Caves of the Low Tatras National Park and Its Neighbourhood as Objects of Speleotourism

Publicly accessible caves are important objects of the modern form of tourism, which is called speleotourism. The caves are important underground geolocalities, which are characterized by a high accumulation of visitors in a specific natural environment. They are usually part of large protected areas - national parks and protected landscape areas. The study deals with accessible caves in the Low Tatras National Park in the central part of Slovakia. In the national park, or rather in its vicinity, there are four caves formed in the carbonate rocks of the geological core of the Low Tatras mountains. In the first part of the study, we presented their basic geographical characteristics in terms of their description as underground geolocalities. The main aim of the study is to analyze the number of visitors to the Demänovská Cave of Freedom, Demänovská Ice Cave, located directly in the national park, Bystrianska Cave located in the buffer zone of the national park and Važecká Cave, located on the northern edge of the studied area. Individual geolocalities were evaluated in terms of 12 criteria (e.g., Variety and attractiveness of cave decoration, Interpretation of the guide, Difficulty of the tour, Amount of ticket price, and others), which were indexed answers of (speleo)tourists from the opinion poll. We conducted the survey during the summer months in the period from 2010 to 2019, and a total of 160 respondents participated. The basic results of a standardized public opinion survey gave us the answer to five research hypotheses. The results confirmed the important potential of caves as specific geolocalities for the development of (underground) speleotourism as a modern form of tourism. Speleotourism is currently an important form of tourism, which is developing in the national parks.

Protected area management in a post-natural world: negotiated governance at the Danish Wadden Sea

National parks and other large protected areas play an increasingly important role in the context of global social and environmental challenges. Nevertheless, they continue to be rooted in local places and cannot be separated out from their socio-cultural and historical context. Protected areas furthermore are increasingly understood to constitute critical sites of struggle whereby the very meanings of nature, landscape, and nature-society relations are up for debate. This paper examines governance arrangements and discursive practices pertaining to the management of the Danish Wadden Sea National Park and reflects on the relationship between pluralist institutional structures and pluralist, relational understandings of nature and landscape.

Land cover changes in protected areas of Slovakia between 1990 and 2018

As a country with abundant natural resources, Slovakia has legislation to protect significant parts of nature and landscape. The paper aimed to identify the extent and nature of land cover changes in large protected areas in Slovakia and to determine how had these changes impacted the diversity and ecological stability of the landscape. We used the CORINE Land Cover data from 1990 and 2018 to identify landscape changes and analyzed them spatially and statistically. Overall, 21.7% of the total area was changed. In terms of landscape changes, nine dominant sub-processes within five »land cover flows« were identified. In terms of changes in landscape diversity and stability the most significant changes occurred in the NP Nízke Tatry.

Institutional Change on a Conservationist Frontier: Local Responses to a Grabbing Process in the Name of Environmental Protection

In a wave of global conservationism, Ecuador established two large protected areas in its Amazon region in 1979. One of these is the Reserva de Producción Faunística Cuyabeno (RPFC), located in the northeastern corner of the country. Given that this land was previously managed as commons by local indigenous groups, the establishment of protected areas has had numerous consequences for these people. The research conducted comprised three months’ fieldwork in three of the affected Siona communities, primarily through the use of participant observation. Based on the framework developed by Ensminger, this paper demonstrates how institutional change has occurred in the last few centuries with the arrival of various frontiers overriding the region. This has led to the almost total eradication of traditional institutions and the introduction of a new ideology, namely conservationism. In order to legitimize their existence in the Reserve, indigenous groups are compelled to argue in a conservationist discourse if they want to stay in their ancestral territory. The article discusses tourism as one key impact on the lives of the local Siona, alongside their response to the grabbing process, which takes the form of a re-creation of their identity, including institution shopping from below. This article contributes to the debate on commons grabbing from the perspective of local actors by arguing that institution shopping from below does not necessarily mean a loss of authenticity, considering different ontological perspectives in the process of identity construction.

Protected areas of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship

The Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship is one of the smallest provinces in Poland, but it clearly stands out with a very well-preserved natural environment. Because of exceptional features of animate and inanimate nature, large parts of the province are covered by various forms of nature protection. There is 1 national park (NP), 72 nature reserves (NRs), 9 landscape parks, 21 protected landscape areas and 40 Natura 2000 sites within the administrative borders of the province. The most unique natural features are found in the Świętokrzyski National Park (ŚNP), but the largest surface of the province is covered by protected landscape areas. Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship is the first in Poland in terms of the share of protected areas (as much as 65.2%), strongly outdistancing other Voivodeships. Small natural objects are much more numerous than large protected areas. At present, the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship has 705 natural monuments (NMs), 114 ecological sites (ESs), 20 documentation sites (DSs) and 17 nature and landscape complexes (NLCs). Moreover, new protected areas and sites may still be established within its borders.

Jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi) predation by puma (Puma concolor) in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

The jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi) is the second most widespread carnivore of the Americas, and considered a threatened species in Brazil. However, most of its ecology is unknown, and few information is available about species that may act as its predator. In this study we present evidence of the predation of a jaguarundi by puma (Puma concolor) in a protected area (Carlos Botelho State Park) in the state of São Paulo, southeastern Brazil. We collected fecal samples in trails and dirt roads in the study area, and by using hair cuticle imprints and medullar patterns, we identified a puma scat containing hair and claws of a jaguarundi. Pumas usually consume carnivores, but the presence of felids is uncommon, especially in Brazil. This could be considered an antagonist interaction, but pumas and jaguarundis do not compete for territory or prey in large protected areas, since pumas have a high intake of larger prey (> 1 kg). Thus, we conclude that this an episode of intraguild predation for feeding purposes, not a kill in response to competition for prey or territory. This is an important record that helps to understand a bit more of the complex trophic relationships in tropical forests.

Quantifying the decline of the Martial Eagle Polemaetus bellicosus in South Africa

SummaryHuman populations in Africa are growing at a faster rate than in any other region; this growth will exert increasing pressures on the continent’s wildlife resources and declines in wildlife are already being observed. Species occupying higher trophic levels may be amongst the most useful indicators of this pressure and raptorial birds have already proven to be particularly useful in highlighting problems with their environment. The Martial Eagle is an African endemic which is thought to be declining and was recently uplisted to globally Vulnerable, although data on population trends are almost entirely lacking. The Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP) 1 and 2 are citizen science projects that represent a rare opportunity, within an African context, to quantify population changes over a 20-year period. We use data from these surveys to explore changes in reporting rates for this species in South Africa between SABAP 1 (1987–1992) and SABAP 2 (2007–2012) at the scale of quarter-degree grid cells. Previous research suggests that such comparisons accurately reflect changes in breeding numbers for this species. We found an overall decline in reporting rates of c.60%, with more cells showing loss or declines (75%) than those showing colonisation or increases (25%). No differences in reporting rate change were found between provinces, suggesting a relative uniform decline across the country. There were, however, differences between biomes with declines recorded in all biomes apart from Albany Thicket, Succulent Karoo and Fynbos (south-western biomes). Declines differed inside and outside protected areas, with larger declines outside (64%) than inside (42%) protected areas, although even within large protected areas significant declines were observed. These results support the uplisting of the species’ conservation status and suggest that even within protected areas the species is not immune to the drivers of decline.

RURAL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN GREAT SEVASTOPOL AS A WAY OF DIVERSIFICATION TOURIST AND RECREATIONAL COMPLEX IN THE REGION

The expedience of rural tourism development in Russia regions has been widely discussed at the different levels. According international and Russian experience the solution of the complex development of tourism resources of the territories, the reducing of the seasonality problem through diversification of tourist products, encouraging the development of new types of tourism can be combined with the self-employed agricultural production. Rural tourism in Russia is regarded by Tourism Development Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2020 and other government documents as one of the priorities of tourism and recreational complex. The development of rural tourism in Sevastopol Region is determined by the number of factors, among which are the availability of rural areas and the farmers’ activity, natural and cultural herit- age, the proximity of large protected areas and historical and cultural sites; the presence of non-equipped network of hiking trails, known and used by local and visiting tourists ever since the Soviet Union, demand for holidays in the countryside, need for wine and gastronomic tours traditions. Risks of rural tourism development in Sevastopol Region are associated with system and industry-specific problems that can be effectively eliminated by using the international experience. The European countries’ experience in rural tourism demonstrates the necessity for combination of agricultural land usage with rendering tourist services for economic and social sustainable development.