Background Open scrub and dry grassland Mediterranean habitats, such as France’s Eastern Corbières, had traditionally been maintained through grazing. Changing land use patterns had an adverse impact on these habitats which are important for many species, especially birds listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive. For example, the Eastern Corbières area is covers part of a migration route for 50 000 raptors, 5 000 black and white storks and over 1 million migratory passerines. Objectives Project objectives focused on improving the conservation status of 13 endangered bird species listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive in the Eastern Corbières SPA. Preliminary research informed habitat recovery actions involving local landusers through management agreements regarding livestock grazing. Parallel actions included increasing the supply of prey for raptors and reducing risks from power line collisions. All findings were fed into longer-term site management plans (referred to as DOCOBS). Results Most of the initial objectives were met during the project, which piloted experimental management techniques for re-opening scrubland and maintaining open habitats. Some 157 ha of habitats were restored using controlled burning or cutting. Extensive sheep grazing systems were also tested and results demonstrated that, subject to funding support from the likes of agri-environment measures, such approaches could produce win-win economic and nature conservation outcomes. Findings were used to inform the design of new habitat management guidelines for local farmers. The project also initiated actions to reduce power line collisions and these included developing a long-term agreement with power providers that will be funded by EU Cohesion policy sources. Benefits for hunters were demonstrated from other aspects of conservation work involved with increasing the supply of small game birds (in 10 locations) as raptor prey. Monitoring inventories from the target areas showed that whilst bird numbers had increased on some scrubland and reappeared in other areas, the reproduction rate of the target raptors was still low. This was attributed to human disturbances during breeding periods. Human factors were recognised from the outset as important and so concerted efforts were invested by the project to involve local stakeholders and explain the cultural and economic value of natural heritage resources. Such outreach processes secured the participation of local politicians, community members and recreation users at the sites during development of 34 localised biodiversity action plans. Local authorities are now using the project outcomes for their own policies and decision making processes. SPA management plans also benefitted from the LIFE project’s work via design of specifications for agri-environmental measures and Natura 2000 contracts. These are anticipated to build on the LIFE project and tackle remaining threats such as: overgrown grasslands; land use conflicts; human disturbance of birds; plus risks to birds from collisions with power lines. At the end of the project, the beneficiaries put forward proposals for changing the conservation status of targeted species, at French level (red list) or European level (Birds Directive). Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Conservation Plan (see "Read more" section).