Podyjí

Podyjí National Park was established in 1991 in southern Moravia, next to the Austrian border, and at some 63 km² it is the smallest of the Czech national parks. It adjoins Thayatal National Park in Austria, with which it forms a cross-border unit.

It protects a stretch of the valley of the river Dyje, set in deep meanders in the crystalline basement, with steep slopes, crags and woods. The aspect of those slopes produces extreme contrasts: on the sunny sides grow dry oak woods, scrub and a thermophilous flora of Pannonian affinity, with praying mantis and green lizard, while on the shaded sides, a few metres away, there are cool beech woods and mountain species.

Its state of preservation has a precise historical cause: during the Cold War the valley formed part of the militarised border strip of the Iron Curtain, closed to access and without economic activity for four decades. That enforced closure prevented the agricultural intensification and building development that transformed the rest of southern Moravia, and allowed a practically intact valley to reach the present day. Today the park forms part of the European Green Belt, the initiative that seeks to conserve the strip of nature left by the old frontier.