There are fewer places where children can go to camp

According to the chairman of the Czech Council of Children and Youth, Aleš Sedláček, there are around 1,500 campsites in the country, but due to the drought and deforestation after the bark beetle disaster, 60 to 100 suitable sites disappear every year. The desperate situation is, for example, in Vysočina, which was the worst affected by the bark beetle.

“The places where we can go are gradually decreasing. And that’s why we have to make more use of the camps we have, but that goes against the protection of nature and the interests of farmers,” Sedláček told Práv a Novinkám. He added that there is great interest among children and youth in becoming a member of Junák or other organizations. For example, Junák, i.e. the Czech Scout, had 48,098 members in 2013, and in ten years there were already 75,650 members.

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It is difficult to find new places for camps, because the best places are near streams and rivers, but there, in potential flood zones, the creation of new camps is prohibited by law. Only those that campers have used in the past are allowed. “However, the places where the camps have historically been are already exhausted, and therefore we have to go to places that are not climatically favorable, because they are not near water and you cannot swim there,” noted Sedláček.

The deputies, among whom are a number of scouts, wanted to resolve the situation. They wanted to add an amendment to the new water law, which was amended mainly because of the Bečva accident and which the House of Representatives adopted last week, which would allow tent camps to be built even in flood zones. But they failed.

“The reason is that the Ministry of the Environment plans to modify active flood zones in the form of a decree. But there is an agreement with the ministers of the environment and agriculture that we will find a way so that there can be camps even in flood zones, where historically they have never been,” said David Šimek, member of the People’s Republic of Lithuania.

His party colleague, the Minister of the Environment, Petr Hladík, promises that within a year the officials will draft a decree that will meet the needs of camp operators. “Tent camps belong to our summer and the Czech landscape, and therefore we should support scouts and all those who do summer camps, and we should not throw sticks under their feet,” Hladík told Novinkám and Práva. He added that it was not possible to authorize the construction of camps in flood zones directly by law. “We have to handle it sensitively. No one wants the camp to flood during the heavy rains in July and make evacuation impossible. We must not approach it in a rigid bureaucratic way, but also in a headless way,” the minister pointed out.

survey

According to Sedláček, the authorities should take into account that scouts have been camping in similar places for more than a century. “I think we are able to assess the danger of individual places, and we have been doing it for a hundred years, and there is no need for the water law to limit us in where we can or cannot camp,” Sedláček said. He added that statistics on children’s injuries at camps clearly show that camp operators behave responsibly.

The deputies did not succeed in the issue of floodplains, but they managed to get at least an exception for waste management camps for camps with up to 60 children in the Water Act. The water managers proposed in the water law that even tent camps must discharge waste water from kitchens and toilets into sumps or sewage treatment plants. The ministry also agreed to an exception for smaller camps. “Scouts know very well how to deal with waste. They are making latrines and cesspools, and this principle will continue to work,” noted the minister.

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