Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
rural and nature tourism services. An ancient
fishing boat,
Kurenas
, has become a potential
icon for local cultural traditions and ecological
thinking and has been recommissioned by locals
to carry tourists around the island (Armaitien
h
et al
., 2004).
by co-funding from European Union and Šilut
h
municipality. In 2004, the village had 200 water-
borne daily visitors during the peak summer
season and accrues a total of about 11,000
visitors per year. The potential conflict between
conservation and commercial imperatives arising
out of this will be interesting to follow.
Minija village is protected as a managed
ethno-cultural reserve within the Nemunas Delta
regional park. The prevailing regulations impose
restrictions on the construction of new buildings
and the reconstruction of existing ones, includ-
ing expansion of tourist facilities and forbid the
entry of motor boats to the Minija river delta.
Comprehensive education campaigns are pro-
vided for local people to raise awareness of the
environmental significance of the area. As on
Rusn
h
Island, the key incentives to promote
environmentally friendly rural tourism develop-
ment in Minija village include tax advantages
for the providers of rural tourism services for the
first 5 years.
Sustainability in rural tourism development
in Minija is reliant upon further promotion of
Minija as an important rural and water tourism
destination catering for the increasing demand
of the visitors for a unique ('wild') environment.
The marina of Minija, which is managed by the
Kintai Sailing Club, has become an important
promoter of advanced ideas about sustainable
rural and water tourism development to the local
community. Thus, in 2003 ecological waste-
water treatment was introduced in the marina
in cooperation with the Zvejone environmen-
tal club from Klaip
h
da and Coalition Clean
Baltic.
Minija
Minija village is a tiny village located in the
Minija river delta, adjacent to the Nemunas
delta and is unique - the 'Venice of Lithuania'.
It is part of the Šilut
h
district municipality and
features narrow parcels of land with houses pro-
tected by dykes and stretching along both banks
of the river (Povilanskas
et al
., 2002a). Move-
ment around the village is possible only by boat.
Minija has 45 permanent inhabitants living in
15 farmsteads with ten more farmsteads made
into second homes. The area around Minija has
a series of valuable habitats, including flood-
plains, shallow lakes and coastal wet forests and
boasts the greatest biodiversity in Lithuania in
terms of fish and waterfowl species (Povilanskas
et al
., 2002b), of which several are considered
as threatened species in Europe.
Before the economic reform of the 1990s,
fishermen from Minija belonged to the fishing
cooperative of Kintai and fished in the northern
part of the Curonian lagoon (Povilanskas
et al
.,
2002a). Besides fishing, farmers of Minija were
employed in dairy farming and the production
of grass pellets on the floodplains. The early
1990s saw the dissolution of the fishing cooper-
atives and collapse of grass pellet production as
they lost viability in the new economic environ-
ment. Whilst a few locals became involved in
private fishery or husbandry, many were forced
to leave the village. Those who remain are gen-
erally socially deprived, retired persons surviving
on subsistence farming and poaching. Remark-
ably, the area's attractive scenery and unique
cultural heritage caused a rush to purchase
property for conversion into second homes by
the residents of Klaip
h
da, Lithuania's third-largest
city. Since 1997, one Minija household has
started to provide bed and breakfast and leisure
boating services. The main focus for promoting
Minija as a rural and coastal tourism destination
has been the construction of a marina for small-
scale sailing boats in 2003, which was supported
Karkl
Karkl
h
is a seaside village with 100 inhabitants
situated north of Klaip
h
da. It belongs to the
Klaip
h
da rural district municipality and stretches
along the coast of the Baltic Sea. Its landscape
includes the highest coastal cliffs in Lithuania
and mature mixed forests, making this small
village a popular year-round destination for
weekend visitors from Klaip
h
da. The area
around Karkl
h
hosts several valuable coastal and
marine habitats forming a series of Lithuanian
coastal and marine NATURA 2000 sites (Olenin
and Klovaite, 1998). These include parabolic
