~ a hodge-podge version; made during many stages of research development.   may cointain a few errors, a few omissions...
 
 

Landscape Conservation and Ecological Connectivity
in the East Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine

 Ukrainian abstract  

Investigator:
Robert J. Liebermann , graduate student,
Department of Geography , University of Georgia ,
Athens, Georgia 30602 2502 USA. Contact
 

Advisory Committee:
E. O. Box , [Department of Geography (advisor)]; C. R. Carroll , [Institute of Ecology ]; J. Kundell , [Carl Vinson Institute of Government]; I. Logan , [Department of Geography]; V. G. Meentemeyer , [Department of Geography].
-all of the University of Georgia

Keywords:
    Transboundary, landscape, protected area, reserve networks, fragmentation, geographic change, culture, Eastern/Central Europe, Carpathian, mountains.

Project abstract

        This study of the nature reserve archipelago in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains is being undertaken to assess the potential for long-term protection of natural and related cultural heritage via landscape and network based conservation. There is a large amount and diversity of ostensibly protected land in the region, but existing structures do not necessarily work together in an effective manner, and nature reserves are not necessarily the only conservation possibilities for this changing area. The sanctuary of these islands is futile if they remain isolated within a sea of unregulated land use or if they bear no significance to the people who call the Eastern Carpathians their home. The region's culture is an inseparable component of the natural setting; one dependent on the other. A broader landscape-based conservation plan is proposed, incorporating cultural as well as natural patterns, which may offer a more realistic framework for long-term conservation. My study focuses upon the conservation regime of these areas and their natural features in relation to their status as "islands" of protected areas separated by fragmented landscapes and political boundaries. It will consider the current environment, and potential complications from future cultural and environmental change. It will emphasize optimization possibilities of the reserve network through such measures as the designation of corridors, buffers, additional protected areas and categories, and conservation of surrounding landscapes, which could enhance the viability of the reserves in a way which incorporates and promotes local culture.

Introduction

        Nature conservation and the establishment of protected areas have a long history of theoretical and applied study in Eastern Europe and the former USSR, albeit a history little known outside the region (IUCN 1990, Pryde 1972, Weiner 1988 & 1999).   In the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine, southeastern Poland, and northeastern Slovakia, conservation history is particularly interesting.   Here, in this geographically complex and comparatively isolated area of East Europe, understanding of nature and conservation have developed along with the land-based mountain culture as well as customs of the many states which have ruled the area in recent centuries.   More recently, several frontier changes in the first half of the 20th century (in this century areas of the study have variously been parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Slovakia, and the USSR, and Ukraine) have left their mark still clearly evident today in local dialect, food, architecture, and other facets of culture–including conservation.   Economic development of the area and application of Soviet and Russian scientific and conservation theory in the past 50 years has had a strong influence on the experience of conservation science in the region, and since Perestroika there is an emphasis on Ukrainian thought on conservation problems.

        Conservation in the Eastern Carpathians is thus a unique component of the local culture, while simultaneously sharing many of the same objectives–and challenges–common to all successful nature stewardship.     The system of nature reserves in the USSR was (at least in theory) rather well organized, managed, and developed, although the centralized economic planning authority often worked in opposition to the goals of conservation strategies.   Nonetheless, a good system of nature reserves and conservation research organizations was in place at the time of the dissolution of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact.   The Eastern European "Soviet satellite states" (including Poland and the former Czechoslovakia), having sound scientific and conservation traditions of their own (as well as an encouraged trend to follow the patterns of the USSR), had similarly well-developed conservation bodies.

        In the post-Soviet era, however, there has been a series of fundamental changes to conservation structures in the region, with variable consequences.   A critical moment for this region is at hand; not only for the development of democracy and civil society in the post-Soviet world, but likewise for survival of the region's unique cultural and natural heritage.   New structures, cooperations, and possibilities that have emerged in the past decade may be the key to a sustainable culture and conservation future.   Less optimistically, the emergence of "wild capitalism", economic and social decline, and unsound planning may put strains on the natural and human landscape from which they will not recover.    Such problems are particularly acute in Ukraine, and may be classified into several arbitrary (though not necessarily exclusive) categories:

1) financial problems resulting from the economic depression of the post-Soviet states,
2) administrative and policy changes resulting from political independence, reorganization, and reform,
3) new and increased pressures on protected and natural areas from changing cultural patterns and demography,
4) a scientific research emphasis shift resulting from financing and cooperation changes, and
5) the establishment, enlargement, and development of protected areas.
        The most immediate threat is from the disastrous economic predicament in which all of the institutions and protected areas now find themselves.   Once secure conservation and research priorities have been discontinued, basic supplies and services are often beyond the budget of the organizations, and workers of the reserves and research institutions (who frequently go for extended periods without their meager pay) often have to spend as much or more energy in small-scale business, gardening or other occupations to stay afloat.   This diminished, and in many cases complete, lack of funding has put the conservation mission of some reserves at great risk.   Bribery, poaching, illegal (or legal) timber harvesting, and other incompatible activities are real temptations when such activities will bring a living income–however ephemeral–and when a lack of patrol or enforcement leaves reserves vulnerable to all.   A worker at one of the reserves related to me the situation of logging within the reserve, noting that it in many ways represents a timber-harvesting operation rather than a reserve; during a visit in the summer of 1999 this comment proved surprisingly understated.   Uncontrolled logging in this steeply mountainous area has been suggested as a critical factor in the catastrophic flooding the region experienced in late 1998, as well as similar severe flooding in the post-WWII era.     Another area of change in Ukrainian conservation is the result of political reorganization–at all levels from local to international.   At the international level, for example, Ukrainian association with organizations such as the Council of Europe, NATO, the World Bank, and others has facilitated increased cooperation in various international agreements and conservation goals.   Regionally, there is a move toward Central European integration, and with the Carpathian Euroregion and other regional initiatives, Ukraine is increasingly attempting to define itself as a Central European state as well as a modern world nation.   Nationally there is an endeavor to create a new "Ukrainian cultural renaissance" after so long as a member of the Russian-dominated USSR.   Locally, the Carpathian people are sampling a revival of local culture and–sometimes–civic participation.   At the same time there are increasing and often conflicting influences from Western and mass culture.

        This introduces the third concern for protected areas and conservation planning in the region: the ongoing cultural change of post-Soviet Ukraine.   Patterns of business, politics, information, work, leisure, housing, agriculture, transportation, and demography are rapidly changing from their Soviet "norms", and are likely to change further with post-Soviet devolution.   This, however, also adds challenges to successful planning and management of protected areas, and those areas established during the Soviet–or even the post-Soviet–time may not be able to react effectively to new and changing pressures without adaptation.     A fourth area is the procedural and scientific "paradigm" change, which many institutions have undergone.   No longer funded and administered by USSR central planning authorities, many have established new strategies in cooperation with international organizations, universities, NGOs,  governments, and other bodies foreign and domestic.   As a result, there is an increasing emphasis on cooperation and funding from Western partners and other "internationals" who may know little or nothing of the language and culture.   Although international cooperation is of course beneficial in many ways, it also carries the risk of imposing external scientific culture, views, and priorities in place of the once well-heeled Ukrainian and Soviet tradition.   A related aspect of this is the reduced status of scientific careers in the former USSR (unless it involves working in the West) and the consequent decrease of new conservation specialists.   A wholesale loss of this scientific tradition could be catastrophic to the region's conservation as well as culture–a Library of Alexandria lost at the end of the 20th century.     The fifth area of change is more optimistic: a large number of new protected areas have been established in the former USSR in the past decade, primarily in IUCN categories I (nature reserve) and II (national nature park).   In the Ukrainian Carpathians, many new reserves have been established in the past 10 years, and others have been enlarged or changed status.   These changes are ongoing, as shown by the April 1999 establishment of the 40,000 ha Skolivsky Beskydy National Park on the northern slopes of the Ukrainian Carpathians and the designation of the Uzhanskyi National Park in autumn 1999.   New reserves are being planned, as well as the establishment of a transboundary reserve between the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine and Romania.

        Older reserves may still operate as in Soviet times, ill-suited to conditions in modern Ukraine, and can therefore have quite different conservation regimes from those established in newer reserves.   The challenge now is to "harmonize" the strategies of the various reserves to cope with the ongoing changes to the local culture that have arisen during the past decade, as well as those that may be anticipated in the longer-term.   This integration would hopefully include not just increased professional rapport and exchange between the nature reserves themselves, but increased cooperation with local populations, planning authorities, and other organizations to carefully plan activities in critical landscapes between protected "islands".

    An additional concern that arises in light of the creation of the numerous new protected areas is the question of their guaranteed permanence.   The Soviet Union had, in addition to its record of conservation successes, an equally dramatic (though somewhat grim) tendency to freely reduce the area or status of–or even dissolve–protected areas according to political and economic whim (Pryde 1972, Weiner 1988).   In the uncertain political climate of modern Ukraine, it will be prudent to cement the permanence of the reserve network, as much as possible, through objective and sound research, planning, and management policies- and incorporation of local populations in these processes.
 

Geography of the study area

        The Eastern Carpathian Mountains are situated in the western Ukrainian Zakarpatska; Lvivska; Ivano-Frankivskska; and Chernivetska Oblasts, and immediately adjacent southeastern Poland (Kro?nie?skie Voivodship) and northeastern Slovakia (Presovsky Kraj).   This region is approximately 260 km in longest dimension (NW to SE) and 110 km perpendicular to this dimension, between approximately 49°30' and 47°30' N and 22° and 26° E.

        The Eastern Carpathians form part of the greater Carpathian Mountain range, which extends from the Tatra Mountains in Czechia and Poland, along the Czech and Slovak borders with Poland, through southwestern Ukraine, and into Romania, with foothills extending into parts of Hungary.   The population in the area of this study is predominately rural, and population in higher mountain areas is low, though there are a few cities and numerous small villages scattered at lower elevations.

        There are numerous large protected reserves throughout the greater Carpathians, and in this region, and many smaller protected areas.   In the Ukrainian Carpathians the situation is similar, and the flagships of this system are the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve (CBZ), the Synevyr National Park (SPNP), and the East Carpathians Trilateral Biosphere Reserve (SKTBZ), which includes areas of western Ukraine, southeastern Poland, and northwestern Slovakia.   These dispersed reserved areas function as "islands", or discrete units; a border fence still separates the otherwise ecologically contiguous Ukrainian portion of the SKTBZ from the Slovak and Polish areas.   Some of the major reserves of the Ukrainian Eastern Carpathians (those over 1000 ha) and their sizes are as follows:

Ukraine:

   Zakarpatska Oblast
     Carpathian Biosphere Zapovidnik (distributed in 6 discrete reserve units): 57,880 ha
     Uzhanskyi National Nature Park: 39,159 ha
     Synevyr National Park: 40,400 ha
     Richanskyi Zoological Zakaznik; 2408 ha
     Turia Polyanskii Zoological Zakaznik; 2163 ha

 Neighboring oblasts
     Skolivsky Beskidy National Nature Park: 35,684 ha
     Nadsyanski Regional Landscape Park: 18,000 ha
     Kamyanka Zakaznik: 328 ha
     Bradulskii Zakaznik: 1026 ha
     Velikodobronskii Zakaznik: 1736 ha
     Richanskii Zakaznik: 2408 ha
     Ture-Polyanskii Zakaznik: 2163 ha
     Carpathian National Nature Park: 50,300 ha
     Gorgani Zakaznik: ca. 7,000 ha
     Vyzhnitskii National Nature Park: ca. 15,000 ha
     Cheremoshskii Regional Landscape Park (in development): ca. 35,000 ha

Poland:
Bieszczadzki National Park: 27,000 ha
Cisniansko-Wetlinski Landscape Park: 46,000 ha.
Doliny Sanu Landscape Park: 35,600 ha.
Slovakia:
National Park Poloniny: 46,600 ha.
        Although these reserves are in many separate units, they contribute to a common goal: to protect the natural features of the Eastern Carpathians.   Ideally, these many islands would function together as a larger reserve archipelago; the sum greater than the individual parts.   The different classifications of reserves indicate, to some degree, the various management and conservation policies instituted there.   Zapovidniks are one of the unique forms of reserve instituted during the Soviet period, and function not only as strict reserves, but also as research organizations, and best fit category I.   National parks, IUCN category II, are a relatively new concept in Ukraine, and combine a comprehensive conservation regime with limited land use (for example, of rural village hay-pasturing and small-scale farming), recreation (camping, hiking, etc.), and public education, though generally under a more strictly controlled access than, for example, American national parks. Zakazniks are special-purpose reserves; they function mainly as a restrictive land-use policy, do not have their own personnel, and are established for an indefinite period of time.   They best fit IUCN category VI; managed resource protected area.   Regional landscape parks serve a similar purpose, but are considered permanent areas, and may have their own management and research staff, and fit category V best.   "Natural monuments" are similar to IUCN category III.   In addition to these designations, several of the reserves have been designated UNESCO Biosphere Reserves.

        The landscapes of the area are dominated by the East Carpathian Mountains, which form an arc in a NW-SE trending
line, approximately following the border between Slovakia and Poland, then toward the southeast through western Ukraine into Romania.   Elevations reach 1303 meters in the trilateral area, 1719 m in Synevyr NP, and 2061 m at Mt. Hoverla, the highest point in Ukraine, on the border between the Carpathian Biosphere Zapovidnik and the Carpathian National Park.   The Carpathians in this region have a generally rounded topography, and are well forested with several distinctive zones of vegetation, including lowland, montane, and alpine.

        The boundary of the eastern and western Carpathian vegetation associations approximately follow the Slovakian-Polish border with the Ukrainian, and the East Carpathians also form an important geobotanical boundary between the Pannonian Plain to the southwest and the European forest-steppe to the northeast.    The Carpathians have some of the most diverse biogeographical origins in Europe, and around 3895 vascular plant taxa are known to the whole Carpathian system (Tasenkevich 1998), with about 9% endemism (Stoyko & Tasenkevich 1993), and about 2030 to the Ukrainian Carpathians (Stoyko 1998) with about 4.5% endemism (Stoyko & Tasenkevich 1993).   A number of endemic species are present in the flora, many species are at their range edges or disjunct in the region, and the mountains have numerous plants with interesting Balkan, Alpine, Crimean, and Caucasian affinities.   Information on numbers of plant species for the individual reserves indicate over 1000 species are found in some of them (for example, Polininy, Synevyr, and Carpathian National Parks), which are likewise extraordinarily high numbers.   Forests of the region include oak (Quercus robur; Q. petraea) forests on lower areas, extensive old-growth beech (Fagus sylvatica) forests on mid-altitudes, fir (Abies alba) and spruce (Picea abies) forests on higher slopes, and semi-artificial subalpine meadows called "polininy" on many of the mountain tops.   The high proportion of old-growth forests of the area is the most significant in Europe.   In addition, forests in the area have important large mammal species such as bison, several feline; deer; and canine species, and many small animals, and the area is also rich in avifauna, and has areas important to migrating and local birds.

Reserve networks

        There has been major international attention in recent years on conservation of "biodiversity" at large scales.   A major aspect of this is the design of protected natural areas in which some remnants of what we are able to save may be somehow kept alive and functional. Unfortunately, there are few areas in the world left where conditions allow for ideal creation of new reserves.   In response to this realization, the process of optimizing what exists now–integration of reserves into networks is gaining increasing awareness (see Soule and Terborgh 1999, Nowicki et al. 1998, Nowicki et al., 1996, Lefeuvre 1998, Jongman 1998, Council of Europe 1996, Cook and Van Lier 1994, Bennett 1999, Forman 1995).   This process is perhaps most advanced in Western Europe, where there is now considerable international, governmental, and scientific attention given to this concept, including the Bern Convention on endangered species and habitats, and the comprehensive Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy.   There is, along with increased cooperation with former East Block countries, a move toward integrating the protected areas of these new Council of Europe and European Union accession states into the Europe-wide network plans.   The East Carpathian region is unique in that there is an ongoing nature reserve expansion, as well as an existing system of reserves that are close to idea for integration as a subsystem of the Europe-wide reserve network.   There exists the potential to add new protected areas appropriately to make in the Eastern Carpathians a model for the world, and provide a template for 21st century conservation strategy.

Methodology

        This project is a study of the East Carpathian nature reserve system (from the Trilateral Biosphere Reserve of Slovakia/Poland/Ukraine to the reserves of the Ukrainian Carpathians), their transboundary conservation problems, and how these areas may be optimized to more fully function as an ecological whole.   It will address the question of "transboundary conservation" in two main senses: between independent states and between protected areas and their surroundings.   Limited study on such problems (i.e., a series of disjunct protected areas located in a region of intense geographical change) allows important issues to be clarified.   Some of those I will explore in this research are:

   Natural conditions:

   Cultural conditions:    Conservation:    Solutions:


        These questions are relevant to the reserves' effectiveness not only in protecting each of the individual areas, but how they function together as an archipelago, or "super reserve".   This interdependence between the protected areas and their surrounding landscapes is a critical aspect of this study, and issues of migration and other "biotic communication" between areas (i.e., via corridors or translandscape migration, pollination, and propagule dispersal) are likewise critical.

        Analysis will be directed to the suitability of the reserves for long-term sustainable conservation with further change to the surrounding region.  Such changes may be termed, for convenience, as either environmental or cultural–though these "separate" aspects are, of course, interconnected.   Changes are already occurring, and without realistic consideration of present and future conditions the reserves' conservation mission will surely be compromised.

        Emphasis will be on the conservation of natural features and culture, and the mutual interaction of human and natural landscapes.   An understanding of the area's general geographic setting is critical, as current conditions here bear little resemblance to many other areas of the world where reserve networks have been studied.   In fact, they may bear little resemblance even to the same area just a few years ago.   Visits to protected areas; interviews with their employees; and consultation with other interested parties allows familiarization with real problems of conservation, analysis of existing management practices of the areas will show the legal and scientific mandates of the reserves, and literature review of previous studies and related themes will provide possible theoretical and empirical
solutions.   My goal is a document presenting suitable methods for the integration and long-term landscape conservation of this fragmented and transboundary reserve archipelago, including a map of suggested landscape designations.   It will not only suggest the conservation potential of reserve networks, but also emphasize the value and potential of local populations and cultures.   It is anticipated that many of the ideas brought forth will address the need for closer coordination, cooperation, and exchange between protected areas, and these with individuals and groups in the region.   Though many details of the study will surely be unique to the study area, it is hoped that the results will be applicable to the Transcarpathian study area as well as to a more general implementation.

        This study considers the changing Carpathians and the conservation implications pf this change.   No longer locally isolated, the Carpathian cultures and their relationship to nature are increasingly influenced by the ubiquitous "world" culture with its rapidly changing patterns of demography, consumerism, economy, transport, land use, and recreation.   At the same time, this increased connection to the "outside world" may allow cooperation that can help solve some of the conservation problems.   The study will likewise consider the risk that a changing physical environment may pose to conservation.   The former would likely be expressed by threats such as intense recreational use or unsound logging, and the latter by changes to natural processes (e.g., the possibility of changing climate-whether natural or anthropogenic), or changes to the biodiversity and natural landscapes (e.g., introduced species problems or loss of nearby habitats, or their possible migration out of the areas of animal species), which the reserves were designed to protect.

        For example, if increased mobility of the population or ease of travel to the region by vacationers puts pressure on the mountain landscapes from such activities as development of ski resorts or vacation camps, critical habitat may be lost or fragmented.   Or, if the protection of a species of plant that only occurs in the higher elevation fir forests is a priority of the reserve, and climate change causes broad-leaved forests to invade the areas formerly occupied by conifer forests, the protected species may be extirpated from the reserve, no matter how effective its protection from other threats.   Consideration of the possibility of such changing conditions, and their probable effect on the reserves, will allow potential problems to be incorporated into the evolving management plans of the archipelago as a whole.

        Though not all of these threats have thus far affected the area, some of them have (including land use changes in the surrounding areas, and the continuing economic crisis strongly evident in Ukraine), and the possibility of further complications is very real–perhaps imminent.   Furthermore, the luxury of advance planning in the region before it undergoes further significant change is one that is virtually unheard of, and should not be overlooked!

        The nature reserves of the region are in a particularly well-arranged pattern: evenly distributed in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains, which facilitate their ability to function together for common goals.   In the area where the three countries join, a Ukrainian, a Slovakian, and three Polish reserves were recently (December 1998) designated as an International Biosphere Reserve under the auspices of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere program.   This "Trilateral Biosphere Reserve" is the first of its kind in the world, and will be an important landmark of international conservation cooperation.   In addition, the reserves of western Ukraine, occupying some of the most well preserved forests in Europe, are important additional areas for the protection of key species and habitats.

        Through an examination of these issues, their possible complications, and how they may be addressed in the reserves, it may be possible to develop conservation strategies which address changing conditions and, no less importantly, how they may be applied to other similar and dissimilar areas, such as transboundary reserves planned in other areas of Ukraine or elsewhere.

Research significance

        The project will contribute several  scientific and methodological benefits:
 


        The conservation potential of the region's reserves can be more effectively realized if concern is given to the reserves not
only as individually protected areas, but as constituents of a multi-scale archipelago.   This archipelago is an important portion of several larger nested systems: East Carpathians, Carpathians, European mountain system, Europe, Earth.   In this context, the reserves become islands of a larger archipelago, not only in the biological sense, but also in their management concerns.   In other words, the individual reserves have importance not only for those features that they seek to protect within their boundaries, but also how those features are protected in the other reserves and in the larger region and are thus a critical component of large-scale conservation goals.   Without close attention to all relevant scales (spatial and temporal) of the archipelago, the protection of individual islands is insufficient.

        Complications to this approach, however, are pervasive.   The most immediate is the difficulty of normal communications, meetings, and professional exchange between workers in the region.   Despite the fact that the areas are relatively close–sometimes directly adjacent–to each other, the small budgets of reserves often cannot be stretched far enough to close this distance.   Even between the Ukrainian reserves, communication and travel are difficult, as poor telephone lines, bad roads, unavailability of vehicles, expensive and low-quality gasoline, and lack of other amenities common in the West hamper effective coordination.   In the case of the trilateral reserve, the international borders make the proximity of reserves to each other even more irrelevant.   Although, for example, Uzhansky is adjacent to the Polish and Slovakian units of the Trilateral Reserve, there is, according to a worker there, surprisingly little communication.   This is not so surprising when one considers the fact that a simple telephone call–let alone a visit–to Bieszczadki National Park in Poland or Poloniny in Slovakia becomes prohibitively expensive to a reserve barely able to pay its workers' meager salaries.   It should be emphasized, however, that there are some aspects of communication between conservation professionals of the region which are quite impressive, including frequent regional and international scientific conferences at several of the reserves, publication of research results and conference proceedings, and occasional visits of various foreign students, scientists, and other specialists.   Prospects for cooperation between the reserve areas in the future are indeed good with such interest.

        An important consideration of the conservation of the reserves as islands is the need for "ecological communication" within the archipelago, i.e., the movement of biota or genetic diversity (via organisms, propagules, genes, or pollen) into and out of the reserve islands and between them.   Critical to this movement are the landscapes between the reserves–the corridors.   Though the areas between the reserves are at present largely forested and probably hospitable to many organisms in and between the reserves, my observations and conversations in the area reveal that unsound resource exploitation threatens at least some of these areas.

        Longer-term threats such as landscape fragmentation, population increase, urbanization, road building, and pollution are also likely concerns.   If this degradation of potential movement corridors and buffers progresses, the ability of individual reserves to protect the larger populations will be compromised.   Protection of areas between the reserve islands – the matrix - is therefore critical to the viability of the reserve system.   However, sound understanding must exist of the nature and importance of the corridors in the biogeography of the area before objective decisions may be made.

Field study

        I have visited the region 3 times between June 1999 and January 2001, and have had extensive meetings and interviews with managers and scientists at Uzhansky NP, Carpathian BZ, Carpathian NP, and Synevyr NP.   Consultation with several established Ukrainian Carpathian conservation specialists - Stephan Stoiko of the Carpathian Ecology Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Lviv and Vasyl Komendar of the Natural Ecosystems Conservation Institute of Uzhgorod State University as well as many others - have proven very helpful, as have meetings at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Natural History Museum (Lviv), Carpathian School conservation organization (Lviv), Geography Department of Lviv State University, and the Zakarpatska Oblast Agency of Environmental Protection (Uzhgorod).

        These diverse consultations have given me, if not a complete view, at least a very broad range of perspectives into the state of conservation in the region as seen by those concerned.   I have been able to find out which aspects of my project have been studied previously, where gaps exist, and which background literature is useful.   More importantly, I have been given advice on how this project may be made into an important scientific contribution, and overall encouragement in the project.   Colleagues met during visits continue to be helpful during visits to Ukraine and via correspondence, and have promised their continued assistance and professional guidance.   These visits have also allowed a much greater appreciation of the area's complex cultures, as well as the more practical difficulties and pleasures of scientific work and everyday life in the cities, towns, and countryside of western Ukraine.   This geographer has not overlooked the opportunity to learn about the local culture, and observe what importance natural and protected areas have to the people.   The emphasis of this project is landscape-based conservation, and human culture is – especially here – an integral element of landscape.
 

Literature and other sources

            up-to-date facts are often difficult to obtain, contradictory, inaccurate, or nonexistent for some topics.   There are many scientific monographs available for the landscape, nature, and geography of the area, and some access to government documents on conservation planning, regulation, and land use is possible.   There is, of course, a good selection of foreign and international conservation literature available, which may provide many useful ideas for the project, including materials from IUCN, UNESCO, Council of Europe, and other international bodies.   Remotely sensed imagery, though potentially a project in itself, could be useful even minimally for examining the patterns of changing land in the area.

Precedence and imperative

        Substantial international attention is currently focused on the problems of biodiversity protection, and there has been considerable interest in developing transboundary agreements and other international cooperation for this goal.   International organizations such as UNEP, the MAB programme, IUCN, the World Bank, the FAO, the Council of Europe, and WWF, and many other governmental and private bodies have active programs for this goal.

        Nature conservation workers of the former Warsaw Pact countries, long isolated from their colleagues in the West, have developed scientific expertise which is frequently innovative, of very high quality, and relevant to modern problems.   Unfortunately, this knowledge is not only little-known outside the region, but is at risk of being lost or overshadowed by more widely publicized English language Western studies in the post-Soviet period.   This situation presents a unique imperative for cooperation, while developing effective and applicable strategies with knowledge from East and West for nature conservation of the region.

        All three countries are now member states of the Council of Europe and have ratified the Bern Convention on the Conservation of Endangered Wildlife and Habitats, which includes a mandate for protection of important species and habitats and encourages international cooperation to this end.   In addition, all three countries have endorsed several other international agreements on conservation of habitats and species, and all have long records of cooperation with international conservation and scientific organizations.

        Perhaps the shining example of this new cooperation between East and West is the Trilateral Biosphere Reserve.   Moreover, the possibility of integrating the archipelago of reserves of the East  Carpathians–already one of the most thoroughly protected areas in the world at about 9% of total area–into a genuine reserve network could prove to be another important landmark in conservation history.   The East Carpathians can thus quite feasibly be made into an example for the world to follow.   Methodology and experience developed this region could potentially be applied to other areas, therefore serving as a vital first proving ground for some of the most important conservation issues and strategies of the 21st century.

Timeline of project

      March 1998:  Initial contacts established with representatives of Ukrainian nature reserves and research institutions
     1998-1999 academic year:  Development of further contacts, research plans, and literature review
     June-August 1999:  Initial field study and consultation in Ukraine
     Fall 1999: Course work and further literature research at University of Georgia (UGA)
     January-August 2000:  Further study in Ukraine on NSEP grant
     Academic year 2000-2002:  Additional course work and research at UGA, occasional visits to Ukraine, dissertation writing
     Tentative completion date: 2002
 

Bibliography:

    English, Polish, and Slovak language documents

     Ukrainian and Russian language documents

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revision 28.02.2001