Chirita, Matei, SGEM 2012, En

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THE RELATIONAL ARTICULATION BETWEEN COMMUNITIESAND PROTECTED AREAS IN THE DORNA-CLIMANI MOUNTAIN AREA

(THE EASTERN CARPATHIANS OF ROMANIA)

Ph.d., Ass. prof. Viorel CHIRI1, Ph.d., Senior researcher, Daniela Matei2

1 tefan cel Mare, University of Suceava, Romania2 Romanian Academy, Iasi Branch, ICES Gh Zane, Romania

ABSTRACTThe basic components included in the Master Plans of protected areas, such as the one

recently approved for the National Parks of Calimani Mt. (PNC), beyond the protectionand conservation of biodiversity and landscapes, focus on actions to promote awareness(i.e. territorial brand) and support for activities such as ecotourism.The scientific approaches, by various researchers (Chirita, 2003 [3], Matei 2005,Muntele, 2002[9], Claval, 2003[5], Brunet, 1993 [2]), leverage methodological skillsspecific to environmental geography, sociology, tourism, ecoturism and economy andseek to identify opportunities for the articulation of different types of ecotourism asassessed and recommended in the Master Plan of the PNC [12], [13],with the mountainregion as a geographical area protected by measures specificto environmental tourism.Characterised by the relative fragility, the mountain area of the Climani is the largestsleeping-volcano of the Carpathian chain, spanning over more than 24,000 squarehectares, with a National Park status since 2002, [13]. Tourism attraction andaccessibility in the protected area, and certain actions focused on increasing touristinflows have increased the vulnerability of the ecosystem and of the cultural landscapeand their ecosystem sustainability, especially due to the proliferation of pseudo-eco-tourism, aggressive tourism, that is less adapted to such protected areas.Our study identifies areas vulnerable to the impact of tourism and highlights the manner in which the administration of PNC and local communities articulate their efforts for sustainable development in villages surrounding the protected area, including bydeveloping environmental tourism.

This approach is not easy. The transformations in the economy due to the transitionhave impacted the function of the rural space, leading to strong (political,administrative, sociological) pressures in the communities adjacent to protected areas:the shift from mining activity, a key activity some of these areas, to logging and tourismactivities was undertaken chaotically while quasi-incoherent strategies sought todevelop tourism, in the management plans for the protected areas. As these pressuresgrow more intense, or are exacerbated, economic interests increasingly attracted (e.g.exploiting mineral resources), triggering increased vulnerabilities that demand the protection and conservation of landscapes.From this perspective, considering the features of relations in the Calimani Mountain

National Park and the Dornas Region area [4], we consider that the development of

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12th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM 2012

integrated management and master plans of protected areas, jointly with those of theadministrative units to which they belong, would be a solution, and the identification of the elements of the complex cultural landscape of these regions can maintain and preserve the more traditional activities, with the specific community strengths and

opportunities pointing to a viable SWOT.The study aims to identify the elements of vulnerable geographic areas, specificfunctional areas of the PNC, and articulate specific environmental tourism actions, to beincluded in the Master Plan for Climani Mt. as protective measures as well as culturaldimensions of the protected space itself.

Keywords: environmental tourism, communities, protected areas, relationship, National Parks.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND LEGISLATIVE BACKGROUND

Climani Massif is not only the most impressive volcanic structure in the EasternCarpathians, it also houses one of the largest National Parks in Romania, covering over 24,000 ha.The recent approval of the Master Plan the Management Plan of the Climani National Park Administration (October 2011[19], [20]), beyond being a necessary andlong overdue regulation, presents both practical and theoretical approach repercussionsas regards the structural and functional interference between the protected area andsurrounding communities [3].

The establishment of protected areas was, for Romania, a essentially historical stepforward, as it corroborates data on habitats and landscapes preserved in a mountainousarea with a certain specificity of accessibility, the spread of plant associations with relictelements, in addition to the difficulty delimiting the perimeter of the 24,000 ha protected area. The final result was an area with a high degree of fragmentation.The articulation of the two types of approaches, scientific and ecological (focused onconservation and protection), with the economic approaches specific to a mountain area,generates most often relational phenomena and highly complex sociological processes[5], [6].The Government Decree (no. 1035/October 2011) [13].which approved the Master Planfor Climani National Park, among the first of its kind at national level, has severalimportant consequences, especially in practical terms. It establishes, on the one hand,the order of priority actions in the protected area aimed at the conservation and protection of biodiversity, of flora and fauna, in addition to geographical landscapes,namely those related to cultural communities neighbouring the park.The chapters of the Master Plan dealing with tourism, and especially with functionalzoning, mark the shift in the role and place of the predominantly green geographicalspace towards sustainable development of sustainable economic activities, at the levelof the protected area[13].

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LOCAL CONTACTS AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

From this point of view, the non-gradual interconnections of fully protected areas or of strictly and exclusively protected areas with the geographical and territorial1 areas of

villages and related anthropic activities can lead to tense contacts and disharmony, bothsocial and administrative and functional non-economic ones. Such situations, despitescientific recommendations for the establishment and planning of protected areas, maytrigger the emergence, generation and expansion of activities at the outer limit of strictly protected areas2 (1128 ha, cf. Climani National Park zoning), which often favoursforms and types of economic impact and unsustainable development around the area protected of the communities.

THE REGIONAL DISTINCTION OF SPATIAL TENSIONS ALONG THEBOUNDARIES OF THE PROTECTED AREA

It appears, therefore, that the following areas, viewed as sensitive points in thedevelopment of community-protected area relations: the Bay of Gura Haitii3 marks, dueto its expansion, the development intravolcanic contact reliefs shapes in Calimanicaldera, of the piedmont glacis with considerable energy. Basically, it covers a small part of the protected area but, instead, it stretches like a real bay within the caldera, i.e.within National Park Climani. This means there is a direct contact between the protected area, including its strictly protected reserve areas, and the agricultural land or even with dispersed built structures of Gura Haitii village.In this context, development of forest holdings owned by Vatra Dornei forest district, private individuals or Archdiocese of Radauti, has led to difficult to quantify elementsof interference in the whole area.Thus, forest exploitation conducted in the "patches" of sustainable development areas, permitted under the Law on protected areas and protected area management plans, atdifferent rates, over time have resulted in frequent association with phenomena relatedto massive forest damage.

NATURAL OR ANTHROPHIC DAMAGE?

1 The terminological distinction, not only in nuance, of the terms geographic area and territory relates tothe assignment and assumption by local communities of the terms territory and territorialisation,according to the meanings developed in territorial planning[7].2 According to the Management Plan for Climani National Park (Master Plan), the areas i.e. functionalareas with various degrees of protection are: 1,028 ha strictly protected area (including in these areas and

Pinus cembra scientific reserve), 15.727 ha- fully protected area (which includes 8237.3 ha of forest and7461.3 ha of mountain meadows), the sustainable conservation area of 7729 ha, which makes thetransition from the strictly protected areas and fully protected areas to the surrounding forest or anthropicareas[13].3 The meaning of geographical regional distinction as golf ("bay") within the external boundaries of

Dorna Depression, Chirita, 1999, 2003, [3] as a variable-surface area, territorially involved in thedepression, with a specific shape of geographical spaces bordered by areas of high hypsometric levels.

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The damage to forest expanses due to land-development near processing facilities, oftenfavour bark beetles invasions, with subsequent, enclave or peninsula-type damageeffects on areas of sustainable development and, unfortunately, also the strictly

protected areas[10].The phenomenon would not be so serious if the hundreds and thousands of cubic metersfelled due to snow or slope wind effect were removed. Unfortunately, only the profitable logging exploitations are favoured, disregarding the specific types of relationships between communities and mountain protected area.It is worth noting, however, that these invasions of wood-boring insects is notnecessarily a disaster in itself, in terms of biodiversity protection and conservation, aslong as it is accelerated by reckless anthropogenic action near the affected area.There have been many debates in scientific advisory boards and steps have been taken by Climani National Park Administration to warn businesses about their specificactions vis--vis the forest real estate. Most times such efforts have been ignored.Moreover, measures to combat such insular outbreaks of bark insect, mainly of thegenus Ipydaelor were inappropriate measures, such as those proposed by the forestmanagement officials, such as the pheromone traps which were totally inadequate,according to leading experts (Olenici, 2010, 2011) [3], who pointed out that somechemical agent pheromone traps, cause not only the extinction of target species butrather their spatial expansion.The same phenomena can be noticed elsewhere in Climani National Park, as in: theupper Negrisoara basins, the upper Dornioare and Negrii arului, in the area of the Bay

of Haitii, in the forest districts of Dorna Candrenilor, Poiana Stampei and Vatra Dorneiand on the western slope of Climani massif, in areas administered by forest districtsRstolia and Colibia.

INTERFERENCE GENERATED BY MINING

In the same context of human interference in the Climani protected area, we mustmention the current outcomes of abandoned mines or mines currently exploited, whichgive a new meaning, associative, scientific, conceptual, administrative to therelationship between mines and protected area.The not too distant history of mining economy in the Climani, the exploitation of useful substances, was underscored by three decades of intense activity (1967-1997), of exploration and then exploitation of (supposed) rich deposits of sulphur.

THE EFFECT?

More than 436 ha of mine tailing piles, with a high concentration of white siliceousrock, limonitic compounds or crushed rock, with varying percentages of metallic andnon-metallic compounds, an impressive quarry of more than 640 m in diameter and 60m deep, leaking every second at the outer boundary of the fully protected area which

includes specimens of Pinus cembra, Pinus mugo and forest type flora, boreal or sub-

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alpine, which still clings to life, creating a sharp contrast between genuinely virginnature and "moonlike cultural landscape ".This enclave of highly humanised landscape, now undergoing a process of ecologicalrevival more or less palliative compared with what nature manages to restore on itsown, may be included as such in an educational tour package, to testify to the frenzy of moving mountains in in the name of an ill defined economic purpose with a devastatingimpact on the environment:

- volume of displaced land mass: 30 billion cubic meters;- a massif that was cut almost entirely - Negoiul Romnesc;- a community for decades hosted in the heart of the mountain / protected area

and now abandoned, afriche, brownfield in the proper sense of the word:a mining ghost town [2] [6] , [7].

ECONOMIC HISTORY OF ANTHROPIC INTERFERENCE

Related to the above, i.e. the shape protected area and the establishment of its boundaries, as an immense horseshoe shape, grafted mainly on upper hypsometric floor (boreal, subalpine and alpine), it is worth noting its economic role: impressive"peninsulas" on the northern extremities of the protected area or the southern Mureriver valley, which, in turn, penetrate the area of human activity, predominantlyagricultural, where the economic cycles have succeeded at an incredible speed for arural area:

a). Specific economic cycles of old mining resource exploitations, especially of buildingmaterials (isolated crystalline limestone - Btca etinei) or manganese (in the adjacentmountain areas of Climani massif) started after the establishment of the Austriangovernment in the Dorna Basin area, in the late 18th century and until early this century. b). Economic cycles related to forestry, especially after the second half of the 19thcentury, capitalising on the exceptional quality of Climani wood (fibre, verticality,resonance, span, etc..), and especially transportation systems based on flotation, whichresulted in unique cultural landscape elements, complex hydrographical facilities for those days, access roads; and especially the development of territorial sequences of villages across the dispersed area: Neagra arului, Dorna Candreni, Poiana Stampei.c). Mixed, complementary economic cycle, of villages with pastoral function: forest-

based, supplemented by the operation and enhancement of pastures and meadows of great quality in the Calimani, processes that are now economically dominant along withwood processing.Typical to this economic cycle are the non-agricultural activities presented below(Matei, 2010, 2011, Chiri, Matei, 2011[3]) in the mountain area of Bukovina and theCarpathians, illustrated by communes which develop such activities as: milk processingin dairies, or local cheese factories, wooden house structures, pre-finished and exportedto Spain and Switzerland, functional household objects recognised for their quality andartistic sense, various canned or fresh or packaged products, processed mushrooms and berries in factories in Poiana Stampei, Neagra arului i Dorna Candreni [11].

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Table no.1 Non-agricultural activities in the villages surrounding the protected area of National Park

ClimaniComuna Processing

IndustryBuilding Trade Transport

andwarehousing

Hotels andrestaurants

Dorna Candreni 9 3 19 4 12Panaci 7 - 8 3 4aru Dornei 8 1 3 7 10Poiana Stampei 11 3 10 6 6

The end of mining activity in Climani has boosted manufacturing activities, as anoutlet for laid-off workforce, reflected by the large number of companies operating inall the villages surrounding the protected area. People turn towards this types of activityranging from traditional activities to the final processing and export.The staff involved in these types of activities is only part of the active populationstructure locals and presents a great economic potential, yet for them the establishmentof the protected area in 2004 and especially the very restrictive current regulations willact as many further major obstacles to non-agricultural activities, agricultural and agro-forestry activities. No less remarkable is that forest land returned under the restitution law in 1998, 2001,especially near the alpine areas, as a necessary historical restorative act, hasnevertheless resulted in unfortunate actions, damaging the administrative integrity of the park.The cultural landscape of the new agri-forestry facilities is a puzzle of managed production facilities and land-planning facilities, fences that limit private property,grazing areas, that have indeed diminished indeed in the alpine area in recent years, allof this against the need to perceive the natural area as protected for biodiversityconservation purposes.This brief overview shows that the shape and degree of fragmentation of protected areas pose a serious handicap for the integrated management, with specific activities of ruralcommunities around it.Another idea that we would like to explore here is that the fragile mountain spaceresults from the juxtaposition of several environmental situation assessments, typical of a massif that spans a complex contact zone.

Thus, Calimani massif, where Climani National Park is located, is situated on the edgeof the crystalline structures of Bistrita and Suhard to the north, with volcanicsedimentary structures, related to Brgu. They enable, among other things, thedevelopment of resources that can be tapped, presenting a particularly high leveleconomic interest (with a key role in the development of the whole region): mineralsprings, manganese, sulfur, construction materials etc..The complex hypsometric and geomorphologic contact between the mountainous areaof the Climani volcanic massif itself with Dorna Depression, one of the largest (467 sqkm), situated at the highest average elevation of the depressions in the Carpathians, hasalso involved different levels of land use, community concentration and relationship

between the various successive administrations over time:

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- Austrian rule (1775-1918);- Forestry administrations;- local government by communities that share the Climani massif area, now a

protected area;- the Climani National Park administration.

Among the administrations, and in particular between them and the local communities,relations have often been less harmonious, as their interests often have not converged.Furthermore, the results of their actions were not always consistent with master plansadopted at different levels. The Forestry Code Law of Bukovina, approved at the end of sec. XVIII, introduced restrictions in forest areas, and still echoes to this day, in a balanced structure of the forest real estate in the rest of the region.The general zoning plans and the developments they required or expected have madetimid attempts to emphasise that within certain communes, the very existence of protected areas affords them special treatment. Only in 2011, did the zoning plan of Dorna Candrenilor village resort to the Climani National Park administration and themaster plan in order to solve problems of urban and territorial planning in the park area. Not to mention here all the other plans focused on the land development activities in theregion, of national, county or local interest. However, against the aspirations, features,ethnological heritage and approaches of each community to their own development.The prohibition of certain activities in the area of PNC, justified on the basis of itsestablishment and the approved master plan, limit and restrict the broader man-mountain relationship, which is more difficult to outside the boundaries of astraightforward relation, i.e. exploiting and utilising certain resources. Yet thedevelopment of service activities (such as ecotourism) in the protected area will be asolution that can expand and enshrine as permanent the link between the localcommunities and the mountain that that they assume as their territory.It is apparent that the 21st century can not and should not be a century in whichcommunities can do anything, anyway and anywhere, yet it is equally unacceptable tooffer solutions to instances of relations that go beyond the legal relations or enshrined inmaster plans.We believe, therefore, that the types of relationships that emerge between thecommunity and law-based governing superstructures are bound to be measured not only by assessing the benefits they offer to one side or the other, but rather byinterconnecting activities with consciously embraced principles of benefits resultingfrom safeguarding and preserving biodiversity and cultural and tourism landscapes,infrastructure development etc..

REFERENCES

[1] BERQUE, A. , 1984, Payssage empreinte, payasage / matrice, : elements de problematique pour une geographie culturelle , L`espace geograpique, , vol 19[2] BRUNET, R., FERRAS, R., THERY, H., 1993, Les Mots de la Geographie,dictionnaire critique, Reclus- La Documentation Francaise, Paris

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[3] CHIRI, V., 2011, Environmental Relationships in Dornas Region and TheClimani National Park (Eastern Carpathians) The 11th International MultidisciplinaryScientific Geo-Conference & EXPO - SGEM 2011, procedings, Albena, Bulgaria,www.sgem.org

[4] CHIRI, V., 2003, Depresiunea Dornelor, Studiu fizico-geograpfic (The Dornelor Depression) . A physic- geographic Approach, Editura Univeristii tefan cel Mare dinSuceava.[5] CHIRI, V., Violeta PUCAU, 2009, Constructive and DestructiveRelationships in The Climani Protected Area, Conferina Internaional Managementand Sustainable Protection of Environment BenA (Balkan Environmental Association) ,Universitatea 1Decembrie, Alba Iulia, 6-7mai, 2009[6] CLAVAL, P., 2003, Geographie Cuturelle, Armand Colin, /VUEF, Paris, France[7] COCEAN, P. (2007), Dissolution Processes of the Mental Spaces afferent to the

Romanian Lands Revista de Geografie Politic, 1, pg. 5-10, Oradea.[8] GROZA, O. , 2003, De re- geographiae sau lungul drum al spaiului ctre teritoriu,

Teritorii (scrieri, dez-scrieri) , Paideea, Bucureti[9] IANO, I., 2000, Sisteme teritoriale. O abordare geografic, Editura Tehnic,

Bucureti[10] MATEI, Daniela, Viorel CHIRI, 2011, The Local Development Options in theDornas Region, Between the Economic, The 54th International Scientific Conference,Durable Agriculture development strategy, University of Agricultural Sciences andVeterinary Medicine /UASMV, Iasi

[11] MATEI DANIELA, Economie rurala neagricola. Traditie si perspective inMoldova, Editura Terra Nostra, Iasi, 2011[12]UNGUREANU, AL., GROZA, O.; MUNTELE, I., 2002 Moldova : populaia,fora de munc i aezrile omeneti n tranziie, Editura Corson, Iai[13] * * * Monitorul Oficial, Partea I, nr.790/8 XI 2011, Hotrrea de Guvernnr.1035/12X2011, pentru aprobarea Planului de management a Parcului NaionalClimani, Romnia[14]* * * Planul de Management al Parcului Naional Climani,www.calimani.ro

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Chirita, Matei, SGEM 2012, En