Nature protection and biodiversity - National Responses (Czech Republic)

Under Act No 114/1992 Gazette on the Protection of Nature and the Landscape, as amended later (hereinafter the Act), there are six categories of Specially Protected Areas. As of 20 May 2010, there are four National Parks, 25 Protected Landscape Areas, 113 National Nature Reserves, 797 Nature Reserves, 107 National Nature Monuments and 1 205 Nature Monuments. In total, 2 251 Specially Protected Areas cover 15.8 % of the country´s territory (click here for more information, CZ version). In addition, there are 41 SPAs and 1 037 SCIs. Both types of designated sites are parts of the Natura 2000 network, covering 12.3 % of the country´s territory. There has been an overlap between the national system of protected areas and the Natura 2000 network: SPAs and PSCIs outside the Specially Protected Areas cover 3.1 % and 3.2 % of the country´s territory respectively (click here for more information).

The nature conservation legislation lists 527 wildlife species or subspecies as specially protected (46 fungi, 436 vascular plants, 147 invertebrates, 17 fish, 28 amphibians/reptiles, 115 birds and 38 mammals). For some of them, action plans have been implemented. Many activities on specially protected wildlife species have been carried out by NGOs (click here for more information).

The concept of a multilevel ecological network, the Territorial System of Ecological Stability of the Landscape, had been developed in the late 1970s. Establishing and managing ecological networks has been included in the nature conservation and landscape management legislation, namely in the Act. In addition, the issue has also been included in spatial planning legislation. Moreover, the TSES is very often considered as only paper or computer work (click here for more information, CZ version).

Nature conservation and landscape protection measures outside and inside Specially Protected Areas, as well as on privately owned land, can be financially supported by schemes, e.g. from the agri-environmnetal programmes or the operation programme ‘Environment 2007–13’ funded by the European Community budget as well as from national landscape management programmes (click here for more information, CZ version).

For improving the biodiversity conservation status in the Czech Republic, the following steps should be implemented:

• Integration of biological diversity conservation into the policies of other sectors. The involvement of the general public as well as all the stakeholders.
• The use of best science available (evidence-based conservation).
• An improvement in communication, education and public awareness.