“Cycling is also expected in the future national park, and cyclists will also be able to use more routes than before. After a more detailed examination, it turned out that up to 245 kilometers of roads can be used without impacts on nature,” said Deputy Minister of the Environment Tomáš Tesař (TOP 09).
The basis of this plan is a map with the delineation of cycle routes, which at the same time will not endanger the nature of the heart of Křivoklátsk. “This plan will be the basis for defining the routes for cyclists, which will only be created after the declaration of the national park,” added Tesař.
The agreement between the Ministry and promoters of cycling tourism will become the starting point for further discussion with key partners, such as municipalities and regions. The final demarcation of the routes will be carried out only by the national park administration after agreement in the national park council. As in other national parks, it also includes municipalities.
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Everything that happens in the national parks takes place in cooperation with the affected municipalities, which are directly involved in the approval of all key management documents. “Municipalities sit directly in the park council. They can therefore influence how the territory will be used for citizens or visitors,” added František Pelc, director of the Nature and Landscape Protection Agency of the Czech Republic.
However, many municipalities that are supposed to be adjacent to the national park do not agree with its declaration. For a long time, they have been expressing opposition due to fears of restricting the movement of local people in the local countryside.
“We don’t want to lose the existing roads, we all walk and drive on them here and we want the area to remain passable. If a cycle route is laid out on some roads, then why not, but the National Park Board should decide on that. There is none yet,” pointed out the mayor of Běleč Lukáš Kocman (Běleč, our home).
Some municipalities are not against it
“Even the proclaimed laying out of about 250 kilometers of cycling routes seems to me terribly insufficient. It is calculated that there are about four thousand kilometers of different roads in the territory of today’s protected landscape area, where you can normally go now. If there were only 250 kilometers of roads where cyclists could go, it would be a limitation,” added Kocman.
But there are also municipalities that agree with the planned change and the declaration of a park. “We do not perceive the national park and the related development of tourism and cycling as a problem. We also experienced raids by people during the covid pandemic, so if tourism is organized and municipalities can intervene, then it should be fine. There is no major opposition here among the local residents,” Bratronic Mayor Miloslava Knížetová (SNK Bratronice) told Práv.
The planned Křivoklátsko national park is to occupy 116 square kilometers of Křivoklátsko, which represents 16 percent of the current protected landscape area. It is to form the central part of the current PLA. The costs of the management of the planned park should amount to approximately fifty million crowns per year.
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