Acta Technica Corviniensis

ACTA TECHNICA CORVINIENSIS – BULLETIN of ENGINEERINGgroups. Culturally, the Carpathians are steepedin age-old traditions and marked by peopleswho have shared climate, hardships and a senseof isolation.The people of the Carpathians have made theirliving by grazing on mountain pastures andcultivating fields in river valleys for generations.Historically, mountain shepherding has beenone of the most important elements ofCarpathian culture. Shepherds and their flockscan still be encountered in the CarpathianMountains of Poland and Slovakia, and arecommon in the mountainous areas of Ukraineand Romania.Much of the Carpathians escaped agriculturalcollectivization under Communism thanks totheir relatively poor value for agriculture. As aresult, private ownership remained the rulerather than the exception across much of theregion. Agriculture went into a tailspin n theearly 1990s following the fall of Communistregimes and the move to a more free-marketsystem. The removal of agricultural subsidies,introduction of competition through freemarket reforms and resulting recession in theCarpathian countries has caused a significantdecline in agricultural employment and ruralincomes. The result has been the depopulationof rural areas, emigration of younger people insearch of work, and consequent aging of thepopulation remaining in rural areas. Traditionalforms of land use and lifestyles are being lost,with important consequences for biodiversity,including e.g. flowering meadow ecosystems, aswell as the continuity of cultural traditions andrural communities.Restitution and privatisation of forest areas hasbecome a major challenge for conservation inthe Carpathians. Forest land which wasnationalised by the Communist regimes after1945 has been steadily handed back to itsprevious owners. This process has beencompleted in Slovakia, Czech Republic andPoland, and is currently underway in Romania,but is not planned in Ukraine where most of theformer owners are dead and relevantdocuments are lost. Either of necessity orinterest, many of the new land and forestowners have put short-term over long-term gain,and are either over-exploiting their newresources or selling them off with little regard forexisting legislation governing the use andsustainability of these resources. As a result, landand forest restitution has led to the rapiddeterioration of land and forest resources thatuntil recently has been relatively well managedor even protected. Indeed, the side effects ofrestituting land and forest resources pose amajor threat to many protected areas in theCarpathian Ecoregion.Alternative activities enabling sustainablelivelihoods in the Carpathian Mountains forexample through ‘green’ businesses like ecotourism,organic farming and water bottling arein progress but are still not developed enough topresent a clear and attractive alternative. What isclear, however, is that the agricultural andforestry sector remains a vital part of life in theCarpathians and can provide a secure andprofitable basis for the regional economy.The key challenge for people, communities aswell as biodiversity and natural resources of theregion is to find a sustainable path fordevelopment, one which secures improvedquality of life while holding onto the prodigiousnatural, cultural and social wealth of the region.In many ways, the Carpathian Ecoregion standsat a crossroads between long-term sustainabledevelopment on the one hand; and followingthe unsustainable path already experience bymany other parts of Europe and the world,including the gradual erosion of its biologicalwealth, on the other.EXISTING PROTECTED AREAS – THE MOSTIMPORTANT TOOL FOR MAINTAINING THEFEATURES OF THE CARPATHIANSProtected areas are, or should be on of the mostefficient ways to maintain the exceptionalbiodiversity and landscape values of theCarpathian Mountains. Currently there are 285protected areas (see map above) in theCarpathians, covering 13% 1 of the region, withthe northwest of the Carpathians moreeffectively covered and managed than thesoutheast part.In the new EU member states (CZ, HU, PL, SKand RO), the designation of PAs according to theEU Habitat and Bird Directives, as part of theNatura 2000 network and CBD is quite advanced,but still not sufficient. In Romania, thedesignation process is being continued now withthe designation of future Natura 2000 sites and1 PROTECTED AREAS LARGER THAN 1000 HA2008/ACTA TECHNICA CORVINIENSIS/Tome I 17