Podrobné vyhledávání v článcích

In the Czech Republic there may seem to be a wide range of conceptual, strategic and other documents focused – either primarily or as part of a broader spectrum of interests – on nature conservation and landscape protection.

The Dolní Kralovice serpentinites are located in the eastern part of the District of Benešov (Central Bohemia). The serpentinite body is relatively extensive, being 3.5 km long and 1 km in width. About half of the area is protected as the Hadce u Želivky National Nature Monument (NNM) and the Želivka Site of European Importance (SEI, pursuant to Act No. 114/1992 on Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection, as amended later, the term for Site of Community Importance, SCIs, later Special Area of Conservation, SACs, under the European Union’s Habitats Directive), while the other half is part of a commercial forest. Since 2016, restoration of the entire site has been underway, with the aim of harmonising management both within the above Specially Protected Area and beyond it. Discussions are also ongoing with the owner, Forests of the Czech Republic, state enterprise, regarding transfer of land outside the SEI to special purpose forests.

The Slavkovský les/Slavkov Forest Mts. is a beautiful area with a rich cultural heritage, where humans have been coexisting with nature since ancient times. 

One of the tasks in the Programme Statement of the Government of the Czech Republic issued in March 2023 is the preparation of documents for the designation of the Krušné hory/Ore Mountains (also known as Erzgebirge) Protected Landscape Area in cooperation with the municipalities and regions concerned. So to what extent has the commitment been fulfilled just now when the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic has announced its intention to designate the Krušné hory/Ore Mts. Protected Landscape Area as a public decree, and how long is the way to really achieving this goal?

“Mess in the forest! Who has ever seen such a thing, leaving so much wood to rot uselessly!” Such words have been heard in the Šumava/Bohemian Forest Mts./Bohemian Forest Mts. for over thirty years. Fortunately, less and less frequently. Anyone who visits the Šumava/Bohemian Forest Mts. will certainly notice the striking amount of dead wood in the forests, tree rows, on the edges of fields or balks, and in abandoned meadows. Dead wood is primarily produced by nature, but in Specially Protected Areas in the Czech Republic it is also deliberately created by nature conservationists. Wood that has been cut into pieces or possibly debarked, shining in the green of the bilberry bushes, may not seem particularly conservation-oriented, yet it is worth considering why such wood is better than none at all.

Dear readers, colleagues, friends,
You are getting into your hands the sixth annual special issue of the Ochrana přírody/Nature Conservation Journal. The 80th anniversary of the first issue of the journal is approaching and the world has changed dramatically in that time. Despite efforts to protect and conserve both terrestrial and marine natural ecosystems, there has been enormous damage to them. We have destroyed a third of all rainforests and degraded another one third. The planet’s human population has grown from 2.3 to 8 billion today. Despite the partial successes in nature conservation, the negative trend is clear and raises the question of whether our efforts are worthwhile.

Uzbekistan, a pearl of the Silk Road, is an area of extraordinarily accumulation of well-preserved medieval Islam towns and monuments remembering the then extensive empire controlling considerable parts of Central and Southwest Asia. The current Republic of Uzbekistan boasts from the natural science point of view valuable areas of international importance. The country has legislatively developed nature conservation system aiming particularly at protecting the human environment; nevertheless, it can only in a limited way reduce natural wealth destruction which has been threatened by demands from the rapidly developing most populous Central Asian republics. Therefore, we can visit a UNESCO World Heritage Site as well as to watch one of the world’s biggest environmental disasters ever there. 

If there are no customers, there will be no illegal wildlife trade.
Jane Goodall interviewed by Lauren Kearney (2016)

Five decades provide a suitable possibility to consider the birthday person’s life up to now and in future. Therefore, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) we not only remember establishment and mission of the important international hard law but we also try, although with a certain amount of subjectivity, to assess its implementation in the Czech Republic.

The country in a nutshell
By African standards, Gabon located on the Equator in the Gulf of Guinea is a small country (267,670 km²); on the equator in the Gulf of Guinea (3.5 times the Czech Republic’s territory), it has only around 2.2 million inhabitants. In The capital, Libreville, less than a million people lives, and the total proportion of the urban population is close to 90%. The number of inhabitants is growing by 2.5% annually, female fertility is approx. 4. Roughly, 80% of the country’s territory is covered by primary or secondary rainforest and a smaller part by savannah. Only approx. 1.2% is used as arable land: at the same time, the rainforest coverage has been practically stable (only a 1% decrease in 10 years).