Podrobné vyhledávání v článcích

Between 2014 and 2019, Central Europe experienced unprecedented drought and heat. However, what was an unpleasant episode for most people and for ecosystems made it possible to answer some questions related to the hydrological regime in the Czech Republic´s landscape and, together with climate models, to outline the expected future.

In the Czech Republic, a sharp decline in agricultural landscape biological diversity has recently become very urgent. The topic even now and then jumps from scientific journals and enters into mass media, thus confirming its weight and severity. The fact demonstrates the seriousness of this topic, which also starts to be noticed by part of the general public. Almost always negative cases are mentioned, but positive examples of a biodiversity rich agricultural land-scape appear rarely. The authors would therefore like to introduce the readers to the mosaics of vineyards, orchards, fields and steppes on the outskirts of the town of Velké Pavlovice (South Moravia). These may not only provide inspiration to those restoring varied agriculture landscapes, but mainly pose a great challenge to preserve them.

In July 2019, the selected parts of the Bohemian and Saxon Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mts., also known as the Ore Mountains, were inscribed onto the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage List (World Heritage List). The area has long been associated in the public consciousness with the impacts of lignite/brown coal mining on the landscape and on forests at the foot of this extensive mountain range; we thus encountered a number of questions and doubts at the time of preparing the documents for nomination. Therefore, the article additionally contributes to clarifying how the cultural and historical values of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mts. stand out, and it is an inspiration for deepening interdisciplinary cooperation. Simultaneously, it is a contribution to the reflection on how to deal with these border mountains from the point of view of national protection in the future. Despite the high proportion of interesting landscapes, unlike other border massifs the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mts. are, paradoxically, a mountain range which has been declared neither a national park nor a protected landscape area.

With this article we start a series on transboundary protected areas certified under the Transboundary Parks programme of the EUROPARC Federation. The programme was a follow-up of initiatives taken earlier in the IUCN, inter alia, at the launch of the Parks for Life programme (1994, Priority project 22), and started soon after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Central and Eastern Europe, opening up previously unimaginable possibilities. Jan Čeřovský was a Czech representative strongly engaged in these activities. 

Allow us to present you with another issue of our Ochrana přírody/Nature Conservation Journal. This English language issue presents a summary of the articles published in 2020.