Přírodní park Bohdalovsko: A Protected Landscape in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands

The history of Bohdalovsko is essentially a history of long-term human shaping of the landscape, followed by a more recent effort to protect the values that resulted from that interaction. Since the medieval colonization of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, the area's original beech and fir forests have been progressively cleared for fields, meadows, and pasture, while the remaining woodlands were converted, in many places, into spruce monocultures. Alder stands along streams and around springs were often felled, leaving space for damp meadows, peatland patches, and especially for the construction of fishponds of various sizes.

For centuries, local land use followed a traditional rhythm: meadows were mown each year, livestock was regularly pastured, fishponds were drained and reflooded in cycles to maintain productivity, and grain was even sown on the drained pond bottoms as a kind of natural fertilizer. This pattern held almost into the middle of the twentieth century and shaped the cultural as well as biological character of the landscape.

During the twentieth century, however, the region experienced a faster and more large-scale transformation. Fishponds were kept at high water levels, heavily fertilized, and artificially stocked with feed, small fields were consolidated and their boundary strips ploughed away, and wet meadows were either drained by melioration works and resown with species-poor grass mixtures, or abandoned entirely and left to overgrow. At the same time, forests became in effect "fields for spruce timber." Recognizing that even under these pressures many valuable habitats and rare species survive, the Kraj Vysočina regional authority declared Přírodní park Bohdalovsko on 2 July 2001 to protect the landscape character and the biological and aesthetic values of the area.

The park lies in the western part of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, a region of gently rolling uplands rather than dramatic peaks. Elevation changes are relatively modest, but the terrain offers a varied mosaic of small valleys, streams, pond basins, meadows, and woodland patches. The underlying geology of the strážecké moldanubicum, with its gneisses, paragneisses, and migmatites, gives the area a relatively acidic bedrock that shapes both soils and vegetation patterns.

Soils in the park are predominantly dystric cambisols and modal pseudogleys, with local gleys in the wettest places. These conditions have historically favored forests, but today forests occupy only a part of the area, often as spruce plantations on former agricultural land. Open landscape dominates elsewhere, with pastures, meadows, and especially fishponds of various sizes shaping the scenery. In places like the area near Březí nad Oslavou, landmark rocks such as the cliffs of the Baba nature reserve rise out of the otherwise soft highland topography, adding local relief and visual interest.

The fishponds themselves form an essential part of the present-day landscape. Where alder carrs were once cleared along streams and around springs, ponds now fill the landscape, and in many cases they have become so well established that they feel like an organic feature of the environment rather than a purely artificial one. Pond margins, wet meadows, small peatland remnants, and streams such as the Belfrídský potok are all integral elements of the park's landform character.

Despite the long history of forest clearance and agricultural conversion, Bohdalovsko still harbors a rich and unusual set of habitats. The most distinctive ecological feature is the network of fishponds and their exposed bottoms, which are colonized by a specialized community of small, often rare wetland plants. The tiny grass Colenanthus subtilis is the signature species of this habitat in the park, frequently accompanied by Tillaea aquatica and Carex bohemica.

Surrounding the ponds, reedbeds and tall sedge stands support a dense vegetation of Phragmites and Carex species, while small peatland patches host Menyanthes trifoliata, Naumburgia thyrsiflora, and Comarum palustre, along with insectivorous plants such as Utricularia minor in bog pools. Aquatic vegetation is unusually varied for a highland area, with notable populations of the alpine pondweed Potamogeton alpinus. Along stream corridors that retain their alder carrs, such as the Belfrídský potok, shade-tolerant species like Soldanella montana still survive in the moist understorey.

In spring, species-rich wet meadows come alive with flowering Dactylorhiza majalis and Pedicularis sylvatica, a reminder that even heavily transformed farmland can support valuable botanical diversity when traditional management persists. The small remnants of original broadleaf forest, especially the beech stands of the Baba - V bukách natural reserve, represent a separate but equally important habitat layer within the park, anchoring the area's forest biodiversity.

Bohdalovsko is most notable for its amphibians, which are central to the conservation importance of several of the park's sites. The great crested newt (Triturus cristatus) and the fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina) are particularly emphasized as species of conservation concern in the Natura 2000 sites associated with the park, with habitats such as Laguna u Bohdalova specifically protecting their breeding wetlands and surroundings.

The pond system also supports a rich birdlife. Reedbeds, tall sedge stands, and pond margins around the larger fishponds offer breeding habitat for a wide range of water-associated bird species, whose exact composition varies across the individual sites. The combination of open water, marshy edges, wet meadows, and nearby woodland creates a layered habitat structure that benefits both wetland and forest-edge bird communities.

Insect life, though less explicitly documented in source material, is closely tied to the park's botanical richness, including the insectivorous plants and the complex mosaic of meadows, pond margins, and peatlands. The overall wildlife profile of Bohdalovsko is therefore one of a heavily human-shaped landscape that nevertheless retains enough habitat diversity and traditional management to sustain significant populations of regionally important species.

Conservation in Bohdalovsko centers on protecting a landscape-level rather than purely site-level set of values. By declaring the area as a přírodní park (natural park), the Kraj Vysočina sought to preserve the combined natural, cultural, and historical character of the region, with explicit emphasis on its high biological and aesthetic value. This recognition acknowledges that the area's value comes not from wilderness but from a long-evolving balance of ponds, meadows, forests, and settlements.

Within the broader park, a stricter conservation framework is provided by several smaller protected areas and by Natura 2000. The natural reserve of Baba - V bukách protects one of the last remnants of original beech forest in the area, while the natural monument Laguna u Bohdalova safeguards wetlands important for amphibians. Five localities, namely Baba - V bukách, Dolní rybník u Újezda, Rybníky u Rudolce, Znětínské rybníky, and Fickův rybník, are part of the European Natura 2000 network and share a focus on rare pond-margin flora such as Colenanthus subtilis, Tillaea aquatica, and Carex bohemica, alongside amphibian species like Triturus cristatus and Bombina bombina.

The conservation challenge in Bohdalovsko is significant because much of the landscape is privately owned and actively managed. Continued intensive fish farming, melioration of wet meadows, abandonment of less accessible grasslands, and conversion of forests to spruce monocultures all pressure the very habitats that give the park its value. Maintaining the mosaic of fishponds, traditional meadows, and surviving broadleaf forest is therefore central to the park's long-term conservation role.

Bohdalovsko's cultural identity is inseparable from its working landscape. The villages whose cadastres fall within the park, including Bohdalov, Březí nad Oslavou, Chroustov, Kotlasy, Kyjov, Matějov, Milíkov, Nové Veselí, Pavlov, Pokojov, Radostín nad Oslavou, Rudolec, Starý Telečkov, Újezd u Žďáru nad Sázavou, and Znětínek, together define a community whose land use has shaped the area for centuries. Traditional hay meadows, regular grazing of livestock including small stock like sheep, and the seasonal cycle of draining and refilling fishponds for fish production are all part of this cultural pattern.

The deliberate use of drained pond beds for sowing grain, as a way of naturally fertilizing the ponds before reflooding, is a particularly distinctive local practice. Although many of these traditions have weakened in the twentieth century, they remain a defining element of the landscape's historical and cultural character, and are part of what the park's protection aims to safeguard alongside natural values.

Bohdalovsko's standout qualities lie in the way a highland cultural landscape has retained, despite extensive change, an exceptional network of fishponds and associated wetlands. The presence of multiple Natura 2000 sites within a single protected landscape, all interconnected by shared hydrology and land-use history, is unusual and gives the park both ecological coherence and conservation weight.

Equally distinctive are the surviving fragments of original beech forest such as those in Baba - V bukách and the orchid-rich wet meadows that flower with Dactylorhiza majalis and Pedicularis sylvatica each spring. Together with rare pond-bottom specialists like Colanathus subtilis, amphibian strongholds such as Laguna u Bohdalova, and the cultural backdrop of traditional fish-farming villages, Bohdalovsko offers a compact but richly layered example of Central European highland conservation.

Spring and early summer are when Bohdalovsko is likely to feel most alive for a visitor interested in its natural character. In May, the wet meadows come into flower, with orchids such as Dactylorhiza majalis and the small Pedicularis sylvatica visible on traditionally managed grasslands. By early summer, the ponds and their margins are fully vegetated, reedbeds and tall sedge stands are at their densest, and amphibians are most active around sites like Laguna u Bohdalova.

Late summer and autumn bring a quieter, more reflective atmosphere, when exposed pond bottoms can be explored on foot as water levels drop, and when the landscape's mosaic of forests, fields, and ponds is most visible from higher ground. Winter visits offer a stark, minimal atmosphere, though much of the area's biological interest is then hidden. Across all seasons, the working landscape of fishponds, meadows, and small villages remains a constant backdrop.