What it’s like to be a national park director

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Bohemian Switzerland National Park – a good reason to meet its director, Petr Kříž. Although he has been working here for the last three years, his practice has been connected to nature conservation for almost his entire career.

We met in Plšík’s Garden, which is part of the headquarters of the national park in Krásná Lípa.

In the half hour we spent talking, we certainly didn’t have time to discuss all the topics that were on offer, but I hope we at least touched on the most important ones.

I would like to point out that the author of this text and the interviewer considers himself a nature conservationist. On the other hand, he remembers times when movement in the territory of today’s park was much freer. However, even before the end of the last century, it was not uncommon for members of public security to check his identity, and sometimes even quite rudely search him. We were on the border – albeit with the friendly German Democratic Republic, but crossing the green border was strictly prohibited. One crossing manned by customs officers was in Hřensko, the other in Varnsdorf!

In the interview, we could not avoid the recent fire, the natural recovery of the entire fire site, which is taking place very dynamically, or the measures that should prevent a similar situation in the future.

We talked about the successes that the set regime has brought, but we also talked about what is not quite working so far.

And most importantly, we agreed that this was not the last time we spoke.

I think that a new Minister of the Environment can give new dynamics to the future of national parks – and there will be something to talk about.