To the Minister of Environment of the Czech Republic
The International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG) is a worldwide organisation of mire (peatland) specialists who have a particular interest in the conservation of peatland habitats. The IMCG willingly places its advice and expertise at the disposal of any government seeking to establish or maintain mire conservation programmes.
The Czech Republic´s mires, as water-driven ecosystems, have been developing for the last 13,000 years; their organic deposits store and provide valuable scientific information about the long-term Holocene landscape history of Central Europe. They occupy less than 0.3 % of the country´s area, but include a broad variety of fen and bog habitats whose ecologic specificity and biotic uniqueness is irreplaceable in the sustainable development of European biodiversity. The international network of the Ramsar Sites includes several locations of well preserved Czech peatlands, but their regional testimony would be significantly enhanced by registration of a cluster of bogs situated in the Ore Mountains along the Czech-German boundary. Though protected by preliminary legislation, these outstanding mires called “Rašeliniště Krušnohoří” deserve further acknowledgement at national level and subsequent recognition as a Ramsar Site. IMCG recommends rapid processing of the proposal and adoption of the Rašeliniště Krušnohorí into the Ramsar Sites network.
The area of peatlands in Czechia has been substantially reduced in recent decades, and their protection by governmental authorities has been recognized as an urgent need by the Laws on Nature Protection No.128/1992 Sb. and No.168/2004 Sb. Satisfactory implementation of these laws, however, is hampered by a conflict with the Law No.61/1956 Sb. on peat extraction that allows utilization of virgin peatlands and beginning of new extraction action where irreversible damage to natural function of peatland ecosystems is irresistible. Therefore a strong mechanism ensuring the compatibility of the above laws is needed. IMCG recommends retraction of the Law of 1956 and development of adequate programmes of expert evaluation, monitoring and conservation of mires within the newly declared EU sites of Natura 2000, and adoption of conservation measures covering the majority of minor peatlands distributed in humid mountains and waterlogged floodplains.
Conservation practice of mires, listed within the current network of Czech nature reserves is unilaterally focussed at the maintenance of species diversity of rare plants and animals. Unfortunately, overall peatland ecosystems´ integrity is damaged by large-scale drainage carried out by foresters and agriculturalists, both within the area of particular wetlands and in their broad surroundings. Disrupted hydrological regime resulted necessarily in successive desiccation, loss of entire bog and fen communities, and landscape deterioration. Restoration of water regime is an urgent need for most peatlands in the Czech Republic and IMCG recommends implementation of appropriate programmes and reasonable activities.