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.

Dear friends,
Allow us to introduce to you the Ochrana přírody/Nature Conservation Journal, having been issued in the Czech Republic more than three quarters of a century. This is because the first issue appeared during a post-World War II euphoria already in 1946. The journal has experienced a lot of changes both in the formal and factual format since that time and it was issued mostly six or ten times a year. Surprisingly, many principal bases have been maintained to the present. The journal has always been aiming at professional and voluntary nature conservationists and at the general public interested in natural and landscape heritage conservation and management. 

As students, we read Zdeněk Veselovský's book ‘Voices of the Jungle’ describing his stay in Kaziranga National Park. In addition to numerous interesting facts about wildlife bionomics, the reader will find a number of notes on nature conservation half a century ago. A very valuable article on the simplest problems of biodiversity management in this Assam park was published by Douglas Chadwick in National Geographic (2010). With some worries but also hopes, we visited this area in March 2019. However, the experience exceeded our expectations, despite many problems that persist in the national park. After all, over a hundred of the symbolic Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) have been poached in Kaziranga in the last ten years, and the population around the park has grown by a third.

The Elbe Canyon is unique not only for its landscape and natural values, but also represents a huge potential for tourist and recreational use. While the German side realised this long ago, on the Czech side there is still an effort to transform the Elbe into an industrial transport channel. The history of tourist use of this landscape dates back to the 19^th century, when one of the oldest tourist associations in Europe was established, and the Elbe Canyon became the cradle of European and world tourism together with the Alps. The fascinating landscape of Bohemian-Saxon Switzerland inspired renowned romantic artists. Today their works and later old postcards can tell us about the natural appearance of the Elbe.

The so-called ‘Eight’ year (2018) was significant not only for several anniversaries in Czech statehood (1918, 1938, 1948, 1968), but also for nature protection. The foundation of our oldest forest reserves, Žofín Forest (1838) and Boubín Forest (1858), was commemorated by the Year of Czech Primeval Forests.¹ The anniversary of the founding of the first national professional state institution for nature conservation in 1958 remained somewhat in their shadow. After 1989, the overall preparedness of nature conservation institutions helped to enforce rapid changes in the environment and to establish modern legislation and nature conservation management in the Czech Republic.

Alpine bells (Cortusa matthioli subsp. moravica Soják) is undoubtedly one of the most famous plants of the Moravian Karst, even though very few people have ever seen it. This is because it grows in the Macocha Abyss, high on the vertical rock walls. Access to the habitat is very difficult and only possible with the help of ropes and for physically fit people with the necessary experience. Previously, part of the Alpine bells population also occurred on the debris cone at the bottom of the Abyss, from where it was first described. However, only three specimens now survive here.