in Tatranská Lomnica, citizens today created a Living Chain in front of the Tatranské National Park Administration. They expressed their support for the employees of the National Parks, Protected Landscape Areas and the Slovak Caves Administration threatened by layoffs. The Ministry of the Environment is planning mass layoffs in these organizations, and according to requests for proposals for personnel cuts sent to their directors by email, up to 250 positions are at risk.
“The planned layoffs are already an attack on the very foundations of these organizations, which today are many times undersized compared to similar institutions abroad. For example, only in the neighboring Polish Tatra National Park, three times as many employees work per 1000 hectares of managed territory. How do we want to protect nature, provide good services and infrastructure and be competitive if we weaken the already undersized national parks and protected area administrations?” said Marek Kuchta from the We Are Forest initiative, which organized the protest.
Redundancies can also cause quality opinions on permitting constructions in national parks, their protection zones and broad areas of competence not to be issued: “If these opinions are not well justified, which can happen due to the lack of staff due to redundancies, we are at risk of more Demänovské valleys. I am not sure if this is what Minister Taraba is aiming for. I hope not, although I’m not sure,” added Kuchta.
We are the forest initiative
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