Map / Slovakia
Welcome! Here you will find information about Slovakia regarding:
- Protected Areas management
- The Training and capacity Needs Assessment reports
- Capacity building initiatives/projects
Protected Areas management
Protected Areas in Slovakia are managed by the State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic (SNC SR). It is a public agency for nature and landscape protection, supervised by the Ministry of Environment. The headqaurters of the SNC coordinates the work of 9 national park administrations, 14 administrations of protected landscape areas and 2 regional nature conservation centers.
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. Slovakia” is based on a survey that has been filled in by the staff employed in the national Protected Area management system of Slovakia 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
SNC SR is an institution which provides or supports certain training for nature conservation professionals in Slovakia in cooperation with other institutions, Universities and NGOs, which develop educational programmes focused on nature conservation and Protected Areas management. At the same time the SNC SR coordinates an international initiative within the Ramsar Convention and Carpathian Convention, the Carpathian WetlandInitiative (CWI), which plans to develop the training and capacity building programmes focused on wetland management in the Carpathian region.
The Carpathian Wetland Centre was established in Banská Bystrica in 2014. The Centre will provide information on wetlands, their role in water cycle and landscape, information on protection and sustainable use of wetlands in the Carpathians as well as ongoing wetland projects. The Centre will organise trainings and education activities for wetland managers and for public. A questionnaire was distributed among CWI members to identify training needs and training programme will be developed based on its results.
Slovak Environment Agency (SEA) provides expertise in the field of informal environmental education at the national and regional level. SEA currently offers an accredited educational training program: Nature and landscape protection. The training program is based on the documents processed by the project System of continuous education in the field of nature protection, which was implemented by SEA in 2009 – 2011. It is designed to professionals in the field of nature and landscape protection and management. It contains seven modules. The main objective of the training program is to enhance both specific and general competences of people dealing with nature and landscape protection.
Other opportunities of gaining training in the field are represented by bachelor and master degree studies with the focus on nature conservation at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica and Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Technical University in Zvolen. Another option is given by the centre for the development of alpine biological research in the West Carpathians managed by the Institute of High Mountain Biology, University of Žilina.
Regular trainings are provided to officials of environmental authorities (decision making bodies) on regional/district levels by relevant ministries.
A list of training providers and topics for past training events is available for downloading at the bottom of this article.
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 message: Capacity Building Section – Slovakia)