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The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community While the State continues to play a strong role in nature conservation in the Czech Republic, as evidenced by legislation enacted in the post-revolutionary period, 1 a review of history reveals a strong tradition of private conservation. For example, virgin forests in the Novohradské hory and Šumava mountains were declared nature reserves by private land - owners a full century before the State established national parks. Under the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1939), all protected areas were established and owned by private conservation associations, which grew and flourished during this period. A recognition of these historical roots gives our current efforts to promote and develop land stewardship in the Czech Republic a stronger position from which to build public support, as we can draw not only on experience from abroad, but also from our own country. Today, there are 24 Protected Landscape Areas (PLA – Category V) in the Czech Republic, covering an area of 10,274km 2 (13% of the state territory) – all of them typical Central European cultural landscapes. The country’s protected area system also includes four National Parks, as well as Nature Reserves and Biosphere Reserves, all designated on the national level. In addition, designated at the local level, are Protected Areas, Landscape Parks and Registered Landscape Features. The well known Lednice-Valtice Landscape Park was inscribed as a World Heritage Cultural Landscape in 1996. An emerging land trust movement in the Czech Republic brings new methods for preservation of significant parts of the land scape, many of them within or near formally protected areas. Key land conservation challenges in the Czech Republic during the current post-communist period include: i) the abandonment of extensive agricultural practices, leading to loss of landscape diversity and the depopulation of rural areas; ii) uncontrolled sprawl in suburban and recreational areas and along traffic corridors; iii) lack of a pro-active nature conservation policy to respond to new development pressures, resulting in a broadening gap between public opinion and the position of nature conservation authorities; iv) insufficient economic resources for nature conservation (e.g., protected area management, compensation of landowners and acqui si tion of new reserves); v) ongoing restitution of agricultural and forested land; vi) continuing in consistency between agricultural and environmental governmental policies; and vii) limited capacity of NGOs for policy involvement and coordination, while they play an increasingly substantial role in management of protected areas. Influence of the European Union In May 2004, ten countries from Central and Eastern Europe joined the European Union (EU), bringing new energy to what will be a new Europe – reunited for the first time since World War II. Harmonization of national legal systems was a key condition for EU accession. For most of these countries, the nature conservation legislation enacted in the early 1990s holds up well in the context of the EU, as is the case for the Czech Nature Conservation Act of 1992. The EU directive, NATURA 2000, has become an important influence on State nature conservation policies in the accession countries and, to a great extent, is shaping the manage ment of Category V protected landscapes. In the Czech Republic, the main objectives of NATURA 2000 are: 1 For example, the 1992 Act No. 114 on Nature and Landscape Conservation in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. 132
10. Sustaining rural landscapes and building civil society protection of biodiversity by maintaining the most valuable natural sites within the EU territory; protection of strongly endangered botanical and zoological species and natural habitats and maintaining and/or improving these habitats; finding consensus between nature protection and environmentally friendly economic use; and incorporating these valuable natural sites in the Czech Republic into the system of European Natural Heritage. Sites to be included within the NATURA 2000 system will include Protected Landscape Areas, National Parks and Nature Reserves; development plans within these sites must have approved Environmental Impact Assessments. Fostering Land Stewardship in Central Europe Land stewardship has become an increasingly important tool in tackling the challenges of managing protected landscapes in the Czech Republic. Many of the activities described here have been inspired, nurtured and developed with assistance from the Central European Landscape Stewardship programme developed by the Quebec-Labrador Foundation/Atlantic Center for the Environment (QLF), a US-Canadian NGO, and the Environmental Partnership for Central Europe (EPCE). Their integrated programme of fellowships, study-tours, work - shops and technical assistance has involved hundreds of professionals and decision-makers as well as dozens of organizations from North America and Europe (Beckmann, 2000; Brown and Mitchell, 2002). Stewardship is a way of relating to the environment that is as old as human consciousness. It can be defined as efforts to create, nurture and enable responsibility in landowners and resource users to manage and protect land and its natural and cultural heritage (Brown and Mitchell, 2000). Caring for the earth is not new to Central Europe, where much of the landscape and its natural treasures have been shaped by centuries of human settlement. Only relatively recently has the long symbiosis between people and the environment in the region been strained. Since 1989, new techniques for landscape stewardship – many of them first developed in North America – have helped people in Central Europe restore their ties to the earth. Landscape stewardship has provided powerful new tools for preserving landscape and heritage. It has also served as a valuable instrument for rural development and community revitalization. Perhaps most importantly, and somewhat unexpectedly, stewardship has proven effective in fostering a vital civil society in the post-Communist societies of the region (Beckmann, 2000; Mitchell and Brown, 2003). The case of two Protected Landscapes in the Czech Republic Protected Landscapes in the Czech Republic, similar to others in Central Europe, are cultural landscapes, with many important natural and cultural values, including high secondary biodiversity that has been conditioned by centuries of human influence. The two cases presented in this chapter illustrate these characteristics. Both are landscapes in border regions. 133
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IUCN World Commission on Protected
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The Protected Landscape Approach Li
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Dedication This publication is dedi
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The Protected Landscape Approach: L
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Part I Introduction and global over
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3. World Heritage Cultural Landscap
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4. From pre-assumptions to a ‘jus
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13. Protected landscapes and seasca
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Part III The way forward
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Appendix 1 IUCN Protected Area Mana
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Appendix 3 Guidelines for Category
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Appendix 5 Evaluation of Cultural L
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Appendices Country Title of World H
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IUCN - The World Conservation Union
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