JUDr. RNDr. Jaroslav Chyba, DrSc.
Povodí Moravy, s.p. Brno, Czech Republic

 

 

Some negative experience

in the protection of nature and landscape

 

I.                    Introduction

Conservation of nature and landscape as a part of environment protection has become a major challenge to the mankind since the end of the World War II. International treaties and conventions have been concluded, both on world-wide and European level, the most important of which are the Bern convention (wildlife protection, 1979), the Ramsar convention (protection of wetlands, 1971), the Bonn convention (protection of migrating animals, 1979), the Espoo convention  (activities exceeding State frontiers, 1991), the Aarhus convention (information and public participation in environmental matters, 1998).

Environmental activities are generally highly appreciated. However, there exist negative effects which have been widely neglected up to now. Some specific examples of destruction of the environment will be given in the following text and an attempt is made to draw some general conclusions.

 

 

II.                  Landscape preservation

 

The method of non-intervention is still considered as the best tool of keeping the landscape in natural condition. However, this principle works well only on a large scale, both in time and space. In populated areas, as e.g. in Middle Europe, the system of non-intervention may cause disasters.

 

A case history: the National Park  of Šumava (Czech Republic)

In the middle of the nineties, bark-beetles attacked massively the forests in the Czech Republic. In most cases, the attack was stopped by cutting ill trees, killing the beetles by chemical substances and removing the logs from the forests. However, environmental NGOs opposed this procedure saying that no intervention was allowed in the National Park. The dispute of several months resulted in the decision of the Environment Ministery: the Director of the National Park was deposed, the management was changed and any intervention was stopped, thus giving free way to the natural factors (including the bark-beetle). As a result, there is now a dead forest on more than 60 km2, with dry trees, no birds and very little hope to re-establish green forest within the next two or three generations.

 

 

 

A case history: The National Park of High Tatra (Slovakia)

In November 2004, the forest was destroyed by a hurricane on a large territory in the High Tatra mountains. Environmental NGOs and administrative bodies from many countries offered their help. However, the help has been stopped and the NGOs protested as soon as the Slovak authorities ordered to remove the fallen trees from the forest. The point was identical with the Šumava National Park: no human intervention was allowed in the strictly protected territory, the Nature should live without disturbance. Since that time, fires have occured regularly. In July 2005, 2 km2 burt up, the fire reached up to the town of Polianka. There would have been less damage if the fallen trees had been removed and the access was free for firemen, but environmental NGOs and similar bodies insisted on non-intervention.

 

 

III.                Wildlife preservation

 

Endangered species of animals are protected under international treaties, which have been incorporated in the Czech national Nature and Landscape Conservation Act. The choice of endangered species has been performed on the world-wide scale. It has not been taken into account that some animals may be rare on the average, but highly concentrated in some regions. In such cases, the high concentration may cause damage or even disasters, because there are no predators, reducing the number of protected animals, and the hunting is forbidden by law.

 

A case history: The European beaver (castor fiber)

Beavers disappeared from South-East Moravia by the end of the nineteenth century. One hundred years later, in 1975, one beaver was seen on the Dyje river, above the confluence with Morava. Ten years later, in the eighties, beavers became a real problem. They have caused considerable damages on trees (Fig.1), which implies not only economic losses, but also the destruction of nests of endangered birds, e.g. the royal eagle. Damages have been caused to dams protecting settlements against flood (Fig.2).

 

Fig. 1

 

Fig. 2

 

The historic park of Lednice, which is under protection of UNESCO, has been almost destroyed. Recently, the number of beavers in the forests on the confluence of Dyje and Morava has been evaluated to some 600 animals on 45 km2. The economic losses have been evaluated to some 3,6 million Kč, not including damages caused to dams. The worst thing is that there is no legal defense. It is absolutely forbidden to kill beavers. Some attempts have been made to trap them, yet this is highly ineffective and, moreover, there is hardly any place to which the beavers could be transported. The only solution seems to be a change in legislation: beavers and other animals should be protected in the regions where they are rare, but the hunting should be permitted if they become overpopulated and cause harm to other animals or to the man.

 

 

IV.               Operation and maintenance of mines and water works

Mines, quarries,  dams, water plants and similar constructions cause significant changes in the landscape and the water regime. It is quite correct to impose severe limitations on these activities so as to prevent or minimize all possible damages. However, all possible precautions should be taken before the construction or activity has started. Once the mine, quarry, water plant has been put into operation, any limitation should be imposed only as an extreme exception, granting at the same time a compensation of economic losses.

 

Case history: Weirs on the Bystřička river

There are three weirs on the Bystřička river, East Moravia, Czech Republic. They were built to stabilize the water flow and reduce erosion. Two of the weirs suffered damage from the flood in 1997. The nature preservation authorities opposed the reparation saying that the flow had to be free for fish. The problem is that the authorities are neither qualified nor entitled to find any other technical solution: in fact, in that specific place, no other construction is possible. Since that time, water erosion has proceeded, the landowners have lived in a permanent stress and no reasonable solution seems to be available.

 

A case history: The quarry of Křtiny

In the seventies and eighties, quartzite was exploited in the quarry of Křtiny, some 10 km NE from the town of Brno. The exploitation has been interrupted since the nineties. During that time, the quarry became domicile of salamanders, frogs and other animals. However, the legal position of the place has not changed, all fees have been paid regularly, all security measures have been met etc. Moreover, it is clear that protected plants and animals would never have appeared if there were no quarry. Their occurence was caused by the lake on the bottom together with the rocks of the quarry. However, once protected animals had appeared, any economic activities became impossible. Thus the mining society was punished for having created favourable conditions to the protected animals and plants.

 

V.                 Public participation in environmental decision

Under the Aarhus convention (Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters) members of the public concerned have access to a review procedure before a court of law to challenge the substantive and procedural legality of any decision. To this end, the interest of any non-governmental organization shall be deemed sufficient.

The problem is that the NGOs need not have any special knowledge nor responsability for the result. Their legal position is not strong enough to impose a specific solution, but they are entitled to use all possible remedies against any decision, so any solution is only temporary and still contestable. It should be noted that the „public„ is a fuzzy notion. Not only their aims may change, but also individual groups appear and disappear and it is difficult to reach a reasonable agreement. Many times, appeals and complaints are produced whose only aim is to make the concerned group more visible.

A case history: The lakes of Nové Mlýny

The construction of three artificial lakes on the Dyje river, in South Moravia, has started in 1972. Their purpose is to keep water in the otherwise arid land, to irrigate fields and wineyards and stabilize the flow. Other positive effects are e.g. fishing, water sports and use of water energy. NGOs opposed the lakes since the beginning saying that valuable pieces of nature would disappear below the water. As a compromise, the water level was first decreased from 170,60 to 170,35 m. At this moment, other groups required artificial islands so that reptiles and amphibians could get from one side to another. Again, this requirement was met, even though it was necessary to decrease the water level to 169,50m  which caused serious hygienic problems due to a very small remaining volume of water.

In 1994, the middle lake was declared natural reserve as a nesting area of rare water birds. Obviously, the water birds would not nest there if the lakes did not exist. However, the occurence of wild birds became one more point of argument to keep the water level as low as possible. As the last possible compromise, the water level has been kept at 167,00 m, yet the NGOs require 169,50 m, thus the same level, which caused serious harm to the environment. It is difficult to define a legal limit for the participation of various environmental organizations in the decision-making. However, some limit should exist so as to enforce the opinion of local inhabitants against the environmental organizations which do not live in the place. In this specific case, the local inhabitants would agree with keeping the water level as high as possible, but their voice is hardly heard while the NGOs have access to all media and authorities. The situation is still open and several trials have been initiated.

 

VI.               Conclusion

Preservation of the nature has become a political topic, which includes many adverse effects. Many times, problems are produced quite wilfully. This is a pity, since preservation of nature is of course very important for the mankind. The solution may be found emphasizing democratic principles in decision-making, i.e.  more influence in the decision-making process should be granted to the persons and organizations who are directly concerned by the decision. The rate of impact is a point of discussion, the problem could be mathematically described as a cluster analysis on fuzzy sets.

On the other hand, expert decision must be applied whenever the aim may be described by measurable units, e. g. the quality of water.

In the Czech law, priority of the nature preservation is implied by the Nature and Landscape Preservation Act which is declared as a special law relatively to the Building Act, Water Management Act, Forest Act and others. This absolute priority of the nature preservation is very cumbersome in practice (see the beaver case) and it should be replaced by a reasonable equilibrium between the man´s needs and the nature preservation.

The most difficult problem seems to be the fuzzy character of the notion „nature„ itself. Nature involves animals and plants living in a permanent competition and if the list of protected animals and plants is sufficiently large, the administrative bodies and NGOs of all kinds have the playground open to an absolute wilfulness. Any human activity may be classified as doing harm to some piece of nature. Even the non-activity may be harmful, as I have mentioned above (the Šumava case). The legislation should equilibrate the preservation of nature with the protection of the legal status.

JUDr. RNDr. Jaroslav Chyba, DrSc., Povodí Moravy, s.p., Dřevařská 11, 601 75 Brno                                       Phone:  (++420) 541 637 388, e-mail : chyba@povodi.cz