Audit on the conservation of biodiversity on the area of the planned regional parks Sne?nik and Koevsko Kolpa and in Risnjak National Park
Report ID: 191
In the recent decades we witnessed the reduction of biodiversity and landscape diversity due to negative impacts on the animal and plant species, their habitats and habitat types. Therefore the reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at global, regional and national levels is an important step in the conservation and protection of biodiversity.
The countries that are aware of the importance of the conservation of biological diversity have agreed to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity. By signing the Convention they have decided to build up national strategies, plans and programmes in order to provide for the conservation and sustainable use of the biodiversity. For the conservation of biodiversity, i.e. »in situ «conservation, the Convention on Biological Diversity stresses the development of protected areas such as national, regional and landscape parks where the conservation of ecosystems, species and habitats is of high importance.
Croatia and Slovenia are countries with relatively high levels of the biodiversity; their biodiversity index (NBI) ranks them in the first quarter of the European countries. On the territories of Croatia and Slovenia there are wild animals that belong to the endangered European species, among them there are three large carnivores: brown bear, wolf and lynx. Despite the positive biodiversity situation both countries ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1996 and agreed to implement its objectives in order to provide for the efficient protection of biodiversity.
The Supreme Audit Institutions of the two neighbouring countries decided to contribute to the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity by auditing the establishment or management of the protected areas and by auditing the efficiency of the implementation of the measures for the conservation of biodiversity.
Because the audit findings and the conclusions were comparable, the SAIs published a joint audit report on the protected areas; i.e. Risnjak National Park in Croatia and planned regional parks Snežnik and Kočevsko Kolpa in Slovenia. The areas included in the audit are mainly covered by forests. The forests of Snežnik and Javornik linked with forests of Kočevje and Gorski Kotar com Europe. This is also the habitat of the three large carnivores.
The SAIs assessed the appropriateness of the institutional framework for the conservation and protection of biodiversity and the efficiency of the establishment or management of the protected areas. The special focus was placed on the implementation of the measures for the protection of the large carnivores that exist in those forests. When the audits were completed they issued national audit reports that are available on the web sites of the SAIs.
The audit of the Slovenian SAI included the period from 1996 to the end of 2005 and was implemented at the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food and the Forestry Institute of Slovenia. The audit of the Croatian SAI included the period from 2003 to the end of 2005 and was implemented at the Ministry of Culture, the National Nature Protection Service, the Public Institution Risnjak National Park and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water management.
This report presents the common audit findings, recommendations and summaries of the most important findings. The Appendix includes the explanations of the used terminology.