Wykorzystanie SIP w projekicie Retrouvance - Odkrywamy Lasy Rychtalskie

Tourism and recreation may help in development of local communities, especially in regions without well developed industry and agriculture. An example of such an area are Rychtal Forests. However, there are barriers to overcome in order to benefit from tourism development in the Rychtal Forests. No valuation of these forests and other areas as regards their usefulness for tourism and recreation was made so far. There was no comprehensive inventory of places attractive for tourists. There is no necessary infrastructure (tourist routes, places for rest, accommodation base). A lot of institutions manage the region (12 local communities, 2 forest districts, an Experimental Forest District, a Promotional Forest Complex). There are no funds for development of infrastructure, investments in accommodation, promotion). The example of successful undertaking in the field of tourism on forested areas is French Project - Retrouvance. This is a program based on common values of forests and non-forested areas. It is a proposal of a week-long route. The aim of the route is to discover nature. Retrouvance is based on proper relationships between visitors and hosts. It respects natural environment. If it is possible, in the places designated for accommodation renewable energy sources and wooden objects are used and effective waste management is organized.. Following the example of Retrouvance, .Let us discover Rychtal Forests. project was implemented in 2005. The aim of the project is preserving cultural heritage of rural areas, participation in local development and high quality of tourist services with due respect to environment. The first stage of the project consisted in organizational and information activities. In the second stage initial valuation of areas was made by local communities and places attractive for tourists and existing tourist infrastructure were identified. The information was marked on maps. Information collected from individual local communities were elaborated in the form of GIS. A system covering the whole area of the Rychtal Forests was created based on GIS systems for forests in individual administrative units. Three categories of objects were created: natural, historical and elements of infrastructure. Individual points received identifiers and were linked with descriptive base. The next stage was data verification in the field according to strictly approved rules common for the whole area. Verification was made by forestry students during scientific camp. Each object was described by means of standard forms. Actions taken so far are only the initial stage of the project implementation. Next action will be to mark out tourist routes. GIS will be used for this purpose. Planned routes should avoid high-density housing, industrial areas, busy roads, railways, stores of waste, etc. Simultaneously, the routes should reach the most interesting places of the region. The final course of the routes has to be consulted with all institutions concerned. The routes should take into account existing and planned accommodation, which should be situated in such way that it would be possible to divide the route into one-day sections. The final stage will be working out detailed principles of cooperation of institutions, decision on necessary investments and collecting funds. Expected advantages from the project are, first of all, the following: development of the region, change of incomes structure in forests and an increase of public interest in forests.