On 24 – 25 September the Norwegian funded project “Protected Area Management System (PAMS)” was celebrated in Murter and the Kornati National Park. Ambassador Terje Hauge, State Secretary Zoran Sikic of the Ministry of Culture, Governor Goran Pauk of Sibenik-Knin county and the Mayor of Murter, Mr. Ivan Bozikov were among those who made speeches. The new PAMS new web portal was formally opened by Ambassador Hauge and State Secretary Sikic.
Statens kartverk has since 2001 administered several Norwegian funded projects in Croatia, one of them with the Ministry of Culture on establishing an information system for protected areas in Croatia, to which Norway has allocated approx. 11,5 million HRK.
The workshop in Murter, Croatia was a closing event of the project PAMS which has been implemented by the Directorate for Nature Protection of the Ministry of Culture since 2006, with support from the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority and involvement of the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management.
In the framework of the project with the Ministry of Culture major works have been done to establish the PAMS with data about national parks, nature parks and other protected areas in Croatia. In addition the project has strengthened the National Park Office in Murter responsible for the Kornati National Park, and established a visitor’s and research centre in Vrulje on the island of Kornat.
The event as well marked the successful completion of the “Nature Protection Partnership Project” financed by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Zagreb which supported the Croatian NGO - Eco-Association “Argonauta” in 2009. The idea was to develop a model for co-operation and partnership between civil sector and relevant governmental institutions, especially on establishing mechanisms for sharing and exchange of information between NGOs and the governmental institutions – to enhance public awareness and to benefit from volunteer resources of NGOs in nature protection.
The purpose of the workshop was to look at the projects’ implementation, challenges, results, lessons learnt, and future sustainability. The information system for protected areas has now been made publicly available through the web GIS portal “ZASTITA – PRIRODE.HR” which was officially launched at the workshop.