We are witnessing another senseless destruction.

Instead of harming nature, it is smarter to spend time in nature in such a way as to leave as little footprint as possible.

For a long time, strange damage occurred in the Mátra

- wrote the Bükki National Park Administration .

Along the Csatorna-patak in Mátra, within arm's reach of the Ördög-forrá favorite resting place for hikers, conservationists noticed an unusual thing earlier. Someone diverted the stream using a belt channel for years.

As a result of the diversion, part of the water flow of the stream did not go through the original bed, but through the belt channel, completely aimlessly. The channel ended after covering about a hundred meters, while the water split into smaller branches and returned to the stream on the steep side, and occasionally made the area around the rest area and the spring impassable. He put the community in danger

The living community of small forest streams and shaded mountain streams is very valuable. The stream, the bed, the stones in it, the root system covering the substrate, the debris that has fallen into the bed, and the shallow mud surface all serve as a home for a small community of life. This aquatic community is highly dependent on the water flow of the affected stream.

The wildlife of our streams is already seriously challenged by the fact that, due to weather extremes, their water flow has become extremely volatile these days, and in fact, they are threatened with drying out during the hot and dry summer periods. Diversion of the water of the stream also means a huge change and a serious negative effect for living beings.

Upon noticing the phenomenon, the staff of the national park regularly stopped the diversion, but this did not bring any results. Finally, they tried to draw attention to the harmfulness of the activity by putting up a small information board on behalf of some species of the stream-dwelling fauna, but to no avail. The diversion was carried out again and again by someone.

Drastic means had to be used

With the permission of Egererdő Zrt., the staff of the national park permanently stopped the herding. Conservationists placed stones embedded in concrete in the downstream branch, so that the water could remain in the main channel. But later they noticed that someone had broken the reinforced concrete they had laid down with a chisel and the water was again diverted from the riverbed.

Together with chief museologist Tibor Kovács, with the help of a high-performance demolition hammer powered by an aggregator, they broke up the bottom threshold in the stream, and the material extracted from there was piled into the "drainage" branch and then covered with stones. In this section of the stream bed, the damming has now ceased, the water can no longer be diverted through the artificial branch.

During the work, several crayfish were seen, and they are confident that the animals can live more safely in this section from now on.

Featured image: bnpi.hu