IUCN wants Czechs to protect more Sumava nature

Or else, the Sumava will lose its internationally acknowledged status of a national park, Duha activists said.

In its letter sent to the Sumava National Park (NPS) management, the IUCN criticises the small area devoted to spontaneous nature development within the total NPS area.

At present, it accounts for 13 percent out of the 68,000 hectares of the NPS. According to its plan, the area is to grow to 35 percent by 2057.

This is insufficient, the IUCN wrote.

The NPS management says it is impossible to increase the proportion of the no-intervention zone within the area with 22 inhabited localities.

NPS director Jiri Manek has said the letter was a private correspondence between the NPS and the IUCN.

Manek said he wondered how the letter had appeared in the hands of someone who was neither its addressee nor sender.

Within the IUCN classification of national parks, Sumava is in the category II.

The IUCN argues that the prepared care for the area will not fulfil the criteria for the category.

Then the Sumava would be reclassified within the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and the name of national park would only serve local use, not internationally, the letter said.

"The Krkonose National Park (KRNAP), east Bohemia, is in category V and the Czech Switzerland National Park, north Bohemia, does not have any IUCN category, but still it is a national park," Manek said.

Manek said in 2002, the IUCN recommended that the Sumava character should rather reflect category V, but the NPS preferred IV.

"From the position of director, I believe that a dual categorisation would be ideal for the Sumava. A part of the park should be within the category II and a part within the category IV," Manek said.

"There is an absolutely accurate map of my proposal in which 40 percent of the area is placed in the category II and 60 percent in the category IV," he added.

The IUCN rules demand that 75 percent of national parks' area should be gradually reserved for spontaneous natural development.

In the case of the NPS, IUCN officials have recognised that given its character, 50 percent may be sufficient.

The IUCN uses seven categories, with 1A being for the areas with the strictest protection and VI for the areas allowing some use of natural resources.

Straddling the Czech-German border, the mountain chain is called Sumava on the Czech side and Boehmerwald (Bohemian Forest) in Germany.

The NPS was declared in a part of Sumava in 1991.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz