Ambassador profile

Organisation profile

The National Park was established in 1959 and is one of the best preserved complexes of inland dunes and marshlands in Europe. It is the second largest National Park in Poland, one of the two European National Parks bordering the capital city of their country.

Butterfly Programme

To date, no activities strictly related to Natura 2000 have taken place.

A programme concerning the conservation and upgrading of habitat for rare butterflies of wet, semi-natural meadows, financed by LIFE and organised with several NGOs is being planned, but has not yet been launched.

University Programmes

Several scientific and nature monitoring programmes carried out by various Polish universities.(eg. Warsaw Agricultural University, Warsaw University, Warsaw Military Technical Academy).

Example of our cooperation with the Warsaw University:

A special volume of the 'Ecohydrology & Hydrobiology' magazine was published. The title of this publication was "Water Circulation Study of the Kampinoski National Park" and it gave a very important and useful overview of many hydrological issues which are important for the proper management of a protected area.

Activities and products for the communication of Natura 2000

 

✓Workshops

✓Action plan meetings

✓Exhibition

✓Guided visits

 

✓At least once per month

 

✓No

 

✓Posters

✓Leaflets

✓Magazines / periodicals

✓Guides / maps

 

✓General public

✓Scientists

✓Stakeholders

✓Other site managers

✓Local community

✓Site visitors

✓Other: Schools

 

✓No

 

The Park does not run a strategy dedicated specifically to Natura 2000, but is frequently mentioned and explained in the Park’s many educational events and materials as well as in the cooperation with local governments, NGOs and other units.

Kampinos National Park’s staff lead various educational events for a wide variety of student groups (from preschool to college). The staff also create material for ecological and educational publications, for example:

• The “Puszcza Kampinoska” (Kampinos Forest) magazine
• Materials for teachers who give lessons in environmental education
• Leaflets, books and compact discs concerning general information about the Park and specific issues of the Park’s functioning, like the lynx reintroduction programme
• The Park’s website is another communication tool.

 

✓Yes

• Eurosite (since 1997) – exchange of materials and information, participation of Kampinos National Park staff in several Eurosite workshops.
• The EUROPARC Federation – in the years 2003-2004 organization of EUROPARC’s Junior Ranger programme.
• Berezynski Biosphere Reserve (Belarus) (since 1999) – exchange of staff and materials.
• Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (USA) (since 1998) – exchange of staff and materials, common research and educational programmes.
• Vosges du Nord Biosphere Reserve (since 2007) – exchange of materials.
• Universite catolique de Louvein (Belgium) – common publications.

• Preservation of the unique mosaic of wetland and forest ecosystems.
• Cultural, educational, historical and scientific values of Kampinos Forest.
• Restoration of disturbed natural processes and habitats.

The Natura 2000 site is within the boundaries of Kampinos National Park (National Parks are the highest form of nature protection in Poland), therefore all the management activities carried out in the Park directly impact the Natura 2000 site.

A large scale project which is being realized in the Park in order to implement proper nature protection measures is the land purchase programme. Its goal is to purchase land in order to renaturalize water systems, restructure forest stands and maintain open ecosystems in order to preserve biodiversity. It mostly targets private land owners.

Indeed, a significant percentage of the land within the Park's boundaries belonged to private land owners making it impossible for the Park to implement certain ecologically necessary activities.

• Private owners
• Ecological funds
• Scientists
• Central government
• Local governments

• Part of the private land was purchased
• Buildings were taken apart
• Forests were planted on some of the purchased land
• Others were left for succession.

Land owners were encouraged to sell their land and the land was purchased using financial resources coming from the central budget or ecological funds. Valuable (from the ecological point of view) fragments of land within the Park’s boundaries were sometimes traded for equivalent fragments outside the main Park complex. Currently the Park has the right of pre-emption in purchasing the land.

Since the year 1974 when the project started 10 570 ha of land were purchased by the Park.

2 860 ha still remain to be purchased.

The budget changed quite significantly between the years and due to various changes within the Polish currency and economical system it is impossible to give a reliable summary. For example in the year 2007 the project has an overall budget of PLN 3,6 million (approx. Euro 960,000), PLN 2,5 million (approx. Euro 670,000) from the National Nature Protection and Water Management Fund, PLN 1 million (approx. Euro 267,000) from the Voivod Nature Protection and Water Management Fund and PLN 100 000 (approx. Euro 27,000) from the central budget.

The 2007 budget for nature conservation tasks is almost PLN 3 million (approx. Euro 800,000).

The budget for communication in the year 2007 is approximately PLN 130 000 (approx. Euro 35,000). In this budget, PLN 55,000 (approx. Euro 15,000) comes from the central budget and the rest comes from various ecological funds.

Conservation and upgrading of habitat for rare butterflies of wet, semi-natural meadows, financed by LIFE is being planned.