Współpraca edukacyjna nadleśnictw Lasów Państwowych z perspektywy parków krajobrazowych

The article presents the results of a survey conducted in the years 2013−2014. It concerned current and planned educational cooperation (within the framework of activities in the field of nature protection in the broad sense) between the administration of landscape parks and forest districts of the State Forests. Information was obtained from 86 landscape parks (out of 122 in Poland), located to a greater extent on the outskirts of Poland. Current and future educational cooperation was reported in 61 landscape parks, mainly in the south of the country. A total of 250 joint educational initiatives in 115 forest districts were identified. Projects related to the educational infrastructure prevailed (46.2% of all initiatives), and among them – those related to the creation of new and maintaining and modernization of existing didactic trails. In addition to their educational function, attention was also paid to organizing and limiting the visitors pressure to the natural environment. Another group of joint ventures were educational activities (30.0%), in particular field natural science classes and trips, fostering education of an active character, with higher efficiency than in the case of passive education. They usually have a mass character, and fulfil educational and upbringing functions. The respondents choose joint ventures of a scientific nature (3.2%) and related to the preparation of educational materials (4.4%) the least frequently. The proposed research was to include the influence of educated people on the environment and the assessment of ecological awareness of tourists and local residents. In turn, the most frequently mentioned educational material were information boards. The large involvement of respondents in completing surveys indicates that the administration of landscape parks is actively interested in the issues of nature conservation and ecological education in the State Forests. Current and planned joint educational projects include mainly such initiatives as creating and maintaining educational trails and organizing educational campaigns, which provide a particularly large number of recipients for one activity. This is beneficial from the financial point of view. The educational cooperation of the administration of landscape parks and forest districts of the State Forests may serve the common purpose of nature conservation, as it allows to increase the ecological awareness of tourists and local residents, as well as to organize tourist and recreational traffic.