Performance of national parks

The National Audit Office conducted a performance audit of Lithuanian national parks to evaluate the efficiency of the parks in ensuring conservation of biodiversity.

The audit is part of an international cooperative audit involving the supreme audit institutions of Bulgaria, Denmark, Croatia, Poland, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, and the Ukraine. The objective of this audit is to analyse similarities and differences between the conservation of biodiversity and performance of the national parks, to share audit experience, and to apply the gained know-how.

The performance of the national parks of Aukštaitija, Dzūkija, Kuršių Nerija (Curonian Spit), and Žemaitija, as well as Trakai Historical National Park was assessed in several respects, focusing on the conservation of biodiversity in the national parks.

“The audit found that Lithuania has not updated its Biodiversity Strategy adopted in 1998, so this document does not meet today's demand, because some of the threats and measures identified in the Strategy have become obsolete and some new ones have appeared and have not been assessed, such as failure to mow meadows, increase in the populations of invasive species, and a large number of visitors and vehicles. Of course, the revision of the Strategy would not solve all problems related to the conservation of biodiversity, but basic threats and directions for conservation would be identified,” said Auditor General Giedrė Švedienė commenting on the audit results.

Biodiversity conservation measures are specified in nature management plans, however, such plans have not been developed for all areas, which have different protection requirements. The absence of plans leads to a failure to evaluate the state of the areas and to provide for specific measures for their management and conservation of biodiversity.

The national parks do have wildlife monitoring and inventory systems, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nature Research Centre have been developing summary reports on the state of the country; however, the administrations of the national parks lack comprehensive monitoring and inventory data, summary findings, and recommendations on how to implement biodiversity conservation.

The audit found that joint councils, which are supposed to organise and coordinate the activities of the administrations of the national parks and other institutions (municipalities, non-governmental organisations, communities, wards, and forest enterprises) in the management of the national parks, have been established only in two parks, and even those do not operate on a regular basis.

The administrations of the national parks are unable to regulate the flow of visitors, it is difficult for them to assess the impact of visitors on the landscape and biodiversity. The number of the employees of the administrations has been going down, meanwhile the area supervised by one employee, the number of additional functions and areas assigned to the staff have been increasing, without allocating additional resources for this purpose. The assessment of whether the funding of the national parks ensures the implementation of their objectives showed that the funding of the administrations of the national parks from the state budget is planned on the basis of the appropriations allocated by the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Culture rather than the area under supervision, and these appropriations are sufficient only for implementing the basic functions of the administrations. The administrations are involved in various projects funded by the EU and international organisations and are also looking for other additional sources of funding, however, the additional funding represents only a small part of all funds received by the national parks.

The National Audit Office made recommendations to the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Culture, the State Service for Protected Areas, and the administrations of the national parks.
 

Executive summary of the public audit report: Performance of national parks