity of habitats and landscape, promoting the preservation of traditional land uses and strengthening the activities, practices and traditional culture of the local population. It also offers the public opportunities for recreation and tourism and encourages scientific and educational activities.
The park includes forests (8000 ha), waters and wetlands (1800 ha), pastures, agricultural lands, vineyards, orchards, localities and roads, and concentrates half of the total avifauna species and a third of the higher plant species in Romania. On its territory, there are currently 9 zones recognized with the status of integral protection areas, of which 2 are forest nature reserves, and a third, Comana Pond (1200 ha) - is the Neajlov River Delta, a wetland with an exceptional concentration of biodiversity, considered the third wetland as importance in Romania, after the Danube Delta and Small Island of Brăila. In the park 15 types of habitats of European interest were identified- 7 being specific to wetlands, 1153 plant species, 31 fish taxa (of which 1 endemic), 11 species of amphibians, 10 reptiles, 212 birds, 40 mammals (of which 6 bats) and 146 species of invertebrates (determined so far).
Balta Comana, also known as the Neajlov Delta, is a part of the Neajlov River, near the confluence of the Argeș River. It naturally includes arms with running water where the Neajlov meanders with great sinuosity, permanent meshes of stagnant water, a network of small natural connecting channels and higher ridges with marshy vegetation. A paradise of birds, otters, water lilies, irises, where, for half a millennium, the rustling of leaves and the rippling of the waves could be heard intertwined with the music of the villagers' traditional dance, or the church songs from Vlad the Impaler's monastery, dating from 1462. A painting from which modern time has only succeeded in blurring fishing boats and thatched roofs.
The forest reserves in the vicinity of the pond, established for the protection of spectacular species like the Romanian forest peony, lily of the valley or oriental leopard's-bane, complete the chain of objectives of ecotourism interest, the peony representing a true emblem of the area.
Visitors passionate about history can enjoy a plethora of monuments and archeological sites of great value, of which, we mention the tell-type settlement named Gorgana, almost twice old as the first Egyptian pyramids.