Nature Conservation Legislation

Fireworks evoke mixed feelings across society. Part of the population welcomes fireworks as extraordinary entertainment, whereas another part perceives such entertainment rather negatively, for various individual reasons. This article originated from the current need to assess the harmfulness of fireworks to wild birds from the perspective of their biology and the need to place specific cases within the legislative framework of Act No. 114/1992 Coll., on Nature and Landscape Protection (“ANLP”), as amended.

We are currently observing changes in the landscape at an unprecedented rate. We do not have in mind here the often mentioned impacts of climate change, but particularly the consequences of changes in land use by man. A century ago, when a third of the inhabitants of the Czech Republic still made a living from agriculture and forestry and the average farm size did not even exceed 5 hectares (Kučera 1994), the landscape was in many ways exploited more intensively, but at the same time in a much more mosaic way. At present, only a tenth of them participate in land management, while industrialised farming takes place in large, consolidated areas and the management of economically marginal areas and traditional, more labour-intensive forms of farming have been abandoned.

The article deals with legal nature conservation and landscape protection provisions in Specially Protected Areas (SPAs) related to hunting and fishing rights.

The Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) has been still explicitly specified among wildlife species in Article 3, letter c) of Act No. 115/2000 Gazette on Providing Compensation for Damages Caused by Selected Specially Protected Animals, as amended later.