Environment Minister unveils new legislation regulating zoning of Šumava National Park

Environment Minister Tomáš Chalupa on Wednesday unveiled a new draft law regulating the zoning of the Šumava National Park. According to the minister, the new legislation required compromises from all sides but will provide a long-term solution to the ongoing conflict between environmentalists, the park management and local municipalities over the zoning of the national park.

Under the final draft of the new law, 26.53 percent of the park will be declared part of Zone 1, which is for the most part off-limits to loggers. In addition, 8.49 percent of the park could become a part of the off-limits zone in the future. The remaining area of the national park will be divided into Zones 2 and 3, where protection will be less strict. Environmentalists had demanded that 30 percent of the park be made a part of Zone 1.

The new draft law would also give the green light for the construction of a new furnicular that would connect the Šumava National Park to the Austrian skiing resort Hochficht, to where some 70,000 Czech skiers travel each year. The cable car connection was one of the main demands from local municipalities.

Last summer, the debate over the national park escalated after environmentalists for weeks held blockades to protest the felling of bark-beetle infested trees in the nature reserve. Police came under fire for their treatment of activists, which some NGOs slammed as unnecessarily violent.