PAMS - Protected Area Management System

The project Protected Area Management System in the Republic of Croatia was implemented in the period 2006 – 2009 by the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with the State Geodetic Directorate and State Institute for Nature Protection with assistance from the Government of the Kingdom of Norway.
The aim of the project was to establish a geographic information system (GIS) of protected areas for the purpose of managing protected areas, national parks, nature parks and areas administered by county public institutions on the basis of accurate and updated data. The establishment of GIS enabled an accurate view of topographic, cadastral, land registry and spatial data as well as monitoring of the state of nature with spatial designation of the distribution of species and habitat types. The system may also be used to analyse the use of protected areas, such as tourist traffic intensity, all for the purpose of achieving conservation and sustainable use of protected areas. In addition to procurement of hardware and software equipment, project also included the preparation of particular topographic and cadastral layers (TK 25, DOF, HOK).
The GIS system of national parks, nature parks and county protected areas is a part of the central nature protection information system whose establishment is under competence of the State Institute for Nature Protection as part of the Ministry’s integral information system.

The first part of the project was focused on establishing GIS for national parks for which an approximate amount of HRK 9,600,000 was funded from the state budget, or, more precisely, using funds of the State Geodetic Directorate and Ministry coupled with funds donated by the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund.
In continuation of the national parks project, the Government of the Kingdom of Norway agreed to extend the establishment of the system to other protected areas and as a donation provided EUR 600,000 for the nature parks project, while the Republic of Croatia’s share (Ministry, State Geodetic Directorate) amounted to approximately HRK 9,000,000. Together with nature parks, the Government of the Kingdom of Norway supported the establishment of the research centre and education of visitors in Vrulje within the National Park Kornati.

The second phase of the project extended to establishing the system for county public institutions administering protected areas and establishing the nature protection web GIS portal. This was financed by the Government of the Kingdom of Norway with EUR 670,000 and by the Ministry of Culture with approximately HRK 5,000,000.

Following the successful implementation of activities on the realisation of projects and cooperation with the Norwegian Government, the final phase of the project Protected Area Management System in the Republic of Croatia is in progress and it involves supporting the Ministry of Culture in strengthening the protected area management system and implementing the Regulation on proclamation of the ecological network (OG 109/07) as the basis for proclaiming NATURA 2000 areas which the Republic of Croatia, as a future member of the European Union, is obliged to do before its accession. The Government of the Kingdom of Norway donated NOK 1,000,000 while the Ministry of Culture will participate with budgetary funds.

During the implementation of the project, the Ministry cooperated with the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority, as the implementing authority of the Government of the Kingdom of Norway and in June 2007 experts of the Norwegian Nature Management Directorate were contacted and an exchange of experiences between the two nature protection management systems was carried out. The Kingdom of Norway has very good results in the functioning of the nature protection information system as part of an integral information system thus making the transfer of Norwegian experiences to Croatian nature protection institutions is very constructive since it offered the possibility of education and selection of the best model for our conditions. With these activities and projects the Ministry strengthened the network of regional nature protection institutions and by using information technologies connected them into an integral nature protection system. The Ministry shall endeavour to strengthen the GIS system for the purpose of updating data for the needs of protected areas management and providing availability of all information to the wider public entitled to public participation in decision making.