Meeting of the World Protected Areas Leaders Forum has been the first such meeting after covid-19 lockdown and was jointly organised by the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic and Krkonoše Mts National Park Administration.

Effective measures to protect biodiversity and fullfillment of targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework 2020-2030 have been discussed, as well as issues of Czech nature conservation and revitalization projects.

With experts from all around the world (colleagues from Malaysia, Great Britain, Finland, Bhutan, Australia, Canada, Uzbekhistan, South Korea, and Romania) and representatives of IUCN and its World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) we discussed the issues of climate change impact and effect of air pollution to Krkonoše Mts National Park and Jizera Mts Protected Landscape Area. World leaders admired our work on revitalization of peatbogs and measures taken to dicrease water runoff from ridges of both mountain ranges. In the light of global targets to increase number of terrestrial protected areas to 30 %, they also appreciated the efforts to designate new protected areas on Soutok, Krušné Mountains and to establish new national park Křivoklátsko.

Heads of agencies and national parks that gathered in the Czech Republic are responsible for about 7 500 000 km2, the area 100 times bigger than the Czech Republic. This meeting has been important for two reasons. Firstly, it was the first meeting of such a format after covid-19 break. The last meeting of leaders from protected areas was held in 2019 in Autralia. Secondly, this was the first global meeting where nature conservation practitioners met to discuss targets set by the Global Biodiversity Framework from the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity from Montreal in December 2022.

Declaration from the meeting was agreed upon where the participants responsible for more than 1000 protected areas stress the importance of sustained funding for the biodiversity conservation and nature restoration in todays global climate and biodiversity crises.

Photo and video: Tomas Ruzicka