A series of meetings with residents about the new regulatory framework for the Gauja National Park (GNP), organised by the Nature Conservation Agency (the agency) and the Ministry of Smart Administration and Regional Development, began with a gathering in Krimulda on 23 October. Every landowner, resident and interested party has the opportunity to submit proposals and comment on the new regulatory framework up until 10 November.
Eight meetings are planned in total, in the Sigulda, Cēsis and Valmiera municipalities. The venues and times of the meetings can be found on the agency's website www.daba.gov.lv in the Documents open for public consultation section. In addition, individual consultations with agency specialists will be held at each venue one hour before the stated time. In other words, landowners who wish to clarify something about the new rules as they apply to their own property are warmly invited to find out more about the questions that concern them.
For the convenience of landowners, the agency has developed an online map in which the current and planned zoning can easily be viewed by entering a property's cadastral designation, thus clearly showing whether and what changes will affect a particular property. The map can be viewed in the above-mentioned section of the agency's website.
The draft regulations and the draft law set out the individual protection and use arrangements for the GNP, revising the functional zoning, providing for a nature park zone and easing the requirement to draw up forest management plans. In addition, protection is being strengthened for old forests in the nature reserve zone, for grasslands, and for areas of high landscape value throughout the national park.
"The currently applicable GNP zoning and protection requirements preserve and protect significant parts of the ecological network across a wider area. At the same time, the necessary protection for various natural assets is not ensured over considerable areas, and the present forest management rules for the nature reserve zone satisfy neither nature conservation specialists nor private forest owners. In order to ensure the protection of natural assets while not creating unjustified restrictions on economic activity in areas where this is not necessary, the GNP functional zoning has been drawn up in as much detail as possible, providing for differing restrictions on economic activity," explains Gita Strode, Director of the agency's Nature Conservation Department.
The new framework has been made clearer and specifies when forest management plans need to be drawn up, so that in future they will be required only in individual cases, thereby reducing the bureaucratic burden. Likewise, all forests under state management are included in the strict nature reserve and nature reserve zones. The rules on protecting sites of landscape value and on managing tourist flows have also been clarified.
The draft legislation is available on the website www.daba.gov.lv in the Home/News/Public participation/Documents open for public consultation section. The draft legislation can also be viewed on the public portal for draft legislation https://tapportals.mk.gov.lv/, project ID: 24-TA-209 (the GNP law) and 24-TA-210 (Cabinet of Ministers regulations).
The GNP is Latvia's first and oldest national park, established on 14 September 1973 with the aim of protecting the unique natural assets of the ancient Gauja valley and its surroundings, while providing for both recreation and nature conservation functions in the area. Several areas of particular biological value have been designated within the GNP – the Nurmiži gorges, the Roči forest, the Inciems ancient shoreline and the Suda bog reserve zones.