This month the annual World Commission on Protected Areas Steering Committee meeting was hosted by the Ministry of the Environment of The Czech Republic and the Krkonoše Mountains National Park Administration. The Czech Republic is one of the few IUCN state members in its statutory region with a long history in protected area designation and management. In this small landlocked country with approximately ten million people there are more than 2,600 nationally designated areas plus 1,100 Natura 2000 sites, covering altogether 22% of the country.  

WCPA and the Czech Ministry of Environment  

IUCN representatives attended several meetings at the Ministry of the Environment on Monday 9th May. Deputy Minister Vladislav Smrž and the Director of Šumava National Park Pavel Hubený discussed the management of the Šumava Park with IUCN: a few years ago, a change in the Park management allowed for unlimited development within the park.  IUCN had contacted the Ministry and suggested a harmonisation of activities in Šumava which would be more in line with its original park objectives. After the change of the Government in 2014, the new director of the national park immediately revised and changed the unsustainable policy to a more sustainable management practise, which was greatly appreciated and supported by the WCPA.    Another important topic discussed was a potential cooperation between the IUCN office in Belgrade (ECARO region) and the Czech Development Agency. The Czech Development Agency supports a significant number of project-based activities in the ECARO region oriented towards the protection of biodiversity. A way of cooperation and information sharing was proposed and agreed. We hope that this will help to use aid in those countries more efficiently and in line with the IUCN approach.   IUCN also offered closer cooperation of the IUCN Brussels office with the Ministry when negotiating relevant issues with the European Commission, support in Natura 2000 implementation, and use of the IUCN Nature Based Solutions.   

Krkonoše national Park  

The major part of the WCPA meeting was hosted by Krkonoše national Park Administration in Vrchlabí town. Krkonoše National Park (NP) together with Polish Karkonosze NP have created a transboundary  protected area. Krkonoše is the highest mountain range in the Czech Republic, but also throughout Central Europe to the north of the Alps. Thanks to this, the area hosts a very unique geo-biodiversity. The park hosts over 6 million annually, belonging to the most visited national parks in the world. Tourism is the main pressure on the park however. How to combine tourism with both natural processes protection and management of traditionally used mountain meadows was presented during field trip to the highest part of the NP.   

Common priorities  

WCPA’s main partner in the Czech Republic as well as in the region is the EUROPARC Federation. It’s the largest European association of protected area managers with almost 400 members in 36 countries. Objectives of both bodies are very similar if not the same. Europe is a quite diverse region with a large portfolio of various national approaches. Thanks to long-term experience and cooperation with members in the majority of European countries, EUROPARC has developed a set of technical products tailor-made to regional conditions. Their aim is to develop or improve technical capacity and cooperation not only among professionals, but also with stakeholders. It means that the WCPA and EUROPARC are very strong partners when it comes to protected areas in Europe.   One of future priorities of mutual cooperation is the implementation of the Green List in Europe. A special workshop on that topic will be held during the EUROPARC annual conference in Switzerland, held in October 2016. This will be an opportunity to explore not only potential, but also regional specifics influencing the process and how to overcome them. Another topic for potential cooperation is systematic cross-border cooperation of protected areas or even countries in biodiversity protection.

The Czech Republic at the Crossroads  

The WCPA Steering Committee meeting helped to rediscover an importance and potential of the IUCN work for Czech nature conservation and hopefully to re-establish active cooperation. One of the results will be inclusion of Nature Based Solutions into future country policies, e.g. climate change and draught mitigation on the one hand, and flood impacts on the other hand.  

Michael Hošek is an elected IUCN Council member from Eastern Europe, North and Central Asia, and an active WCPA member. He also serves as Vice President of the EUROPARC Federation and coordinator of its Central and Eastern Europe section.  These roles allow him to promote relations and capacity development among protected area managers in the whole of Europe. Thanks to his responsibility for the implementation of the EU Nature Directives (incl. Natura 2000 designation) in the Czech Republic between 2005 and 2013, he has been utilising long-term cooperation with the European Commission and participates at the transposition and implementation of nature legislation in the EU candidate and associated countries.