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as erosion, noise and disturbance to wildlife, with a resulting decrease in
the numbers of chamois and marmots for example.
To reduce negative impacts the Tatras National Park Administration
has implemented a set of different organizational, institutional and
conceptual measures. The High Tatras became a natural laboratory for
investigating natural phenomena, including the anthropogenic impact on
natural components and possibilities for active protective and prospective
interventions. The implementation of these measures and activities driven
by public administration is contextual and represents only one part of
the process in the reaction to the challenges resulting from the global
changes demonstrated by the natural disaster in 2004. Another important
part of the recovery process is related to the activities of the stakeholders
motivated primarily by economic and other interests, rather than purely
nature protection. The question is, to which extend are these activites in
harmony with the protection of the ecosystem values or even whether there
does exist such mechanisms which can be complementary to the public
administration's protective interventions.
Natural Disaster as a Driver of Recovery Strategies
Dilemma over the forest management regime
The natural events like storms associated by forest damage are recurrent
events in the mountains. The storm on November 19, 2004 affecting around
120 sq km of forest ecosystems at altitudes between 700 m to 1350 m
above the sea level. The storm damaged not only very susceptible spruce
monocultures, but also damaged to some extent mixed forests, including
close-to-nature stands, believed to have higher resistance against wind
damage. The spatial range of this storm was infl uenced by the coincidence of
the natural event with the effects of long time human intervations towards
changes in the ecosystems. There were primarily damaged forest stands
with the spruce monocultures, homogeneous in their age (around 100 years),
which had been affected previously by smaller windstorms in the past and
which were artifi cially replanted mainly by spruce. The planting of spruce on
unsuitable sites, the utilization of non-autochthonous planting material and
too low-intensity thinning led to a very high susceptibility of these stands
against wind (Toma 2009). But the storm also revealed many additional
hidden problems, mainly in the tourist centres and settlements, such as
illegal waste disposals, poorly maintained buildings and infrastructural
facilities, illegally rebuilt buildings and devastated green areas.
The disaster in 2004 can be understood as the expectable natural
phenomenon catalyzing the transformation of existing very sensitive
ecosystems towards more sustainablity and less vulnerablity, and at the
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