2nd CNPA Steering Committee Round Table

On the 19th of July 2021, the 2nd CNPA (Carpathian Network of Protected Areas) Steering Committee Round Table took place. Here are the key updates concerning the Interreg Central Europe Centralparks project and its thematic work package updates that have been shared with the CNPA Steering Committee.

1st Thematic Work Package: Integration of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in the Carpathian region

  • On 10th June this year, the Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention has shared the strategy for local sustainable tourism development, based on the natural and cultural heritage of the Carpathians. It will be sumbitted shortly.
  • Centralparks partners have presented the draft Carpathian strategy for enhancing biodiversity and landscape conservation outside and inside protected areas to the Carpathian Convention parties. The Secretariat will officially submit it once the essential round of commentaries is done. 
  • Under the framework of the latter strategy, Centralparks also ran two pilot actions in Poland, in Pieniny National Parkand Magurski National Park. After the successful meetings in these parks in June 2021, several local important stakeholders expressed their willingness to cooperate with the WPT1 leaders.

2nd Thematic Work Package: Building capacities of Carpathian protected areas managers

  • The preparation of the 3rd part of the background documentation is currently taking place. It will include the results on habitat mapping, forest and grassland state evaluation, LiDAR, Forest fauna evaluation. The partners and transnational thematic task forces (TTTF) members will then prepare the final output.

In the meantime, however, Danube-Ipoly National Park Directorate (DINPD), in the area of the Börzsöny Mountains, has supervised several forest management plans. DINPD determined 3,000 survey points.

3rd Thematic Work Package: Carpathian Ecosystem Services Toolkit

The final proposal of the Carpathian Ecosystem Services Toolkit (CEST) has been now finalised. Furthermore, Centralparks partners have also finalised and distributed the shortened version for translation to other Carpathian languages.

Out of the key ongoing tasks, there is currently the development of the annex to CEST on the ecosystem services’ capacity in the Carpathian region. It will produce the step-by-step guide for using the CEST. Additionally, it will be delivered alongside the training programme for local and regional authorities.

Upcoming international conference with important CNPA contribution

CNPA is currently actively contributing to the international conference ‘Protected Areas – cornerstones of ecological connectivity in the Carpathians and beyond’. Main topic of this event is ‘Ecological connectivity inside and outside Protected Areas‘. 

The conference will take place between 28-30 September 2021 in Visegrad, Hungary. Given the current pandemic situation, it will also be possible to join the meeting online.  If interested to take part, please submit your registration for the conference until 15th of September 2021.

This conference will offer the participants to:

  • Learn about recent developments in the Carpathians; 
  • Raise awareness on the need for cross sectoral approaches for the identification, conservation and restoration of ecological connectivity in Carpathians and beyond;
  • Serve the Carpathian Network of Protected Areas members to get together, exchange knowledge and experience, hear about new methods and approaches to improve and safeguard ecological connectivity;
  • Offer space for cross-sectoral discussion, as improvement of ecological connectivity needs more spatial planning, agriculture,forestry, transport etc.
  • Foster collaboration between projects dealing with ecological connectivity.