Rila Monastery Nature Park Management Plan - part - usaid

February 2004
2.0 Threats and limitations
The threats listed below have been identified and confirmed through observations by
the teams who performed the rapid ecological and the rapid landscape assessments as
well as the sociological survey in summer 2001; they were determined on the basis of
recorded activities and practices, and findings regarding impacts. The present
subsection deals with the existing territory of Rila Monastery Nature Park, as well as
with some potential territory. Their significance is also determined, on the basis of
expert assessments, in terms of intensity: critical, high, medium, or low; and in some
cases qualified as: potential, local, affecting certain species, or insufficiently studied.
Also stated in the assessments is the estimated significance of each threat for the Park
at present, based on their actual occurrences during the period under review, as well
as their potential impact.
Part of the described threats affects to a greater extent the facilities and territories in
Rila Monastery settlement and the territory neighboring the park on the west. These
threats are described here, because of their direct or indirect influence on the Park’s
territory and goals.
2.1 Natural threats
Climate changes
The decline in precipitation and the tendency toward drought observed over the past
decade has also affected the Park territory, notably the hygrophilic plant habitats and
aquatic or moisture-loving animals, as well as, on the whole, habitats situated along
river banks, lake shores, peat bogs, marshes and other types of wetlands. As a result
of a series of severe droughts during the period following 1982, there have been
negative consequences for the mixed spruce-cum-fir forests, during which there was a
tendency of the common fir and Scots pine to wither and die. Most visible are the
changes occurring in the composition of the vegetation cover with a tendency towards
an increase in areas occupied by plants adapted to dry conditions. Any further drying
of the climate would have an extremely negative impact on the biodiversity of species
and habitats within the Nature Park.
Significance: potentially high
The Chamaecytisus absinthiodes invasion
The tendency, observed at many locations in the Park, for herbaceous cenoses to
become overgrown with Chamaecytisus absinthiodes constitutes a threat to a number
of elements of the Park’s biological diversity and conservation significance. The
extent of this invading plant’s spread throughout the territory is shown by the fact that
it has been identified in 50% of all surveyed areas, replacing a number of local
species and altering the cenotic make-up of the local vegetation. Shrub communities
of Chamaecytisus absinthiodes cause the disappearance of natural herbaceous
cenoses and communities of Festuca valida and Calamagrostis arundinacea
Rila Monastery Nature Park
Management Plan - Draft
2004 - 2013
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