| Naturally valuable legally protected areas – an area covered by forms of protection of living and non-living nature and landscape in order to protect resources, creations and components of nature. Such areas shall be established by central, regional and local bodies; According to the Nature Conservation Act (of 16 April 2004), these include:
• national parks – areas characterised by specific natural, scientific, social, cultural and educational values, with an area of not less than 1000 hectares, on which all nature and landscape values are protected;
• nature reserves – areas that have been preserved in their natural state or have not been altered, ecosystems, refuges and natural habitats, as well as plant habitats, animal habitats and fungal habitats, and creations and components of inanimate nature that are distinguished by their specific natural, scientific, cultural or landscape values;
• landscape parks – areas protected for their natural, historical, cultural and landscape values in order to preserve and promote these values under conditions of sustainable development;
• protected landscape areas – areas protected by a distinctive landscape with diverse ecosystems, valuable for meeting tourism and leisure needs or serving as ecological corridors;
• documentation stands – scientifically and didactically important places of occurrence of geological formations, accumulations of fossils or mineral formations, caves or rock shelters together with mudstones and fragments of exploited or inactive surface and underground excavations; they may also be places where fossil remains of plants or animals are found;
• ecological areas – ecosystem residues relevant for biodiversity conservation, such as natural reservoirs, field and inland ponds, clumps of trees and shrubs, swamps, peat bogs, dunes, patches of unused vegetation, oxbow lakes, rock outcrops, escarpments, stones, natural habitats and sites of rare or protected plant, animal and fungal species, their refuges and breeding or seasonal habitats;
• natural landscape complexes – fragments of natural and cultural landscapes that merit protection due to their scenic or aesthetic value.
Data on legally protected valuable areas do not include Natura 2000 sites (apart from their part within the boundaries of other legally protected areas). |
