The article to the right is reproduced from hidden europe magazine, issue no. 14 (May 2007), page 8.

hidden europe is published six times each year. The magazine specialises in reports, usually much longer than the snippet reproduced here, that evoke the spirit of Europe's lesser known regions.

Previous material on the Balkan region published by the magazine includes (follow the link to read an excerpt from the article):

• Adriatic small states — Montenegro and more (hidden europe 9/July 2006)
• border zone: around Lake Prespa (hidden europe 14/May 2007)
• the conversation hour – a village in Albania (hidden europe 6/January 2006)
• Europe: a Balkan view (hidden europe 1/March 2005)
• found in translation — Romania (hidden europe 12/January 2007)
• the freedom train – Kosovo (hidden europe 8/May 2006)
• a land of many tongues – Vojvodina (hidden europe 13/March 2007)
• on the edge — Rezovo, Bulgaria (hidden europe 12/January 2007)
• two communities in Banat – Vojvodina (hidden europe 13/March 2007)
• two villages in Macedonia – Labunishta and Vevchani (hidden europe 8/May 2006)
• welcome to Novi Pazar — Serbia (hidden europe 7/March 2006)

e-news: To keep in touch with hidden europe, sign up for our free e-news, which has also regularly covered Balkan topics. An archive of over seventy past issues of hidden europe e-news is available here.

It was almost a hundred years ago that an area of land was set aside on the border between Norway and Sweden with the explicit purpose of marking the spirit of peace that obtained between the two countries. In the mid nineteen-twenties Poland and Czechoslovakia, having then just settled a border dispute, signed the Kraków Protocol which provided for the setting up of joint conservation zones along their mutual frontier. The cross-border national parks in the Tatra and Krkonose Mountains are a legacy of that early initiative. Nowadays transboundary peace parks and conservation areas are popping up in many parts of the world.

Proposals for such an entity in the Prespa region (see the feature article in hidden europe 14) have thus far come to nothing, though in northern Albania and adjacent regions of Kosovo and Montenegro, plans for a Balkans Peace Park are well advanced (see www.balkanspeacepark.org). The management of wildlife and landscape resources in crossborder contexts often calls for special arrangements. Sadly, Lake Prespa suffers from the absence of a coherent trinational approach to its management. These things are not easy, especially where a history of mistrust exists between countries that share a common border.

Even mutual friends sometimes have real difficulties in sorting out transnational conservation issues. Although Germany and Luxembourg signed the Clervaux Treaty in 1964 for a joint border park, much of what was agreed has yet to be implemented. On the Poland – Belarus border there has been talk of creating a joint park in an environmentally sensitive area that is home to important herds of European bison. Presently conservation areas on each side of the border are managed as separate entities. A start perhaps, but the two metre high fence that marks the entire border bisects the area. There are no plans to remove the fence. Creating international peace parks, it seems, is an art that demands not just environmental understanding but also a hefty dose of political acumen.