Map / Hungary
Welcome! Here you will find information about Hungary regarding:
- Protected Areas management
- The Training and capacity Needs Assessment reports
- Capacity building initiatives/projects
Protected Areas management
There are 4 categories of Protected Areas in Hungary under law regulations: National Parks, Landscape protection areas, Nature conservation areas, Natural monuments as well as Natura 2000 Network that covers 21% of the country territory.
At a regional level the main institutions responsible for the management of protected areas are the National Park directorates. They are responsible not only for the given National Park, but also for the landscape protection areas, nature conservation areas, natural monuments and Natura 2000 sites in their areas of operation.
There are also 10 regional inspectorates for environment, nature and water and 2 sub-offices that are the ‘green authorities’ at first instance, while the National Inspectorate works mainly as an authority at second instance in issuing permits for certain activities and imposing fines and penalties.
The supervisory body of the National Inspectorate is the Ministry of Rural Development.
The Training and capacity Needs Assessment
The Training and capacity needs assessment report (2014) The ”Assessment of capacity development needs of Protected Area staff in Eastern Europe. Hungary” is based on a survey that has been filled in by the staff employed in the national Protected Area management system of Hungary in 2013.
The results of the surveys provide detailed information on staffing profiles, training provided in the past three years and structured assessments of competence, based on which recommendations have been developed.
The preparation and publication of this report was supported by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt für Naturschutz: BfN) as a component of the project ‘Capacity Building Plans for Efficient Protected Area Management in Eastern Europe’ (Number: Z1.3-544 11-63/12 (FKZ: 3512 82 1800)).
The report will be available for download as soon as possible.
Capacity building initiatives/projects
Here are some relevant initiatives at a national level:
– The Ministry of Rural Development organizes professional conferences in a variety of topics (e.g. landscape protection) for experts from the national park directorates.
– The State Secretariat for the Environment, in collaboration with various institutions, has been organizing trainings for Protected Area administrators and staff for many years in a variety of topics, such as environmental impact assessments, or this year, wildland fire prevention and management.
– National park directorates have cooperation agreements with several educational institutions from elementary schools to universities within their areas of operation. They provide experts for environmental education, organize summer camps for children, employ university students as interns, train local stakeholders in a variety of topics. They provide trainings for large numbers of agricultural farmers.
– Fundings and international collaborations offer further support when it comes to capacity building in Hungary, for example:
2008 – 2014, ” PaNaNet – The Pannonian Nature Network”, Austria-Hungary European Territorial Cooperartion Programme 2007-2013 (Project no.: L00038)
About the project:
The project aimed to to raise people’s awareness concerning biodiversity and socio-economic values of their surrounding natural landscapes in Western Hungary and in Eastern Austria, and it included training programs, mainly for tour guides and ornithologists. PaNaNet works for joint approaches and strategies in the fields of environmental education, marketing of ecotourism, land use and forest management.
For details about the project, click here.
For other initiatives in the field of capacity building for Protected Areas that should be included here, please write to us at office@propark.ro (state within the subject of the email: Capacity Building Section – Hungary)