Podrobné vyhledávání v článcích

On 20–25 June 2022, the jubilee 50th National Round of the Golden Leaf natural history competition took place. Not many youth competitions can boast of such a respectable age, so it is a good opportunity to have a look at its past and present. 

With its patronages, the Scout Institute helps scout troops and school classes engage in landscape restoration and nature conservation. In collaboration with expert guides and stewards, participants learn not only about natural values but also about the importance of building relationships with all stakeholders. In this way they develop two basic civic competences: responsibility for the condition of public space and awareness of the opportunity which everyone has to positively influence their environment. At present, patronages are running in the capital city of Prague and in eight regions of the Czech Republic. To date, more than 55 troops and school classes have been engaged in them. 

Act No. 114/1992 Gazette on Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection came into force on 1 June 1992, so in 2022 30 years have passed since this most important legal regulation in nature conservation was adopted. Let us, from the position of co-legislator of the Act’s original version and current legislative lawyer at the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic, recall some of the context regarding the creation of this legislation and evaluate its current state.

In the Czech Republic, principles of current special species protection come from the second half of the 1980s. They entered into practice by Act No. 114/1992 Gazette on Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection, as amended later, and since that time they – except small adjustments due to transposing and implementing the European Union legislation before joining the EU- have not been changed. Moreover, knowledge has been significantly improved during the thirty past years and the state of nature and the landscape has also significantly shifted across the whole country´s territory. Long-term negative effects are currently amplified and multiplied by climate change impacts. It is clear that species protection tools have been in many aspects outdated and their effectivity has been insufficient. We are not able to halt species richness/diversity decline and loss and to effectively protect, conserve or manage habitats of the individual species as a basic precondition of their survival. A lot of necessary changes can be reach only by those in methodologies and approaches in performing State/Public Administration and setting out economic/financial tools without changes in legislation. Nevertheless effective protection and providing the most threatened species with management need new legislation dealing with Special Species Protection, conservation and management

Although the first national list of Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) was adopted by the Government of the Czech Republic following the country´s accession to the European Union in 2005, the question of its representativeness for species and habitats of European importance, and therefore the sufficiency of the EU Natura 2000 network of protected areas in the Czech Republic, has not yet been closed by the European Commission. Over the course of the Natura 2000 network´s existence, the Czech Republic has tried to deal with the identified shortcomings in particular with three major additions, most recently in 2016. Nevertheless, we are now awaiting another more extensive update of the national SAC list. The proposed amendment and the reasons for its development are explained on the following pages.

It is no secret that there hardly is any other issue in biology which has been full of contradiction as the species, whether as a concept, category or taxon in systematics. The continuing debate which set of individuals could be considered the species resulted in at least 35 various concepts: although most species concepts have strong implicit similarities and they in some extent overlap each other, some of them exclude others (ZACHOS 2015, 2018b). It is necessary to mention that many of them in the fact do not define what species are or should be but rather provide differently complicated approach how to delimitate them (MAYDEN 1997, QUEIROZ 1998, 2007, STEWART 2018, REYDON & KUNZ 2019). Taking into account the extent of the debate the following reflection offers only a glimpse of the topic from a point of view of nature conservation, not an exhaustive analysis. 

Every cave represents a unique natural phenomenon, preserving the complex links between living and non-living nature. They often contain paleontological findings as well as archaeological monuments connected with the development of the humans. The remains of animals get into the caves through the sinking of debris and alluvium. Some animals use caves for hibernation, others as shelters, dens, and food stores. And some find death underground after being caught in a natural trap...

Lowland wetland meadows are among the most endangered habitats in the Czech Republic. The main drivers of their decline and loss include particularly decline in traditional management measures, targeted draining, consequent overgrowing by natural self-seeding as well as spreading aggressive plant species the latter excluding wild plant and animal species there. Thus, suitable meadow wetland management should aim namely at maintaining an open character of the above habitat effectively provided by grazing and mowing.. Although it may not be apparent at first glance, these measures can also significantly affect small water bodies in the immediate vicinity of the managed area. The article presents the project entitled Management measures and assessment of their impact on meadow wetland biodiversity and it introduces the pilot results of water body hydrobiological monitoring in a meadow wetland near the village of Krumvíř (South Moravia).

The Nature Restoration Law sets a challenging (and if fulfilled, probably effective) goal of implementing measures to improve the state of natural habitats by 2050 wherever it is needed, and by 2030 on at least 20% of EU land and sea areas. Formal implementation of established (technological) procedures for the restoration of forest habitats, only applied within the prescribed territorial scope, is not sufficient for truly improving the condition of forest habitats and the populations of wildlife bound to them. If we are to achieve real restoration of nature, how the Nature Restoration Law is implemented, will be very important. Not only in the case of forests (but especially with them), we should significantly employ the creative forces of nature itself and, simultaneously, sensibly use an active management approach.

The Czech Republic, like other EU Member States, should produce a specific proposal to increase the coverage and protection, conservation and management intensity in protected areas by the end of 2022. This follows from the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (hereinafter, the 2030 Strategy), which considers effectively managed protected areas to be one of the key tools to halt the loss of biodiversity and, inter alia, expects to protect 30% of the land, of which one third strictly. The contributions of individual Member States should take into account different conditions and reflect their real importance for the biodiversity conservation. What can we realistically offer in the given time horizon? This is still a subject of professional debate. This article aims to summarize the starting points, the current state, quantify the possible liabilities and, thus, contribute to this discussion.