Wilderness

National Park status threatened in the Tatra, Slovakia

Based on translation on topky.sk

There are more and more evidences that short-term financial interest overrides biodiversity and Wilderness protection across Europe! In a recent news, the Tatra National Park (aka TANAP) in Slovakia is threatened to lose its national park status (IUCN category II) due to the various unsustainable investments inside the park.

The key question is whether the Slovakian authorities can still force the IUCN criteria in order to classify  Tatra National Park as a real national park defined by IUCN

Andrej Sovinc
European chair of IUCN’s Word Commission on Protected Areas

The European Wilderness Society is really concerned that unsustainable development projects threaten existing protected areas across Europe. The TANAP is only one of the examples, but a similar process can be seen in the Sumava National Park in Czech Republic.

The full article is available here in Slovakian

4 thoughts on “National Park status threatened in the Tatra, Slovakia

  • Do I understand this right? The Tatras National Park as a whole might lose its status as a park because there is so much incompatible activity going on inside the park? This would be tragic and stupid.

  • Dear Zoltan,

    Thank you for your offer to share a story with you – I’ve sent you an e-mail.

  • dear Stela,
    We should not let this happen in Bulgaria or in any other country. If you have a story to share with us, or any news which you think our society must promote, please let us know.
    Let’s join forces to save Europe’s wilderness places for present and – more importantly – future generations.
    Zoltan

  • I’d like to add another example of a National Park in Europe threaten from unsustainable development – Rila National Park. There is mega project for ski facilities. One of the facilities is already fact – a lift in the park leading enormous number of tourists to the Seven Rila lakes. Thus “the eyes of Rila” will soon and easily be transformed to swamps. The Commission was informed about it before the construction of the lift in 2009. Till today it only observes what’s going on although it received enough evidences that with the construction of the lift the tourists increased in number and processes of swamping occurred and accelerate. I don’t like this trend. Will EC forget about the term “sustainable development”?! Will we allow it?

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