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Tourists, beetles threaten Šumava

Ministry, environmental association differ on strategy to protect national park

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 26th, 2007 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Authorities disagree on whether the 69,000-hectare park, known as "The Green Roof of Europe," should be left to heal itself.
The Czech Republic’s largest national park, the Šumava, has had a rough year. After being partly devoured by the voracious bark beetle, a portion of it was knocked down in January’s Hurricane Kyrill.
Šumava 21, an association registered under the Interior Ministry, held a conference Sept. 20 on how to help the vulnerable forest. According to National Park Šumava, it is, along with the 13,000-hectare (32,124-acre) Bavarian Forest in Germany, the largest forest complex in the region, and is sometimes called “The Green Roof of Europe.”
While everyone seemed to agree the beetle presents the biggest threat to the forest, opinions diverge on how to solve the problem.
Šumava 21 wants to see action — attacked trees destroyed and removed — but the Environment Ministry has a different plan to help the Šumava, which occupies a stretch along the Czech Republic’s southwest border with Austria and Germany.
“The problem is that the Environment Ministry is trying to introduce in the first zone of the national park a so-called ‘take no action’ way of dealing with the bark beetle, which means not to interfere with the beetle’s development and spread,” says Jiří Štich, chairman of Šumava 21. The “first zone” is an area in which human interference is restricted.
The beetle has already destroyed about 2,500 hectares of the 69,000-hectare park, Štich says. If not controlled, the bug could infest much more of the park, of which 80 percent is covered by forests, he says.
“The number of bark beetles that successfully finish their development in one tree can attack 10 more trees, and this can repeat three times a year,” Štich says.
Sprucing it up
Šumava 21 leaders insist the best solution to control the destructive beetle is to immediately sanitize a compromised tree.
The Environment Ministry, however, is of a different mind. “To tell it straight, if it weren’t for the massive clearings created in the past during the felling of trees affected by the bark beetle, far fewer trees would have been blown down by the hurricane in January. This mistake must not be repeated,” Environment Minister Martin Bursík states in a June press release. “Far more trees fell than where the infested trees were allowed to stand,” according to the release.
In other words, infested trees that are still standing can protect the others from wind damage.
“Spruces will be indeed attacked by the bark beetle, but dead trees and stumps will act as a windbreak under the protection of which a new, natural forest can grow,” the release states. About 2,000 hectares of trees were blown down in the storm, Štich says.
The Environment Ministry is well on its way to cleaning the debris left by Kyrill, according to Jakub Kašpar, a spokesman for the ministry. The plan is to clear broken and uprooted trees in 80 percent of the park while leaving 20 percent to nature.
Radomír Mrkva, a researcher at the Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry in Brno, south Moravia, says the ministry’s plan is wrongheaded.
Unlike in North America, where leaving forests to nature is typical, European forests are not original forests and need tending.
“The ministry was trying to introduce this wilderness thing in the first zone of the Šumava but, as we all know, the bark beetle is not aware of any zones and spreads everywhere,” he says, warning that the beetle could spread to Austria if not stopped.
Besides, Mrkva says, the forest has a long history of human use, has been partly cleared for a cattle range and has suffered through a hurricane and beetle attack before.
Mass tourism, major threats
There are also other threats to the forest, according to NP Šumava, which is under the auspices of the Environment Ministry. Primary among these are air pollution and the increasing use of the forest. Kašpar says the Šumava is “already almost overcrowded, especially in the top tourist time of the year.”
Helmut Steininger, spokesman for the international environment organization Green Belt Europe, told the Czech News Agency in May that mass tourism — especially when connected with winter sports — is one of the greatest dangers to the Šumava. So-called soft tourism, such as cross-country skiing, would be a solution, he says. Only about 1,000 people live in the region full time, according to NP Šumava.
Despite this, Kašpar says improved biodiversity and other elements contribute to a bright future for the forest. “The trend is positive. The Šumava is getting healthier.”
— Naďa Černá and Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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