The first was the publication of the audio book in Šumava National Park – 30 years. The work has a total of 36 parts, and listeners can look forward to new parts every Friday until early October this year. They can be found for free on the park administration’s official YouTube channel or on the Šumava podcast in the Šumava tourist area.

There is also a second audiobook ready for listening – Šumava Gems, the printed version contains Braille and is enlarged. It can be read by blind and partially sighted readers as well as able readers. It will be available for rent at all park information centers.

The biggest event of the year is Šumava and PLA National Park Day, which will take place on July 1 on the grounds of the Rokyta u Srní information centre.

“People will try various competitions and craft workshops there. Other parks in the Czech Republic will also be presented there, including the Giant Mountains, which is also celebrating its 60th anniversary this year,” added Jan Dvořák, spokesman for NP Šumava.

The highlight of the day was a concert by Lenka Dusilová, who is also the scorer for the new documentary called Water Lost, Water Returned, which will premiere this year.

“We are also preparing special guided walks to the PLA. The first one will probably be in May, others will follow throughout the summer. This event is free, but it is necessary to register in advance, as the number of participants is limited,” explained Dvořák.

There will also be thematic exhibitions at the visitor center. “They will also tour, in our neighboring big cities, such as Klatovy, Sušice and Prachatice. The exhibition will always be accompanied by a lecture by the director of the park, Pavel Hubený,” suggested Dvořák.

The first is scheduled for June. Interested parties can find all the previous details at garden website.

Initially, they regarded the formation of the PLA as a disappointment

Nature protection was talked about in Šumava long before the formation of the PLA. Perhaps the most famous pioneer was forester Josef John, who ensured that Prince Schwarzenberg declared protection for the Boubín Forest more than 185 years ago.

And even the idea of ​​declaring a national park is more than a century old. The first considerations were already in the Austro-Hungarian period, in 1911. But the most detailed proposals were made under Nazi Germany in 1938. At that time, they even considered displacing some of the population and creating vast wildernesses.

Another attempt was made following the removal of most of the German-speaking population in 1946, when the area was nearly uninhabited. Julius Komárek used the situation to declare a national park. But he also failed.

It wasn’t until ten years after the Second World War that a group of people, today we would call a non-governmental organization, met to prepare the declaration of a national park.

“Just like today, these people caused a lot of laughter among professional conservationists. Still, they managed what professionals couldn’t. In 1954, for the first time, they formulated the idea of ​​a national park, its scope and purpose its protection, and even proposed how to organize this plan,” said Pavel Hubený, director of Šumava Park.

One of the devotees is Ladislav Vodák. “The association is preparing national parks all the time. The fact that the PLA was finally created certainly didn’t satisfy the group and it led to the fact that Šumava was even more vulnerable than he needed to be. To some extent, they thought it was a missed opportunity. It was after the war and the border people were displaced. Villages, fields and meadows are overgrown with plants,” explains Hubený.

Despite their disappointment, it was a big step from today’s perspective. “Everything has its own development. In the 1960s, there were no fundamental safeguards to speak of. It’s more like a declaration that this is a good area, and a business entity should consider it. But of course they took it their way. At that time, national protection and the Warsaw Pact were considered more important. It was only ten to fifteen years after the declaration that the PLA received some status. The first PLA administration and legal regulations appeared, which regulate their functions in such a way that they have some competence,” Hubený assessed.

Currently, the Šumava Protected Area operates concurrently with the national park. But at the same time, it seems that he remains in her shadow. Nevertheless, it manages some of Šumava’s most valuable parts, such as the Králský hvozd with Černý and Čertový jezer and Boubín, which do not belong to the Šumava National Park.

“With the declaration of a national park in 1991, the PLA became a sort of protection zone. But over the past thirty years, the garden has attracted particular media attention,” Hubený realized.