Ecosystem Conservation Project builds capacity of National Parks
On mountain meadows unspoiled by pollution and human intervention in Velebit, in Croatia’s Karst region, Bariša Vila tends to his 50 bee hives, placed in a long row under the old trees. One by one, he carefully removes frames filled with honey and wax, and places them gently in a large container. The air is saturated with a strong scent of sage, and the bees are working relentlessly, coming in and out of the hives. Vila collects the honey and drives back to his small honey bottling plant in Senj, where he produces ecologically clean, high quality organic sage, forest, and meadow honey, wax candles, and honey brandy. |  Bariša Vila extracting honey from bee hives on the slopes of Velebit Mountain | |
|  Eco-tourism development in Ljubotic |
 Mladen Matak's herd of goats financed by the Small Grant's Program |
Vila’s family business has been financed by the EUR 22,000 grant he received under the Conservation and Rural Revitalization Grants (CRRG) Program, financed by the World Bank’s Global Environment Facility (GEF) grant of US$5.07 million to the government of Croatia for the Karst Ecosystem Conservation (KEC) project.
In 1998, the government of Croatia turned to the World Bank for help with obtaining a GEF grant for environmental protection in one of the country’s major tourist destinations, Plitvice Lakes National Park. High unemployment, lack of infrastructure for the protection of environment, and an urgent need to encourage private sector development in an otherwise economically depressed region, were identified as the key issues that needed to be addressed urgently. In addition, the National Environment Action Plan (NEAP) identified Karst ecosystems as the top priority for biodiversity conservation.
The project’s development objectives included the strengthening of institutional and technical capacity for biodiversity conservation in the Karst environment, integrating biodiversity conservation into physical planning and sectoral objectives, strengthening the management of protected areas, promoting entrepreneurial and tourism activities to support sustainable use of natural resources and conservation, and educating local communities and visitors to participating national parks how to adopt behavior that preserves and protects the unique features of Croatia’s natural environment.
On the other side of the mountains, in the Lika region, Mladen Matak from a tiny rural community situated on the hills of Velebit, checks on his herd of goats. He expanded his herd from 16 animals to about 140, thanks to the EUR 14,000 grant he received in 2003 under the CRRG Program for the reintroduction of goat breeding and maintenance of protected mountain meadows. “We benefited from the grant tremendously. I would never be able to afford to buy so many goats by myself. I have three children to educate and now, from the income the herd generates, I am able to extend my house,” Matak says.
Meanwhile, Sime Gazic, an advocate of eco-tourism development, welcomes tours with visitors from across the country in his reconstructed 300-years old family household in Ljubotic, another tiny village situated on the slopes of Velebit Mountain. “My first goal,” Gazic says, “is to save my heritage, and my second goal is to keep life in this village. My third goal is to bring more visitors to Ljubotic to show them the cultural heritage of this region and demonstrate how biodiversity conservation of the Karst environment can be integrated with eco-tourism activities.”
These are some of the examples of how the preservation and protection of natural environment can be successfully integrated with entrepreneurial and tourism activities to support the sustainable use of natural resources by working with local communities on creating compatible business opportunities to support the local population, biodiversity, and sustainable rural land use in Croatia’s unique Karst ecosystem region.
One of the main accomplishments of the project was the successful piloting of the five national and nature parks situated in the Karst region to build their institutional capacity by assisting them in the process of preparation and development of management plans through the public participation process. This included the establishment of visitors’ centers and park infrastructure, the enhancement of human capacities of the park’s managers and rangers, and the successful implementation of the small grants program which supported local communities by demonstrating linkages between rural land use, eco-friendly business opportunities, and biodiversity.
“For us, it definitely is the most important project in the area of nature conservation in Croatia,” says Zoran Šikic, State Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, and the former director of Paklenica National Park. “Our goal is to establish a sustainable nature conservation system that can serve as a model for other regions, and the KEC project accomplished this task fully.”
Šikic believes that the development of 10-year management plans for Croatia’s five national parks is especially important, as it defines operating standards for the remainder of the numerous nature and national parks in the country which were not participating in the KEC project. “Now,” Šikic says, “we are in the process of working on the next round of management plans, and our goal is to finish the plans for all the parks by 2010, and for the marine protected areas by 2011. We also want to apply the lessons and knowledge we gained through the project in the Karst eco-region marine and wetland protected areas.” He adds that the KEC management plan became a model for all future management plans in Croatia’s national parks.
As for the achievements of the Small Grants Program, one of its key results, according to Kornelija Pintaric, Director, Directorate for Nature Protection at the Ministry of Culture, is the role the program played in helping the Ministry, the parks, and local communities in emphasizing linkages between nature conservation and economic activities. “Tourism, ecological agriculture, and educational activities,” says Pintaric, “are the three main areas where we can see real improvement and tangible results of the program which resulted in improving the livelihoods of many local communities living in the areas surrounding national parks.”
“The KEC project paves the way for Croatia’s future projects in the area of environment protection by establishing standards for nature conservation,” says Šikic. “We now have a good and efficient park management system in place which supports our goals to conserve biological diversity and ecological integrity of the Karst ecosystems. These are the real benefits of the KEC project for us.”
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The Croatia Karst Ecosystem Conservation project was completed in 2008. The government of Croatia is now requesting a new World Bank loan to continue and extend the work of the KEC project, based on the successful experience and established partnership with the Bank.
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