Ochrana přírody 3/2024 — 26. 6. 2024 — Summary — Tištěná verze článku v pdf
SUMMARY – Ochrana přírody 3/2024
Krása A.: The Aesculapian Snake in the Vltava River Basin
The Aesculapian snake (Zamenis longissimus), the biggest snake in the Czech Republic attracts everybody´s attention at first glance by just its size or climbing skills. For biologists and nature conservationists, history of its findings in the Czech Republic, namely in the Ohře/Eger River Basin, Dyje/Thaya River Basin and in the Bílé Karpaty/White Carpathians Mts. is interesting. Almost every year an individual is found outside the above areas. To identify a new population, repeated findings and survey in suitable habitats are crucial. Specific factors for the snake include a typical river phenomenon, intensive gardening with often mowed grass that produces a lot of composts, livestock breeding with stables and dunghills and various small buildings falling in ruins.
The above patterns were confirmed in the Vltava/Moldau River Basin south of Prague, in area delineated by the Vltava/Moldau River and the village of Krňany and of Třebsín (Central Bohemia). In 2016–2020, more than 100 reports on the occurrence of Aesculapian snakes of all age classes were gathered. Only 26 individuals were directly observed and 18 of them were captured. The findings are from both dumps, landfills, composts or small gardens and directly from buildings. In meadows and forests the snakes were almost missing. From some shaded skins and dead individuals found, samples were taken for further DNA analysis. ■
Bílý M. & Stuchlíková L.: Landscape Policy of the Czech Republic
In the Czech Republic, there are many both international and international policy, strategic and other documents aiming at both nature conservation and landscape protection. Demand for the so-called landscape planning has been for a long time clear. Reforming activities in the Czech National Recovery Plan – developing the strategic document called Landscape Policy was approved by the Government of the Czech Republic by Resolution No. 437 of 14 June 2023. Intensive development of the document started at the beginning of 2024. For elaborating background documents, six expert groups were established (Biodiversity, Water, Forestry, Agriculture, Human settlements and culture, Infrastructure).
The Landscape Policy does not aim at introducing new tools for landscape planning but rather at setting priority requirements of the landscape and at assessing already existing tools to reach them. The Policy should be immediately complemented by landscape planning methodology. The Landscape Policy has to be developed in inter-sectorial cooperation because conservation and protection of current naturally resistant and resilient water and terrestrial ecosystems and restoration of them provide a key to reduce the Czech Republic´s landscape vulnerability and its economical use. ■
Pešout P.: Ecologically Significant Elements (Landscape Elements) as a Part of an Ecological Network
In the Czech Republic, a part of landscape elements in farmland, i.e. greenery outside forests, rock outcrops or wetlands, are defined by Act No. 252/1997 Gazette on Agriculture as the so-called Ecologically Significant Elements (ESE). The specific ESE types are listed in Government´s Decree No. 307/2014 Gazette. Based on a proposal from the respective land manager, ESEs are registered by the State Agricultural Intervention Fund. Pursuant to the Act, there are no explicit duty for a land manager or a land owner to protect or conserve ESEs. Moreover, they are protected against degradation or destruction within basic conditions that should be respected to receive Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subventions/subsidies.
Most of ESEs are landscape elements which according to the Territorial System of Ecological Stability (TSES) methodology, a multilevel national ecological network in the Czech Republic, can be classified as interactive elements. They are important semi-natural habitats of wild plants, animals and other organisms. For fully using the ESE potential, they should be included into the agricultural plot area for direct payments (not only) within the CAP, ESE registration by farmers themselves should be extended (motivation is releasing from the property tax payment) and methodologies for specific ESE management should be developed the latter having been under preparation by the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic. ■
Šindelář J.: Koněpruské jeskyně/Koněprusy Caves Scanning
In underground space 3D scanning a joint project called characteristically the Koněpruské jeskyně/Koněprusy Caves 3D scanning was carried out jointly by Geo-cz and the Cave Administration of the Czech Republic in 2023. A substantive part of upper and middle floor of the Koněpruské jeskyně/Koněprusy Caves (Central Bohemia) was scanned by terrestrial laser scanners made by Faro and Trimble companies. At the same time, data provided by spheric videogrammetry were also gathered there. After completing an accuracy test it can be stated that spheric videogrammetry at fixed values of the elements is an accurate enough, detailed, very quick and low-cost method. Therefore, it was consequently applied in documenting all hardly accessible sites in the Koněpruské jeskyně/Koněprusy Caves. A lower floor of the Koněpruské jeskyně/Koněprusy Caves consists of 360 meters of abysses and corridors of very small size, which should be crawled. Checking accuracy of the low floor scanning is through points locked on the surface close to an entry into underground space and location of the chimney in the southernmost part that was locked from the surface in the second half of the 20th century. During only five days, parts of the Koněpruské jeskyně/Koněprusy Caves having been known yet were scanned. In total, 200 meters of the upper floor, 1,700 meters of the middle floor and 350 meters of the lower floor were documented. ■
Havelka J.: Owls in the Brdy Highlands Protected Landscape Area
Extensive Norway spruce stands with dispersed hollow trees in the Brdy Highlands Protected Landscape Area (Central Bohemia) offer suitable conditions for occurrence of rare boreal owl species – the Boreal owl, also known as the Tengmalm´s owl (Aegolius funereus) and the Eurasian pygmy owl (Glaucidium passerinum). Moreover, the conditions have significantly changed by extensive salvage cutting there. The study presented aimed at response of both owl species to the changes. The owls´ occurrence was examined by acoustic monitoring using automatic recorders in the period of their highest acoustic activity. In total 402 records made across 235 km2 of the area were analysed.
Boreal owl territory density was estimated at 2–4/10 km2 (53–83 territories) while for the Eurasian pygmy owl it was 1.3–2/10 km2 (32–57). From a point of view occurrence of the above species, the Brdy Highlands are a significant area. Based on the findings, future of the Boreal owl that prefers open clearings for foraging for prey is not significantly threatened by salvage cutting there. On the other hand, the Eurasian pygmy owl avoids the clearings. Therefore, it is important to monitor the owls also in other areas with similar environmental conditions. ■
A heath in the Brdy Highlands Protected Landscape Area (Central Bohemia). Photo Jan Havelka
Janík T. & Romportl D.: Landscape Changes in the Specially Protected Areas in the Past 70 years
Within the Landscape Monitoring project changes in land cover and physical anthropogenic structure in Protected Landscape Areas, National Parks and selected Natura 2000 sites in the Czech Republic were studied in four time-horizons, namely in the years of 1950, 1990, 2004 and 2020. Generally, forest cover has been increasing as well as built-up area and permanent grasslands that mostly replace arable land. Among areas, there are more stable, usually forested ones without significant changes in the past 70 years; on the contrary, those with lower proportion of forest underwent significant changes more often. Similarly, anthropogenic structures have been growing unevenly – built-up areas were increasing most sharply in the vicinity of cities, the length of roads has been stagnating or increasing mostly in forested areas; roads were vanishing in farmland due to collectivization. Recreation areas are located in mountain areas (downhill skiing) or towns, cities or other sites attractive for tourists (golf courses).
Havel P.: Czech National Nature Restoration Plan
Since the European Commission presented proposal for a European Union´s regulation on nature restoration (Nature Restoration Law, NRL) almost two years have passed. During that time, a compromise on the NRL´s content was finally reached. In the case of natural habitats, it includes exception allowing to reduce nature restoration targets in common types of natural habitats or in recreated natural habitats. The provision on pollinator population recovery was also changed, namely in relation to the extent of obligatory monitoring. Consensus on restoration of agricultural ecosystems offers a possibility to select two of three indicators, in the case of forest ecosystems six from seven indicators given by the NRL. There is no duty for the EU Member States to change financing from the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fishery Policy for 2021–2027 when implementing the NRL through National Nature Restoration Plans (NNRP).
The last necessary step is approving the proposal on the NRL by the Council of the European Union. Consequently, a key tool is NNRPs allowing the Member States when applying the NRL to take into account specific natural and socio-economic conditions, to set priorities and activities in nature restoration and to quantify them.
Kosejk J.: Impact of Changes in the Building Act on State/Public Administration Performance in Specially Protected Areas
In 2024, Building Act recodification introducing an issuing the Unified Environmental Permission (UEP) does not include Specially Protected Areas and Natura 2000 sites in the Czech Republic. In these areas, the respective State Nature Conservancy authorities (SNCA) integrated under the UEP issue the so-called SNCA joint decision in which they assess the intention requiring the UEP from a point of view of all interests. Moreover, since July 2024 the legislative changes shall cause an extreme increase in workload in Specially Protected Area Administration staff that should be urgently reduced by a set of various measures.
Therefore, the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic (NCA CR) has initiated a set of legislative, methodological and administrative measures to reduce a bureaucratic load within the Building Act implementation in National Parks and Protected Landscape Areas. From a long-term point of view, it aims at actively influencing planning documentation developers in National Parks and Protected Landscape Areas to elaborate land-use/territorial plans with the given regulatory elements or regulatory plans. For planning documentation developers, the NCA CR has been preparing financial incentives from subvention programmes/subsidy schemes for the activities.
Cape buffalos (Syncerus c. caffer) are among the so-called Big Five of Africa. Photo Jan Plesník
Loučková B., Tichopádová E., Stella D., Drlíková J., Martinovská A., Zvěřinová S. & Vačkářová D.: Participatory Ecosystem Service Assessment
One of the ways how to present to the society importance of benefits provided by nature not only for human life, but also for society well-being and economy is their assessment – identification and quantification. Within the EU LIFE project One Nature the authors organized a series of participatory workshops in three Protected Landscape Areas (PLAs) in the Czech Republic, namely Třeboňsko/Třeboň Basin, Křivoklátsko and Slavkovský les/Slavkov Forest Mts. in 2022–2024.
In each PLA four workshops were held aiming at assessing significant nature´s contributions to people and their mutual relationships by socio-cultural assessment. During a group discussion, the participants selected relevant nature´s contributions for the given area and consequently they placed the contributions on four-grade scale according to importance of its occurrence. In a further step, in the most important nature´s contributions the extent of their providing by the individual ecosystem types at the sites was assessed. Data from matrixes describing the relationship among the most significant ecosystem services were then analysed and cartographically visualized through ecosystem service hot spot and cold spot maps in all the three PLAs. ■
Ambrozek L., Strnad R. & Kalábková J.: The Hodonínské dúbravy/Hodonín Oak Groves House of Nature
Pannonian oak forests on sand. This is a title of unique habitat of oak groves that have been preserved north of the town of Hodonín (South Moravia) covering some hundreds of hectares. Extraordinary geological conditions and centuries of using them by humans resulted in remarkable species diversity. Rather paradoxically, species that elsewhere occur in steppes and meadows are the main target of nature protection, conservation and management there. At present, the growths are a EU Natura 2000 network site, the most valuable parts have been specially protected as National Nature Monument (NNM) since 2014.
On 1 June, 2024 the Hodonínské dúbravy/Hodonín Oak Groves House of Nature was launched in the town of Hodonín. The building the House was initiated by the town of Hodoním in cooperation with the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic and Moravské naftové doly/Moravian Oil Mines. From the entrance, visitors can follow a red trail marker to groves within the NNM. Southern part of the Hodonín Oak Groves, currently a periurban forest park, an extraordinary space for learning and recreation of residents and visitors adjoins nearby Hodonín Zoological Garden. Therefore, it combines not only extraordinary natural values, but also sport and leisure time elements. ■
A lot of the Hodonínské dúbravy/Hodonín Oak Groves House of Nature with a model of the forest.
Photo Jan Habětín
Plesník J. & Pelc F.: Nairobi National Park – Nature versus Transport Infrastructure
Nairobi National Park was established in 1946 and is located about 7 km south of the Kenyan capital´s centre. Therefore, it is called The World’s only Wildlife Capital. The protected area covers an area of 117.21 km2 and is small in comparison to most of Africa’s national parks. It is fenced on three sides, whereas the open southern boundary allows migrating wildlife to move between the park and the adjacent Kitengela plains. Herbivores gather in the park during the dry season. Wide open grass plains and backdrop of the city scrapers, scattered acacia bush play host to a wide variety of wildlife. Among others, lions (Panthera leo), leopards (Panthera pardus), cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta), African buffaloes (Syncerus caffer), Masai giraffes (Giraffa tippelskirchi) and diverse birdlife with over 400 species recorded can be watched there. The oldest Kenya´s national park is one of the most important refugia for rhinos worldwide: it is a home to the highest destiny of the critically endangered Black rhino (Diceros bicornis) in Kenya, while the Southern white rhino (Ceratotherium s. simum) was successfully introduced there.
Currently, the Standard Gauge Railway connecting Mombasa and Kampala passes through the core of the iconic park by a single line bridge 18 meters above the ground, reaching 6 kilometres in length, thus significantly disturbing the landscape character/scenery there. Any options that bypassed the park completely were not considered at all. The project sets a bad precedent that will not affect only all of Kenya´s protected areas but also other African countries who look up to Kenya as a positive role model for wildlife preservation and environmental protection. ■
- - - -
Úvodní foto: An example of the suitably managed farmland with environmental elements.
Photo Linda Stuchlíková
- - - -