Korytarze ekologiczne w województwie œl¹skim - Instytut Biologii ...

J. B. Parusel i in.
Ecological corridors in the voivodship of Silesia – a concept to be
included in the regional land development plan
Jerzy B. PARUSEL, Katarzyna SKOWROÑSKA, Agnieszka WOWER
Summary
The voivodship of Silesia is unusually – on a national and European scale – fragmented with
municipal and industrial buildings and transportation infrastructure. Also, it is a place of the
occurrence of endemic, rare and endangered species and natural habitats. Therefore, the conservation
of ecological connectivity is a very important issue requiring to be included in the process of spatial
planning and land development on all levels of administration. The idea of ecological corridors
appeared in planning documents of the voivodship of Silesia in the mid-1970s, when the concept of
Ecological System of Protected Areas was developed. However, a survey of planning documents
indicates that the need for the conservation and reconstruction of spatial continuity of open green
areas within the Upper Silesia Industrial Region was seen as early as in the 1950s. In the land
development plan of the Silesian voivodship currently in force (2004) ecological corridors are
admittedly included in a diagnostic part and in the objectives, but too general scope of the plan and
the lack of guidelines as to the protection, shaping, reconstruction, and enhancement of ecological
corridors calls for more detailed and interdisciplinary studies. In 2006, the Department for Strategic
and Spatial Planning of the Marshal’s Office of the voivodship of Silesia approved the performance of
the said task, the first stage of which, the Centre for the Upper Silesia Heritage of Nature, was
implemented in 2007. Ecological corridors were identified and demarcated based on the analysis of
spatial use, both of land, waters and air, by vertebrates. Due to different exploitation of nature,
resulting from the biology of individual animal groups, corridors for fish, amphibians and reptiles,
birds, and mammals were described separately. On the basis of an analysis of the distribution of
territories subject to legal protection, corridors for the connectivity of protected areas have been also
demarcated. The authors of the study identified and demarcated in the Silesian voivodship: (a) 26
ichthyological corridors of the total length of 3923.4 km, (b) 21 herpetologic corridors and steeping
stones of a surface area of 5338 km 2 , (c) 15 ornithological corridors and 18 steeping stone of the total
surface area of 5356 km 2 , (d) 12 corridors for large carnivores and 25 corridors for ungulates of the
total surface area of 7531 km 2 , (e) 46 corridors for the connectivity of protected areas of the total
surface area of 763.8 km 2 . If we consider the rank of the corridors, 62 corridors and steeping stones of
supra-regional (including international) significance and 55 corridors of regional significance have
been identified. The second stage of the preparation works involves an analysis of communal planning
documents, social consultations and the introduction of ecological corridors demarcated into the land
development plans of the region.
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