Wybrane aspekty funkcjonowania ścieżek przyrodniczych w Polsce

The idea of didactic paths was born in national parks of the United States of America in the 1960s. Soon it came to other countries, especially to Western Europe, and in mid-70s to Poland. They have become very popular and trendy recently. Nowadays it is difficult to find the protected areas or forest inspectorates which do not have their own didactic paths. But does the quantity mean quality? Doesn’t the mass character of this phenomenon cause the distortion of the idea? Functioning of trails is connected with a lot of problems: with terminology to begin with, criteria of classification but also with preparation and realization of the project. While creating paths, stock-taking and assessing the most valuable places shoud play the main part. The choice of area and way of preparing and presenting the information is equally important. It is much more difficult to pass on the knowledge abount natural environment because of unpredictability of natural phenomena. That is why the biggest problem is related to finding staff being able to prepare and realize tourism on natural areas. The strategy of tourist development in Poland for years 2007-2013 emphasizes that value of Polish natural environment and plans to develop these forms of tourism that are friendly for environment, to realize the contents and a message of this Polish tourist logo. It is a big challenge, especially for tourist schools. If we want to keep up with the tourist trends and ideas of the strategy are something more than just a slogan, we have to put more emphasis on education in this field.