Mass tourism in protected areas – underestimated threat? Polish National Parks case study

5.1 Tourist potential of national parks

The tourist values of national parks are presented in various ways. The vast majority of 23 national parks provide information on the subject under the headings of tourism, tourist attractions, nature (sometimes adding further links of animate nature and of inanimate nature) or pointing to specific types of resources such as caves or water.

The above list of values indicates that out of twenty-three Polish national parks only thirteen in any way present its geotouristic potential. This does not mean that they give up the promotion of their natural values at all but more often they focus on the animated nature. This happens even if the size and importance of values associated with the abiotic environment is equally important and sometimes even more important for nature conservation in their area.

Certainly, the poor representation of some parks located in mountainous and upland areas - areaswhose geotouristic potential is almost always significant - may be surprising. This is the case of the Bieszczadzki National Park whose official website does not indicate any values of inanimate nature at all. In the case of such parks as Świętokrzyski, Pieniński, Gorczański or Magurski such information is just a part of wider descriptions not directly related to the values.

The parks’ authorities responsible for maintaining official websites show different approaches to the presentation of tourist values located in the park. There is clearly an uneven approach to tourist values in general including those of a natural character. Only some of the twenty-three parks draw attention to their inanimate nature values. It is prepared in three ways:

1. presents them as part of a broader commentary on the geology or geomorphology of the area where it occurs or,

2. presents them as part of the description of particular thematic, didactic and educational routes, or simply presents the routes running through the park area or,

3. presents them as natural values in the more or less detailed way in a larger group of tourist attractions or separated as the most important attractions of the park (in this category only the values of inanimate nature are presented). This is the case for two parks: Karkonoski and Table Mountains - both located in Lower Silesia. The first one has also the status of the geopark.

5.2 Tourist function of national parks in Poland

National parks play an important role in the development of tourism in non-urbanized areas in Poland. They belong (apart of landscape parks) to the most attractive natural values of surface character. In practice, they are treated as a collection of many tourist values of a point nature or as an important set of recreational values where the nature of the landscape, microclimate prevailing in its area, water relations and fauna and flora characteristic for the region are important. This form of nature protection which occupies just over 1% of the country’s area is able to generate mass tourist flow. It this does not apply to all parks however. The size of tourist flow depends on many factors:

1. attractiveness of the landscape,

2. the range and number of tourist natural values,

3. the environmental conditions for practicing different active forms of tourism, emphasizing the skiing,

4. the level of the tourist infrastructure development accompanying specific forms of tourism with particular emphasis on the accommodation base in the vicinity of the park,

5. accessibility.

Taking into consideration the above elements it is not surprising the top ten most visited tourist attractions in Poland in 2014:

1. Tatrzański National Park

2. Wilanów Palace

3. Łazienki Palace

4. Karkonoski National Park

5. Auschwitz – Birkenau Concentration Camp

6. Woliński National Park

7. Wieliczka Salt Mine

8. Wawel Castle

9. Wielkopolski National Park

10. Kopernik Science Center

Figure 1

Number of tourists in national parks 2010 – 2017

Source: [64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71]

Figure 2

Number of tourists in national parks in 2017

Source: [71]

As Kruczek points out [63] there are as many as four national parks in the list: two of a mountain nature, one of seaside and one lake. The highest rank belongs to the Tatrzański National Park where inanimate nature plays a significant role. The Karkonoski National Park was right behind the podium. For both of the parks the size of tourist traffic exceeds one million tourists.

The analysis of tourist traffic in national parks in recent years indicates a steady upward trend.

In the last decade tourist traffic in national parks increased from 10464400 to 13290600 visitors in 2017 with the exception of 2013. In practice tourist traffic increase of 30% in national parks was observed which impacted both animated and inanimate nature. It is worth taking a look at the record year 2017.

The most visited park with almost four million tourists is the Tatrzański National Park. The next places are occupied by the Karkonoski National Park with two million visitors, Woliński (1.5 million tourists) and Wielkopolski (1.2 million tourists). The group of parks with a million entries or over is completed by the Kampinoski National Park . It is worth paying attention to one important element: 8072000 tourists visit national parks located in mountain areas. If the number of visitors to upland parks is added, the total number increases to 8705000 people, which is 65% of all tourist movement associated with national parks in Poland. This value alone indicates a potential threat from the tourist movement for the natural values of mountain and upland national parks which take on much more pressure from tourists. In this group, due to its attractiveness for tourists, four national parks stand out: (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Tourist movement in selected mountainous national parks between 2010 and 2017

Source: [64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71]

These were the most visited mountain national parks in 2017. Invariably for years in this group the leader is the Tatrzański National Park where the traffic in the analyzed period has almost doubled from 2 to 4 million tourists. The dynamics of this process can effect the inanimate nature of the Park. The situation in the Karkonoski National Park is surprisingly stable where the volume of tourist traffic in the last eight years has remained at a stable level of 2 million visitors which is 336 people per hectare of the Park which rises a threat of anthropopressure.

Variable growth is noted by Pieniński National Park the third in classification visited last year by almost 900000 tourists. In the examined relatively short period the popularity of the Park increased by 30%. The last of the analyzed parks is the Table Mountains National Park which also increased tourist traffic from 319000 in 2010 to over half a million tourists in 2017.

5.3 Threats to inanimate nature resulting from the presence of tourist flow in the national parks

The size of tourist flow in valuable natural areas affects the quality and conservation status of nature. This is a kind of paradox - the more valuable and attractive natural area in the opinion of tourists, the greater the tourist flow is observed, which translates into a greater threat to the nature in the protected area. In the literature the whole set of threats is repeatedly pointed out of which managers in the protected area are aware of. Noise, pollution or anthropopressure is indicated [63]. Partyka [72] draws attention to the excessive attendance of visitors and the increase of number of tourist trails in the most popular places, trampling wild paths, damaging root systems, trees, destroying vegetation and soil, noise, disturbing animals, causing fires, littering, changes in landscape and microclimate, and synanthropization of flora and fauna and changes in the structure of biocenoses. Similarly, Baraniec [73] points to anthropogenic denudation, destruction in vegetation or littering, which diminishes the aesthetic values of the Park and has a negative impact on the animal world. Wieniawska [74] emphasizes the threat related to the development of infrastructure, especially skiing. The most popular in summer in mountains - hiking - destroys nature on the tourist trails. Tourists could destroy the vegetation cover, create short cuts between paths, destroy the surface of the paths, cause loose material movement, etc. [75].

The overw helming majority of literature on the subject points to the threats of animated nature, assuming that elements of inanimate nature as more resistant to the environment are less threatened [73, 75]. It is worth confronting this position with the opinion of institutions that are responsible for the management of protected areas, in this case national parks.

5.4 Analysis of inanimate nature threats according to documents

The need to protect nature, also inanimate, against the pressure of mass tourist traffic is already expressed in the declarations of managers of some national parks on their official websites. The declaration usually appears in the introductory word where the Park presents the main assumptions of nature conservation in its area and the main threats that require specific actions. It also indicates the main threats to nature from tourism - threats that can be called general but also those that are specific to a particular national park.

As far as inanimate nature is concerned the Table Mountains National Park indicates a significant share of tourism in accelerating the linear erosion process which takes place on over-exploited paths. Usually these are the main tourist routes where there are a number of initial depressions which erodes faster due to the large number of tourists [50].

The Ojcowski National Park also points to tourist flow as the main source of threats addressing the pressure of settlement in both the Park and its immediate vicinity resulting in the disappearance of rare and endangered plant species. The Park’s almost 700 caves are also endangered. An example is the cave infiltrations of Jaskinia Ciemna whose impoverished state is the result of its excessive exploitation from the 19th century [53].

The Pieniński National Park also indicates the increase of tourist flow as one of the main threats to nature and the integrity of its ecosystems. Another serious problem is the dense development of buildings within the park area which reduces the ecological corridors connecting the park with neighboring mountain ranges [54].

The Roztoczański National Park protects the inanimate nature threatened as well by the tourist movement by undertaking activities eliminating erosion resulted from anthropopressure, water protection and reducing runoff with drainage ditches and preventing overgrowing of exposed areas and outcrops [55].

However, more important than the declarations are specific actions taken by national parks. As an unit subordinated to the Ministry of the Environment each of the national parks should develop and then implement conservation tasks recorded in the Journal of Laws. It is a nature conservation plan in the national park. One of the essential mandatory elements included in the plan are threats to nature resulting from various reasons. According to the regulations each protection plan should identify the characteristic of a particular park:

1. existing internal threats;

2. potential internal threats;

3. existing external threats;

4. external potential threats.

The purpose of such a threat structure was to define specific actions to be taken to avoid these threats. Taking into account the tourist attractiveness of mountain national parks, expressed in the size of tourist flow throughout the year, it is worth looking at the plans to protect four Parks:

1. Karkonoski NP [76],

2. Table Mountains NP [77],

3. Tatrzański NP [78],

4. Pieniński NP [79].

Protective tasks relate to many issues. For understandable reasons, the focus was only on those that combine tourist flow and inanimate nature. In the case of basically all analyzed parks, the main existing identified threat is the erosion of soils. The Karkonoski National Park puts this threat in this category as the most important, which is reflected in the number one position in this group. In the case of other parks, this is also a significant problem, although the Table Mountains National Park places this problem in the third position, Tatrzański National Park in the sixth, while among the main threats defined by the Pieniński National Park this problem occupies 26^th position. Ideas for eliminating threats and their consequences are similar. The Karkonoski National Park suggests five main activities:

1. Hardening of the surface of tourist routes and internal roads.

2. Securing the sides of tourist trails and internal roads against trampling.

3. Securing of slopes and ski routes as well as lifts before erosion.

4. Anti-erosion space in places where erosion has caused human activity

5. Temporary exclusion of fragments of trails and internal roads from use.

And it is basically a set that most fully indicates ways to solve the problem. The Tatrzański National Park also indicates the need to renovate tourist routes and internal roads, fencing areas particularly susceptible to erosion and the introduction of anti-erosion structure of erosion gutters of anthropogenic origin. The Table Mountains National Park is much more laconic, which as a solution to the problem indicates the introduction of the anti-erosion structure. The Pieniński National Park adds to the above set the need to protect roads against falling rock debris and to limit the movement of motor vehicles.

Another threat, common for all parks, can be reduced to a common definition: unauthorized use of national park resources and uncontrolled penetration of its area by tourist flow. The Tatrzański National Park at this point at the position number 3 indicates problem that unauthorized persons are entering unauthorized places. In the Karkonoski National Park it is the position No. 7, where there is talk of local and periodic exceedances of the permissible number of people who can stay on a given section of the tourist route. The Table Mountains National Park speaks broadly about the uncontrolled penetration of the TMNP area consisting of: staying of tourists in places not available (areas in TMNP that are not made available to tourists to visit) and using motor vehicles (motorcycles,quads) – a point indicated by the Pieniński National Park in the section of the threat of soil erosion.

As a matter of fact, the ways to fight these threats are very similar: monitoring the impact on natural resources, limiting entry to the park’s endangered area, or infrastructure maintenance as appropriate marking, repairing hiking, biking and didactic paths. An important, especially for the Table Mountains National Park is the improvement of tourist flow and limiting the number of tourists on Szczeliniec Wielki and Błędne Skały through the creation of tourist routes and the introduction of fees for entering the routes. It also emphasizes the need to prevent tourists from staying outside of shared places.

The threat indicated only by the Pieniński National Park is, recorded in the position 29, the destruction of caves and rocky deposits caused by the tourist movement. As a way of solving the problem, it was proposed: protection of entrances to the most valuable caves located in the Park.

Potential internal threats are variously defined. The Karkonoski National Park is afraid of the pressure to expand the infrastructure serving tourism. The remedy for this should be studying the conditions and directions of spatial development of the communes of the Park, in which appropriate restrictions would be introduced.

There are two factors that threaten, in this category, for the Table Mountains National Park: Concentration of tourist flow on Szczeliniec Wielki and Błędne Skały, as well as natural mass movements of rocks, posing a threat to tourist flow. In the first case, the solution is the introduction of one-way traffic on tourist routes, in the second - mass monitoring of rock traffic and safety measures on tourist routes.

The Tatrzański National Park indicates a further increase in anthropogenic pressure related to the accessibility of the TNP area. The remedy for this is to monitor the number of tourists in the Park and maintain restrictions in using it. Properly developed strategy for sharing the Park, finally initiating and supporting the creation of tourist attractions outside the Park.

In the group of existing external threats Karkonoski National Park pointed to what is an existing internal threat to the Tatrzański National Park. This is excessive tourist traffic. Overcoming this problem should be based on the temporary closure of tourist routes, regulation of tourist traffic intensity and setting up the information and educational infrastructure.

The Table Mountains National Park indicates the pollution of: air, water and, what is important from the point of inanimate nature, soils on the tourist trails of the Park and in the places where recreational centers and their neighborhood are located. The idea for solving the problem is the development of collective and alternative transport in the area of the Park, properly prepared spatial development directions, and finally environmental education of local communities.

The last category are external potential threats. For the Karkonoski National Park, the loss of landscape values is a serious threat. To avoid this, the authorities believe that measures should be taken to limit the construction of new tourist, recreational and sports infrastructure in the immediate vicinity of the Park. In addition to this, it is necessary to ensure that landscape protection policy is included in local spatial development plans and regional development strategies. The Table Mountains National Park does not define such threats in the context of inanimate nature in connection with the development of tourism.

However, the Tatrzański National Park in this group indicates an excessive increase in the number of people using its area. Once again, the way to solve the problem, according to the Park, is monitoring the number of these people, introducing periodic and permanent restrictions on access to places subjected to the greatest pressure, and supporting the idea of developing tourist attractions outside the Park, in order to minimize and spread the excessive number of tourists.