These articles were published in the Spectacular Slovakia travel guide, published annually by The Slovak Spectator since 1996. The latest editions can be obtained from our online shop.

Paths less travelled

Slovakia’s national parks teem with Eastern Europe’s richest biodiversity, The question is how to show it off without scaring it

By Eric Smillie

	Photo: Ján Svrček

I am roughly halfway through a hike that started in the one-restaurant town of Muráň and since I hit the trail I have not seen anyone else, save a logging truck and a group of three at the ruined castle at the edge of the relatively new Muránska Planina national park. I try to remain calm but when that something roars again, a long low moan that sounds, above all, aggravated, I cannot help but feel very much alone. This, I think to myself, is exactly what I wanted, isn’t it?

I came to this park to get away, and get away I did. It is hard to believe that I am just a few hours by car from the bustle of Bratislava, in the middle of the new EU. I am alone on a rough trail and all around me is the noisy silence of nature doing its thing; birds chirp and beat the air with their wings, bushes rustle, and then there’s that thing that, much to my relief, sounds like it’s moving down the slope away from me.

My fears of being mauled by a bear proved, as they very often do, to have been a little off. I returned to Muráň a few hours later and after a good night’s sleep I related my experience to the staffer at the local park information office, who told me that in the fall stags get into a terrible mood and are known to roar in annoyance. In fact it is best to stay out of their way at this time of year because they are aggressive when grumpy, she told me, which did not quite allay my worries.

A few days down the road in the Bukovské Vrchy Mountains in the Poloniny national park, I looked up from my map into the eyes of a grey stag just a few yards away. I did not see a trace of anger, only a look of scrutiny and a touch of fear. Then he turned and jumped slowly, silently across the meadow into the woods.

Slovakia has some of the best biodiversity in Central Europe, something that is historically due to what the governments here didn’t do rather than any active conservation plan. When the country industrialized over the past century, small valleys saw no more serious use than some forestry and pasturing. In many cases, a large factory or mining site attracted workers from the surrounding villages, leaving the rest of the area undisturbed. The Carpathian chain, which arcs through Ukraine and down into Romania, was especially untouched and remains undeveloped and unforested compared to the Alps.

Today, Slovakia’s wild lands are a newfound subject of attention, which means new services for outdoor enthusiasts but also new dangers to their pristine state. As the country jockeys with its neighbours for investment and a high tourist profile to boost economic growth, the value of these wild lands is rising - as is the friction between conservationists and developers.

“I can say that due to the socialist economy these mountain areas stayed relatively untouched and the biodiversity, according to long-term research and recent research, is in very, very good condition and of very, very high value. But we are not able to keep it,” says conservationist Peter Šapka.

	Photo: Eric Smillie

“We are faced with a decrease in biodiversity because we are not able to stop development in these territories,” he goes on. “I am very afraid that in the next five or 10 years we will lose a lot of these protected areas because they will be redesignated under the pressure of the local people and the social [economic] situation and supported by minister someone - I don’t know which one. This pressure is very, very high.”

According to Juraj Lukáč, director of the private forest protection organization Vlk, which cares for 220 hectares of Slovak forest and lobbies to leave forests with as little human intervention as possible, Slovak woods provide a home for an impressive number of rare wild animals - around 200 wolves, 700 bears, 1,000 wild cats and 70 pairs of golden eagles as well as grouse, every kind of woodpecker and chamois.

Just under 25 percent of the country is covered by some degree of special protection and other areas of ecological value remain unprotected but in good shape. This is a high percentage for the European Union. Indigenous forests cover around 40 percent of the country, and more than 40 percent of that forest enjoys some kind of protection.

Attracting the right attention

	Photo: Eric Smillie

Mixed state and private ownership resulted, even in strictly protected areas, and the state now pays owners compensation for the limits it places on their land in the public interest. A little more than half of the High Tatras national park, for example, belongs to private owners and 73 percent of the Low Fatras national park belongs to a single non-state owner. The result has been a conflict of interest where owners of land within the parks want to develop their property and the surrounding area with an eye to profit, not protection.

The law was a state solution as the government did not include landowners and local authorities. In other European countries, such as France, protection involves local people, especially landowners. Šapka questions whether Slovaks are ready for such participation.

“The law is relatively good,” he argues, “but we have to wait for the situation in Slovakia when people are ready to accept that natural conservation, regulation and some limitation are in place. Now Slovak citizens are not so ready for this voluntary approach to protection and for this reason the law is pretty strict.”

Gabriel Kuliffay, head of the department of tourism at the Slovak Economy Ministry, says it is important to think of the people living near national parks: “It is important to find a true path to permit a normal life for the people in these areas.” But he also says that in many cases it is necessary to limit their rights. “We have to be aware that the Slovak natural environment does not belong to these people but that its importance goes beyond a tax area, district, region, and maybe even Slovakia. This is why it is necessary to protect it.”

Striking the balance is easier said than done. Many factories closed and jobs disappeared after the end of Communism. In 2004, unemployment in Slovakia was 18 percent, according to the SLOVSTAT database of the Slovak Statistics Office. In central and eastern Slovakia, the percentage is higher.

People in these areas, Šapka thinks, see conservation as just another limitation on their already suffering economies. “There are a lot of people without a social vision. This is a social problem,” he says.

	Photo: Eric Smillie

The government has made investment and business growth its main priority. In June of 2004, Economy Minister Pavol Rusko suggested that the laws protecting natural parks blocked the development of tourism. The following month, the government approved an analysis that found that conservation legislation directly harms the development of the tourism business environment, especially renovations and new construction projects. The Environment Minister complained that his ministry had not been involved in producing the analysis.

Kuliffay puts the Economy Ministry’s opinion more diplomatically. “The best path,” he says, “leads through the mutual symbiosis of nature protection from the point of view of its actual value and tourism entrepreneurs able to offer the parks to visitors.”

Size matters

	Photo: Eric Smillie

Now the Slovak tourism market focuses on winter ski resorts, probably because they make big business and big money. But when the winter ends, Šapka says, there are no other schemes to attract tourists. Rohač agrees. “The environment and biodiversity are unique but ski resorts and hotel complexes are just more of the ‘same old’. In fact they are not really necessary for sustainable regional development, they just create an opportunity for private business profit, which is not bad (it is even desirable) but not at the expense of irreversible ecological damage.”

Rather than new large resorts, Šapka and Roháč think that many small business initiatives and the improvement of existing facilities would be more successful in the long run. Roháč believes that tapping the current boom in “soft tourism” activities like hiking, biking or rock climbing would generate demand for parallel services like accommodation, guide services and equipment sale and rental without requiring heavy development. This way, he says, “we would be able to make many more year-round jobs in the same region - of course, the profit would be smaller.”

	Photo: Anton Ďurkovič

Building, Šapka says, also needs to be weighed more carefully. “We have a lot of perfect laws like environmental impact assessment and so on but practical implementation of these strategies is absolutely ignored. The development of Slovakia from an economic point of view ignores Slovakia’s officially adopted sustainable strategy, it’s absolutely unacceptable.”

The dangers of charging ahead with poorly planned projects are clear, he says. “If you visit Demänovská valley [in the Low Tatras] there are still big unfinished hotels abandoned like ruins. They are a warning for us that if we start building these kinds of ineffective facilities for the future, they will be left there and no one will be able to restore the natural conditions that were there before.”

According to Kuliffay, legislation currently underway will require developers to submit planning documents for assessment. “A national average of 33 percent yearly use of the inhabitation capacity of Slovak hotels says something. We think that it is chiefly important to build up already existing centres such that they offer comprehensive services.”

A storm and a disaster

	Photo: Eric Smillie

“That wasn’t a disaster, that was a natural phenomenon in weak spruce forests. Bark beetles will [now] transform the weak forests to natural forests, it’s a natural process, not a catastrophe,” explains Lukáč.

After the storm, developers and some members of the business sector argued for new building in the damaged areas, which are protected as part of the national park.

“The ecosystem is still alive,” says Šapka. “It is in our hands what to do with it. If this national park is absolutely ignored, in 50 to 70 years the park will be as we knew it. But if our community wants to have new hotels there and new ski resorts there it is our decision, a decision for the future.”

The fears of conservationists that the protection level of the affected area will be changed, however, may be exaggerated. Rusko did say that those in favour of blocking any tourism construction in the area and leaving the forest to recover naturally belonged to a “conservationist Taliban”, but the Environment Ministry and Kuliffay seem to lean toward the improvement of services rather than fresh building in the area.

Meanwhile, the High Tatras have a new face. Locals expect fewer tourists to the area this year, which will likely mean lower prices and trails slightly less crowded than in past years. The mountains’ higher elevations, however, remain unchanged. The Tatranská magistrála trail along the tree line at the Tatras’ outside edge will still treat hikers to a royal sight - lakes slowly spilling over the edge of the mountains and down into the golden valley below.

Beating your own track

The trails of the High Tatras are usually busy during the summer season, but Slovakia’s other parks are less visited, which is both a boon and an annoyance for outdoor enthusiasts. A park like Muránska Planina is the kind of remote place that nature lovers dream about. It is one of Slovakia’s most untouched spots, covered with fir-birch forests and rich in flora and fauna. It is also famous for the Slovak Mountain Horse, a special breed still raised and used in the area. But the park’s most precious quality for the visitor might just be the peace and quiet.

Fewer visitors means that facilities like hotels and restaurants are less abundant. In some cases, too, the trails are literally off the beaten track. On my second day in Muránska Planina, as I followed a trail from the town of Tisovec, I straggled through a web of logging tracks until I ran into two men felling trees with axes and a horse. They told me the trail I was following no longer existed.

An hour of near bushwacking later, however, I descended into the narrow, cathedral-like Martinova Valley, my reward for my struggle and frustration. Sunlight fell in shafts from the cracks in the roof of glowing green leaves, splitting on the columns of the beech trees and the canyon’s steep rocky walls. A great, living silence filled the hall, punctuated by the rustling wind and the faint crack of falling twigs.

Visiting Slovakia’s wild corners does require a bit of flying by the seat of your pants. First of all, though you can reach every part of Slovakia by bus or train, some places demand multiple transfers on infrequent lines. From the town of Levoča in central Slovakia, for example, it took five separate buses to get to Nová Sidlica, the easternmost village in the country, an access point for the Bukovské vrchy in the Poloniny National Park. A car solves this problem, and packing a tent can help with housing.

Poloniny is Slovakia’s wildest corner. Situated on the Carpathian chain at the border meeting between Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine, the park covers all three countries as part of a UNESCO biosphere that some call the green lungs of Europe. A remote area with few inhabitants, it has the greatest concentration of old-growth forest in the country, rich wildlife and beautiful flowering mountain meadows.

As I set out toward the three-border meeting spot from the only pension in the village of Nová Sidlica, the military police were quick to stop me and check my passport. “Those woods are wild,” one told me, to which I responded, “Should I be careful?” “No, no,” he said, as his partner began: “What you should be careful about is not to cross the border because the Polish police are waiting and there will be a lot of trouble. They get money from catching tourists who cross illegally.” If the Polish police were hiding on the border, they did an excellent job. The only people I met all day were a pair of Polish hikers who snapped my picture on the border.

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