DIGITALNA ARHIVA ŠUMARSKOG LISTA
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| ŠUMARSKI LIST 5-6/2022 str. 82 <-- 82 --> PDF |
(http://www.amazon-of-europe.com/en/bike-trail/). Kopački Rit Nature Park provides a diverse offer for visitors, i.e., sailing on an electric boat and a boat for smaller groups, canoeing, bird watching programs, and educational programs for primary and secondary school. The offer will be thoroughly upgraded through development of seven new educational programs related to the national curriculum. The zoning in the Management Plan of the Kopački Rit Nature Park in 2006, defined two main zones – the Basic and the Transition Zones, within which there are three sub-zones (strict protection, active protection and use zone covering a very small area). There is a visiting infrastructure in the use sub-zone, i.e., the majority of visiting activity takes place there (PUPPKR, 2006). Osijek-Baranja County is one of the most successful counties in funding drawing in Croatia. 41 projects related to tourism were applied for in the previous programming period, while the Manager of the Protected Area and the Association for Nature and Environmental Protection - Green Osijek particularly stand out. Investments have resulted in increase in visitors’ number and diversification of tourism into selective forms; gastro-oenological, eco-tourism, cyclo-tourism and rural tourism (Koprivnjak, 2020). The majority of tourists and visitors are still domestic tourists (around 55-60%), but with the entry into the EU, this percentage began to change and the increasing arrival of foreign tourists has been recorded. In the last ten years, PPKR has recorded between 30,000 and 40,000 visitors a year, i.e., the Park has recorded a positive visiting trend. The offer of ecotourism is primarily related to the status and protection of the Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve. The richness, variety, specificity and uniqueness of the living world have started initiatives for the development of ecotourism (Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve – Sustainable Tourism Strategy, 2021). There are two main types of facilities in the ecotourism of Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve: (1) Eco-center Karapandža and (2) facilities along the marked ecological-educational trails at sites Karapandža, Štrbac and Bestrement: interpretive boards, wooden trails, bridges, rest areas and viewpoints (Visitor Management Plan in Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve, 2019). Eco-center Karapandža is located in the northern part of Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve. It was equipped in 2013, for a group of 50 visitors. The central 24th building of the entire complex is an outdoor classroom, intended for ecological interpretation and visual presentation of the Reserve. At this place, visitors might receive organized information about the natural resources, endangerment and nature protection. The arrangement of ecological-educational trails in Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve is based on the strategy of zoning in tourism. Three main zones of ecotourism development in Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve are determined: Karapandža, Štrbac and Bestrement. The criteria for the separation of zones are: (1) the value and attractiveness of nature and (2) the nature protection regime of I, II and III degree, where tourism is not allowed only in the area of I degree protection (Visitor Management Plan in Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve, 2019). Total length of ecological-educational trails in the Reserve amounts 12,150 m. They are passing through the valuable habitats and they are equipped with facilities such as information boards and observation sites, which helps tourists to move more easily, as well as to better understand and experience the natural values along their route. COVID – 19 pandemic influenced visitation in NPKR as in most of the PAs in Croatia where the number of visitors was cut for 2/3 (Malić-Limari, 2020). For the first few months during the pandemic, all the facilities offered by the park were closed. However, after a few months - during April 2020, the possibilities of visiting various facilities in the park were selectively reopened, with strictly controlled conditions and in smaller groups. COVID-19 pandemic influenced additional changes in the manner of tourism development in Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve. Before the occurrence of this pandemic, the main site of tourist visits (Eco-center Karapandža) was open mainly for the group visits of tourists arriving by buses. As the pandemic imposed the prohibition on gathering in groups, in 2020 the site was open only for individual visits. The working hours of the Eco-center Karapandža have been extended in order to meet the needs of tourists. PROJECTS SUPPORTING THE NATURE PROTECTION AND ECOTURISM PROJEKTI KOJI PODUPIRU ZAŠTITU PRIRODE I EKOTURIZAM From 2012 to 2018, the Ministry of the Economy and Sustainable Development of the Republic of Croatia implemented two projects for national and nature parks. The first one, PARCS (Strengthening the Institutional and Financial Sustainability of National Protected Areas in the Republic of Croatia) aimed at improving the management model of national parks and nature parks through the mechanisms of standardization of business processes, more equal distribution of resources and education of employees, and at increasing their sustainability through development of visitor |