The Directorate of the Kiskunság National Park organized four consecutive thematic workshops between December 2014 and February 2016 on the topic of Natura 2000 indicative forest habitats.
The event targeted first and foremost institutions working in the field of forest management, national parks, green public authorities, ministries and research centres. The aim of the activity was to address and discuss the problems regarding special protection areas, forest habitats in order to find a common ground on how to develop necessary environmental management programmes to Natura 2000 forest areas.
The first workshop, held near Budapest, revolved around the long-term maintenance of Natura 2000 forests, touching upon the legal and general question arising from the topic. The active discussion among participants has been kick-started by a lecture from Dr. László Gálhidy, Forest Programme Manager in charge of the WWF forest protection branch.
Invited participants consisted of professionals, the staff of stakeholder authorities as well as assigned co-workers of national parks.
The second workshop held in Eger enabled a deeper insight into the highland Natura 2000 forests with the help of an introductory lecture delivered by Dr. Gábor Tímár. The in-depth lecture illustrated the age distribution of and end-user impacts on our highland forests through domestic examples.
Afterwards, in a similar fashion to the first workshop, small groups have been formed in order to identify occurring problems and to find and write down solutions to them with the help of facilitators.
The third workshop pinned the problems and opportunities of the environmental management of floodplain forests following two expert lectures by Tamás Frank and András Ficzere on the agenda. During the course of these lectures and the subsequent workshops the participating environmental protection specialists discussed principles for the management of indicative natural habitats and species in Mohács.
The fourth and last workshop took place in the House of Nature, at the headquarters of the Directorate of the Kiskunság National Park in Kecskemét. After an inaugural speech by Sándor Ugró, the head of the national park, a summary on behalf of the lead beneficiary partner WWF, project manager Pál Bódis served as a wrap-up on his experiences regarding the three previous workshops.
The closing event focused on the forest habitats of the Great Hungarian Plain, on the special regulations of the new forest legislation, as well as on possibilities for better harmonization of farming and environmental concerns; finally, on the questions related to different settings and preservation of nature. The presenter has been János Kiss.
Based on a forest-dynamics model, Dr. Csaba Vadász, area director of the environmental protection section of the Kiskunság National Park, pointed at the possibilities of the preservation of an important Alföld-based Special Protection areas, the Euro-siberian oakforest steppes.
The comments and suggestions from the participants during the four workshops pose a useful stepping stone for future work, as well as for publications, and educational booklets.
The project is being carried out within the framework of the EU LIFE+ Information and Communication programme and with the financial support of the Agricultural Ministry of Hungary.
More information (in Hungarian):
http://knp.nemzetipark.gov.hu/
Text: Adrienn Szatmári
Photos: Sándor Inántsy Pap