Kulér-Summary

Ochrana přírody 6/2022 — 17. 12. 2022 — Kulér-Summary — Tištěná verze článku v pdf

SUMMARY 06/2022

Pešout P. & Šíma J.: What Does the European Union’s Nature Restoration Law Mean for Nature Restoration in the Czech Republic?

On 22 June 2022, the European Commission published a proposal of the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on nature resto- ration as a key legislative tool for the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 implementation and as a pillar of the European Green Deal. The Regulation does not aim at restoring ecological functions in natural habitats only, but also in the landscape as a whole, groups of ecosystems of farmland, cities, forests, watercourses or on habitats important for pollinators. Most measures do not focus on specially protected parts of nature, but on the landscape managed and inhabited by humans. It is clear that without total improvement in the state of farmland/agroecosystems, forests and water ecosystems, without changes in approaches in land-use/territorial planning the targets simply cannot be reached. In freshwater ecosystems, there is e.g. a commitment that at least 25,000 km of negatively affected rivers will be restored into free-flowing rivers by 2030 through the removal of primarily obsolete barriers and the restoration of floodplains and wetlands. For forests, the Regulation assigns to EU Member States to enhance diversity/heterogeneity in their species, age and spatial structure aiming at increasing their quality, resilience/resistance and biological diversity. The Regulation’s cornerstone is developing the National Nature Restoration Plan of the Czech Republic: to meet its goals and targets, it will be necessary to ensure appropriate financial support through adapting both EU and national financial tools. In addition, monitoring schemes have to be complemented and after it will be debated, changes in the Regulation itself should be expected.    ■

Čamská K.: Shall It Be Necessary to Enhance a New Common Agricultural Policy?

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a key tool for ensuring sustainable landscape and biodiversity managed linked to agricultural land within the European Union. The just completed draft CAP for the period 2023-2027 is confronted with that of the Nature Restoration Law. The latter is based on specific objectives for grassland habitats that fall within the scope of Directive 92/43/EEC on the protection of natural habitats, wild animals and wild plants, commonly known as the Habitats Directive. It requires the introduction of such measures on agro-eco- systems, so that it manifests itself in a change in the trend in the status of insects, birds and soil from negative to positive.    ■

Hofmeister J. & Svoboda M.: What Does the European Union’s Nature Restoration Law Mean for Forests in the Czech Republic?

The EU Nature Restoration Law sets an ambitious and highly demanding, but if fully implemented effective target to carry out measures to improve the state in natural habitats by 2050 everywhere where necessary, i.e. in all ecosystems in need of restoration, but by 2030 at least on 20% of the European Union’s land and sea areas. If nature should be really restored within the EU, a way the Regulation is implemented is of the utmost importance. Not only in forests but particularly there we should employ creative forces of nature when at the same time reasonably applying management approach. If we are able to establish a functioning network of forest habitats on the landscape level or even better on sub-national one open to impacts of natural disturbances and more comprehensive food webs the latter including large herbivores as well as their predators, we will be surprised that huge proportion of workload in specific open forest space management can be done just by nature itself instead of humans. Thus, nature conservation effort could be more focused on spatially small and in the cultural landscape isolated sites having been left out of reach of positive effects of restored forest ecosystems.    ■

Knižátková E. & Havel P.: The National Commitment to Increase the Coverage and to Improve the State of Protected Areas in the Czech Republic

Similarly to other European Union Member States, the Czech Republic should present a particular proposal how to increase the coverage as well as protection and management intensity in protected areas by the end of 2022. The task is included in the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 which considers effectively managed protected areas as one of the key tools to halt biodiversity decline and loss and which aims at protecting 30 % of the EU’s land, a third of it strictly. Contributions of individual EU Member States should take into account different conditions and reflect their real importance for biodiversity conservation. What can be in the above time period offered feasibly by the Czech Republic has been debated by experts. Moreover, it has been more and more clear that biodiversity decline and loss cannot be halted by protected areas only and the efforts should also by targeted on the landscape outside protected areas (the non-protected landscape) aiming also at its restoration. Both efforts should reasonably complement each other: for this purpose, the new EU initiative provides a quite good background.    ■

Kujanová K. & Marek P.: Will the European Union’s Regulation on Nature Restoration Match Water Framework Directive Unmatched Ambitions?

The Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a frame- work for Community action in the field of water policy, hereinafter WFD) has been implemented in the Czech Republic more than two decades. Nevertheless, the implementation has been very slow providing only minimal impacts on improving the state of waters as a whole. The proposed Nature Restoration Law published by the European Commission on 22 June 2022 offers a new challenge to really meet the particular targets within free-flowing watercourses. Moreover it has been a question whether the EU Member States are even when making every effort able to honour a joint commitment to restore 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers. Based on the experience raised during improving morphological state of watercourses and removing barriers in the Czech Republic during the past 30 years, it is clear that due to the recent and current rates the Czech Republic will not be able to match its fair commitment, even just formally. If the Czech Republic should be able to match the fair part of the commitment to restore free-flowing rivers, in addition to significantly increased effort to implement the measures more attention has to be paid to prepare an infrastructure for applying the Regulation in the field and to positively motivate the general public. Nevertheless, cooperation among various sectors and responsible involvement of all the institutions and components dealing in practice with water ecosystem management is a fundamental precondition of the Regulation’s successful implementation across the country.    ■

Just T.: Have We Been Prepared to Use of Benefits of Floods for Improving the State of Watercourses in the Czech Republic?

Floods occurred in the Czech Republic in 1997 and 2022 made difficulties nobody had been prepared to face and most people involved in their mitigation did their best. Definitely it was possible to do a lot of issues better, inter alia, during controlling damages caused on watercourses by the floods. The devastating floodings offered also lessons learnt from involvement of the State Nature Conservancy authorities which can help to avoid doing useless and harmful steps, and on the contrary some positive aspects of floods can be used. Based on knowledge from the past floods e.g. it is clear that riparian woody plant growths had been often accused of causing the disaster: therefore, they were consequently cut. Positive functions of the growths, e.g. buffering overbank flows or capturing the material brought by flood waves particularly outside built-up areas were ignored. Therefore, a two-step assessment is needed because it allows distinguish what is a real damage and what to some extent accepted changes. Applying reasonable approach, flood damages can be a useful tool for restoring the natural state in the selected watercourses.    ■

Vačkářová D.: The National Platform on Ecosystem Services in International Context of Nature Conservation and Restoration

A founding meeting of the National Platform on Ecosystem Services was held within the framework of the integrated LIFE project One Nature in Prague in October 2022. Its establishment reflects a long-term development in ecosystem service assessment both in the Czech Republic and abroad. At present we witness shifts in nature conservation goals and ways which has been increasingly including ecosystem services, na- ture’s contributions to people and in a broader context nature’s values. The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Strategic Vision speaks on living in harmony with nature by 2050, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 on bringing nature back into our lives. Therefore, the National Platform on Ecosystem Services’ goal is to support science-policy interface dialogue in the field of ecosystem services. Assessment of ecosystems and services they provide is defined as a social process through which the findings of science concerning the causes of ecosystem change, their consequences for human well-being, and the management and policy options are evaluated (Allison & Brown 2017). The approach requires a coordinated discussion among scientists, politicians, decision-makers and other key stakeholders.    ■

Rozsypálek J., Polochová V., Bábek J., Javorský D., Prouza M., Martinek P. & Klečka J.: Knowledge on Possibilities How to Inhibit Expansive Growths of the European Mistletoe

In the Czech Republic, expansive spreading of the hemiparasite European mistletoe (Viscum album) has becoming a huge issue of national importance not only for woody plants growing outside forests, but also for forest stands themselves. The greatest trouble is caused by the fact that the evergreen shrub infests a lot of important broad-leaved deciduous and conifer woody plant species. Although the initial dam- age caused to a host woody plants is rather negligible (chronic), European mistletoe spreading should not be underestimated. Due to very rapid to expansive spreading, after five to ten years since the appearance of the first little shrubs the mistletoe becomes a pathogenic agent causing acute dying of hundreds to thousands of woody plants. The most effective defence has been proved to be prevention against and early treatment of mistletoes, as long as its distribution has not been covered continuously an area but has been localised at a few trees only. Comparing effectiveness of mechanical and chemical eradication of mistletoe is very difficult and their application in the field depends on the current state of the respective woody plant and the intensity of infestation. In medium infested trees, combination of mechanical (periphery and thin branches of a tree) and chemical (where it is not possible to remove the parasite by a cut) treatment should be applied. In medium heavily infested trees with decreased vitality chemical treatment should be preferred while in heavily infested trees, if they are not veteran/ memorial or otherwise important trees, it is suitable to remove of the respective woody plant.    ■

Zajíček P.: An Unexpected Discovery in the Kateřina Cave

The Old Kateřina Cave (the Moravský kras/Moravian Karst, South Moravia) has been known and visited since the prehistoric times. It is ev- idenced by recently found and dated carbon drawing traces on walls inside the cave. Results of probes carried out close to the prehistoric drawings revealed a finding which could be expected only by hardly anybody. Artefacts found there show that there was a secret money counterfeiting workshop within the Old Kateřina Cave dated by archaeologists back to the late 14th century or the early 15th century. A dis- covery of a few prehistoric shards younger than the late Neolithic drawings documented at some sites in the Old Kateřina Cave should also be mentioned. Due to the fact that another carbon drawing was dated back to the Hallstatt Period it is clear that the Kateřina Cave has been visited regularly and often since the late Neolithic Period, i.e. in the Neolithic period itself, the Bronze Age, the Hallstatt Period and since the early Middle Ages.    ■

Mantle G.: 60 Years of Nature Conservation and Restoration in Wiltshire, the United Kingdom

In late July 2022 representatives of the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic visited the United Kingdom, namely Wiltshire Wildlife Trust (WWT). The WWT was set up in 1962 and many of the founding members were landowners and farmers who were alarmed by the industrialisation of agriculture and the widespread use of pesticides. The first area purchased in 1970 was a small meadow in the upper reaches of the River Thames, where there remained an abundance of the Snake’s head fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris), with over half the plants having white flowers rather than the typical purple colour. The WWT has since created 42 nature reserves, covering over 1,200 hwec- tares, representing some of the best wildlife habitat found in the county. Each nature reserve has free public access. Since 2000, knowledge gathered in the Bílé Karpaty/White Carpathians Mts. repeatedly visited by Wildlife Trusts leaders was awe-inspiring for all the Wildlife Trusts in the U.K. In addition to successful meadow restoration, in the past 20 years, the Trust’s water team have tackled 110 projects, restoring over 60 kilometres of rivers.    ■