Podrobné vyhledávání v článcích

In the Czech Republic, Specially Protected Area1 management has been one of the most important tasks of the State Nature Conservancy since the 1990s. Due to improving the knowledge of species and natural habitat distribution and their development as well as increasing uncertainty caused by incomplete knowledge of impacts resulted from extensive anthropogenic land-use changes and current and predicted climate change, a traditional long-term planned blueprint management has been untenable. Therefore, the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic (NCA CR) decided to apply in practice adaptive management (AM) and to introduce necessary information and economic tools for its implementation.

When mentioning the water retention, it mostly is related to water management in the open landscape. From a long-term point of view, a lot of issues should be improved and enhanced there, but water can be very well managed also in urban agglomerations. Historically, the priority in towns and cities had been to safely and as soon as possible drain off water from there. The efforts, of course, resulted in significant interventions into watercourse beds and consequently in adjacent floodplains, thus influencing the water regime. 

Invasive alien woody plants are a significant long-term problem of protected nature. Although we have been trying to control invasive alien woody plants, e.g. the most common Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), in many Specially Protected Areas in the Czech Republic, an effective management tool has been missing yet. In practice, there are various approaches differing in their philosophy and effectiveness and very often repeating mistakes, thus making sometimes the state of the art even worse instead effectively solving the problem. In this contribution, divided into several parts, the author would like to introduce the first experience from applying new measures in controlling the Black locust and other invasive trees and shrubs in the Podyjí/Thaya River Basin National Park (South Moravia).

Europe has considerably warmed up during the past decades, which is reflected in changes in the insect fauna. The most recognizable example is an expanding distribution range of the Praying mantis (Mantis religiosa), which has occupied, starting from the south, the whole of Moravia including the Jeseníky and Beskydy Mts during the 1990s, and has arrived in Bohemia via the Svitavy region. At present it occurs not only in Central Bohemian lowlands but also in the foothills of the Krkonoše/Giant Mts. or in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. Expanding butterflies include the Large copper (Lycaena dispar), which spreads at the same rate and in the same direction as the mantis, Great banded grayling (Brinthesia circe) and the Scarce swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius).

“Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most calamitous and fragile of all creatures is man, and at the same time the proudest. He goes installing himself in his imagination that he makes himself God´s equal, that he ascribes himself divine attributes, that he winnows himself and separate himself from the mass of other creatures, determines the share allowed the animals, his colleagues of faculties and powers as seem good to him.”

 (Montaigne, An Apology for Raymond Sebond). 

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.