Ramsar Advisory Missions: No. 44, Sumava Peat Bogs, Czech Republic (2001) -- photos

Special attention is given to assisting member States in the management and conservation of listed sites whose ecological character is threatened. This is carried out through the Ramsar Advisory Mission, a technical assistance mechanism formally adopted by Recommendation 4.7 of the 1990 Conference of the Parties. (The Ramsar Advisory Mission mechanism was formerly known as the Monitoring Procedure and the Management Guidance Procedure.)   The main objective of this mechanism is to provide assistance to developed and developing countries alike in solving the problems or threats that make inclusion in the Montreux Record necessary.

Ramsar Advisory Mission No. 44: Czech Republic (2001)

Shumava Mires Ramsar Site, Czech Republic

5-8 June 2001

RAM participants listening to the explanations of Dr Ivana Bufkova (with hat and documents folder), the wetland expert of the Shumava National Park and Protected Landscape Area. Far right are Josef Chytil of the Czech Ramsar Committee and Ms Libuse Vlasakova, the Czech Ramsar focal point at the Ministry of Environment.

RAM experts standing at the edge of one of the Shumava Mires, in front of dead spruce trees, as a result of massive bark beetle outbreaks. From left to right: Dr Ivana Bufkova (seen from behind, Shumava National Park), TS, interpreter, Dr Hans Joosten (Ramsar Bureau expert), and Franz Baierl (Bayerischer Wald National Park, Bavaria).

Dr Hans Joosten (Ramsar Bureau expert) standing on a small dam, constructed to restore the hydrology of one of the formerly drained Shumava Mires. Looking on are Franz Baierl of Bayerischer Wald NP (left), Jan Pokorny, the Czech member of Ramsar STRP (in the background) and Rastislav Jakus, a bark beetle expert from the Slovak Forest Ecology Institute (right). The RAM encouraged the Shumava NP authorities to continue their efforts to restore the hydrology of formerly drained peatbogs.

RAM experts trying to make their way through one of the most important and well preserved of the Shumava Mires, in front of the dead back spruce plantation, as a consequence of massive bark beetle attacks.

Vice-Director Vladimir Zatloukal of Shumava NP (in the centre left, behind the interpreter turning his back) and the RAM experts listening to Director Karl Friedrich Sinner of Bayerischer Wald NP (putting his finger up) explaining the deliberate no-intervention policy in the core zone of the Bayerischer Wald NP, where the picture was taken. The picture demonstrates that massive diebacks of spruce stands due to bark beetle outbreaks are followed by spontaneous growth of new trees. Bark beetle outbreaks are part of the ecosystem cycle, and not the end of it.

-- Photos by Ms Dagmar Kubinova, Czech Ministry of Environment; captions by Dr Tobias Salathé.