However, positive changes are also occurring on Earth, and they provide a glimpse into the future, although we still have a long way to go. Renewable energy sources are increasingly being used, reforestation is underway, and climate action is gaining momentum, contributing to raising awareness and making positive changes.

Support the World Environment Day activities in your local community and visit a protected area!

More about World Environment Day at:

#NowForClimate

Objava World Environment Day: A Global Call for Climate Action pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

For this reason, especially in the week when we celebrate Earth Day, but also in the remaining days of the year, communities should support activities that seek to preserve clean air, water, energy, natural values ​​and climate stability. There are many activities and you will surely find a way to mark this important day for our planet!

In our Plitvice Lakes National Park, we traditionally celebrate Earth Day with the educational program “What’s happening to the climate?” intended for 6th grade elementary school students from the areas of Rakovica, Plitvice Lakes, Korenica, and from this year also Slunj and Cetingrad. Through this educational program, students learn about the effects of climate change, the differences between weather and climate, about the greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases, as well as renewable energy sources and possibilities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They are actively participating through creative and research part, which contributes to the acquisition of new knowledge and learning along with creation and design.

How was it with elementary school students, see the photo gallery!

The main message of Earth Day – Our Power, Our Planet, makes it very clear that the power of people is the driving force behind every change for the benefit of the entire planet!

For more information, check out the website https://www.earthday.org/.

Objava Marking of the Earth Day 2026 pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

The message of this largest volunteer action, when the lights in the main squares of cities and recognizable landmarks are turned off for one hour, is that planetary ecosystems are at the brink of endurance and that it is necessary to change our relationship with nature. The latest WWF Living Planet Report (2024) describes that the largest decline in the global index was observed for freshwater (-85%), terrestrial (-69%), and marine ecosystems (-56%).

Precisely because of these changes that we are witnessing, it is extremely important to take time at least every day in your life to have some kind of positive impact on our planet:

• participate in a volunteer clean-up campaign,
• spend a day in nature,
• use public transportation, bike or walk
• reduce food waste
• increase interest in nature conservation by watching documentaries, books and similar
• express your love for the planet through art and thus raise awareness about environmental and nature protection

We suggest you visit the Plitvice Lakes National Park and enjoy the natural values ​​of our largest national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site!

Objava Earth Hour 2026. pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

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Objava The 2nd Regional Conference of the CAMPUS Project (Interreg IT-HR) pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

Faster and easier ticket purchase

In March 2025, ticket vending machines were installed at Entrances 1 and 2 of the national park. These devices enable faster and easier on-site purchase of admission tickets for the same day or the following day, while relieving ticket offices and reducing queues at the entrances. The initiative has been very positively received. In the future, we also plan to enable the collection of group tickets, allowing digitalisation to deliver faster service, greater flexibility and more efficient management of large visitor numbers.

Flexible Visit Planning for an Additional Web Shop Fee

Given the number of enquiries from visitors wishing to change or cancel their visit date at short notice, from July 2025 park visitors have been offered the option to purchase tickets with the flexibility to change or cancel the selected date for an additional fee of €5.00. This provides visitors with greater peace of mind should their travel circumstances change.

Introduction of Specialised Cameras for Counting Park Exits

For several years, various system upgrades and measures have been implemented to reduce the pressure of high visitor numbers on the park’s lake area. As this is an ongoing process, new opportunities for improvement continue to emerge over time. New specialised cameras, fully compliant with GDPR requirements, will be used to count visitor exits from the park. This will allow for more accurate monitoring of visitor numbers within the system, timely opening and closing of additional time slots, an improved visitor experience, and a partial reduction in pressure on nature and the environment.

A Visit Adapted for People with Hearing Impairments

The project “Nature for All in Sign Language”, which Plitvice Lakes National Park joined in 2024, was implemented during 2025 with the aim of improving access to information for deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors. QR codes and video materials in Croatian and international sign language have been placed throughout the park in the form of stickers and integrated into the park’s mobile application.

Improved Mobile Park Application

During 2025, the existing Plitvice Lakes National Park mobile application was upgraded, enabling visitors to purchase park tickets directly. The content has been expanded, and the application now allows users to stay informed about all important notifications.

Fast Mobile Phone Charging Stations

As the need to recharge mobile phones has become increasingly common, Plitvice Lakes National Park has responded by installing fast charging stations for mobile phones. These 35 W charging stations were installed at the end of 2025 at two locations: the information office at Entrance 1 and the auxiliary Entrance 2 – Flora. Each station offers 16 secure compartments with easy access via a personal code, and the service is free of charge for all visitors.

A New Generation of Electric Boats Is Coming

In response to visitor suggestions to increase the number of boats and reduce waiting times at boat piers within the park, all necessary documentation to expand fleet capacity was secured during 2025. Three modern electric-powered boats, equipped with solar panels on their roofs, are currently under construction, with the aim of maximising the use of clean energy and reducing environmental impact.

Installation of Air Conditioning Units at Hotel Jezero

In 2025, modern air conditioning units were installed in the rooms of Hotel Jezero, the largest hotel within Plitvice Lakes National Park, to ensure a more comfortable stay for guests. Although the hotel is located in the greenery of the national park and only a five-minute walk from Lake Kozjak, the largest Plitvice lake, the need for air conditioning has increased over time due to summer heat and year-round temperature fluctuations. We believe that many guests of Hotel Jezero will welcome this improvement during their next stay.

Culinary Training at the Kul In Culinary Institute

In March 2025, chefs from various catering facilities within Plitvice Lakes National Park attended culinary training at the Kul In Culinary Institute. As the oldest private culinary school in the region, the institute has received numerous awards and cooperates with more than 60 restaurants and hotels from over 50 countries. Participants had the opportunity to refine their culinary techniques in the preparation of à la carte dishes and to exchange experience with leading professionals in the field. This training directly contributes to higher-quality dishes and greater guest satisfaction with the park’s gastronomic offer.

Visitor surveys continued throughout 2025, providing ongoing insight and reminding us that improvement is always possible. As we continue to monitor feedback from our visitors, we look forward to new results and hope that the improvements implemented will contribute to an even more enjoyable visitor experience in the coming year.

Objava Improvements in 2025 based on visitor feedback pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

However, sometimes it is not possible to reduce all emissions generated by business, production or travel. When we fail to do so, and we have taken important steps to reduce emissions, the part that remains is exactly what we should compensate for. Emission compensation is then crucial and refers to all those concrete measures taken by us to reduce emissions. They can be expressed through the allocation of a certain amount of money for investment in projects that carry out restoration interventions in degraded habitats, projects that invest in nature-based solutions, tree planting projects – in a word, projects that contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

When using a calculator to calculate carbon and ecological footprint, such as:

1.  Calculation of the carbon footprint for travel and accommodation (calculation for each mode of travel with various means of transport, for accommodation, activities, food) – click here 
2. Calculation of the ecological footprint (you will receive information on how many planets of the Earth are needed for your lifestyle and when your personal day of exceeding resources is) – click here
3. UN carbon footprint calculation (takes into account household, transport and lifestyle with a comparison of your personal emissions, the average for the country you come from and the world average) – click here

we can compensate the measured emissions by investing in projects that we find interesting and which are related to the above calculations. Above all, compensation alone without an active contribution to reducing emissions does not mean much.

The possibilities for participating in emission compensation are diverse, especially at the international level, while in Croatia we can highlight an interesting program that neutralizes the carbon footprint by planting trees – CO₂mpensating by planting, in which companies, cities, municipalities and all interested parties can participate through the described application steps.

Plitvice Lakes National Park and forest ecosystems

One of the important studies of forest ecosystems in the national park concerned the application of innovative methods in collecting spatial data from the air. This provided us with high-quality data on the proportion of trees, and the presence of 4,007,362 trees was calculated, with beech dominating with a share of 75%, fir with a share of 20%, and spruce with 4%. The growing stock on the entire Park`s surface amounts to 9,307,933 m³, and the estimated above-ground biomass for the national park of 330 t/ha is significantly above the value for Europe (120 ha/t). This data highlight the importance of forests in the global context, as well as their contribution to CO₂ sequestration. At the same time, the Plitvice forests ranked fourth in terms of sequestration of CO₂ from the atmosphere in the category of areas that include UNESCO World Natural Heritage.

Given that forests are key in the fight against climate change because they are important carbon sinks (1 ha of forest can remove up to 12 tons of carbon dioxide – CO₂), it is particularly important for the national park to leave forests to their natural development and logging is not allowed. In total, more than 3.8 million tons of carbon are stored in the growing stock of the Plitvice forests. With the development of the Forest Protection, Care and Restoration Program, an additional 942 ha of forest areas were identified that will remain permanently protected, and the share of the area under forests increased from 81% to 84%. A further project investing in the establishment of biomonitoring of forest growth and carbon storage was recognized as one of the good practice stories that aims to expand knowledge about biological and ecological processes in forest ecosystems, but also to bring forests closer to visitors in the context of climate change.

In addition to the obligation to conserve forest ecosystems, the national park certainly protects other habitats such as grasslands, peatlands and water ecosystems. Investments in the revitalization of grasslands and the prevention of succession on grassland surfaces are important steps in the permanent preservation of these habitats, which are also hotspots of biodiversity.

Plitvice Lakes National Park and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

Objava Carbon offsets pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

The primary activity of the National Park is the protection, maintenance and promotion of the national park with the aim of protecting and preserving the integrity of nature, ensuring the undisturbed development of natural processes and sustainable use of natural resources, which, along with further activities such as monitoring the conditions and measures for nature protection, contributes to the exceptional value of this area. For this reason, environmental criteria in the context of the national park also include nature protection. In the Green Destinations chapters, among others, there are chapters on Nature & Scenery and Culture & Tradition in which we have achieved maximum compliance of the criteria, while compliance is necessary for some criteria in the chapter on Environment & Climate.

The report further discusses social criteria through visitation, educational activities, local products, volunteer program, etc., in short, everything that represents the national park’s focus on the community, both global in terms of visits and local in terms of scholarships, the offer of certified local products, or sports activities.

The management criteria include a review of financial sustainability and a review of the monitoring of the economic impact of the national park and the human resources of the Institution based on the data collected for 2024. The last part provides recommendations for positive sustainable practices related to the topics of waste, food waste, light and noise pollution, energy use and other activities that were originally presented in the brochure “Sustainable practices in the Plitvice Lakes National Park and wider area”, published in early 2025.

The path towards sustainable development is not easy, but it is necessary given all the challenges we face as humanity. Individual sustainable practices and activities implemented in various sectors will certainly contribute to a positive direction and be an incentive for others to join this path.

Objava Sustainability Report of Plitvice Lakes National Park for 2024 pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

Given the topic of project activities related to climate change, the key lecture at this gathering was given by Prof. Dr. sc. Mirko Orlić from the University of Zagreb, presenting global trends in climate change and projections. Conservator from Trogir, Jasna Popović, gave a presentation on the UNESCO cultural heritage management, the topic of the impact of climate change on natural heritage using the example of the Plitvice Lakes National Park was presented by Maja Vurnek, an employee of the National Park Conservation Service. As the main activities in the work package 1 of the CAMPUS project are related to the development of vulnerability and multi-risk assessments for UNESCO sites, representatives of the University of Venice, Silvia Zannin and Federica Parlato, presented the results so far for the areas included in the project. Risk maps of cities and modelling for Trogir and Stari Grad on Hvar were presented by Ivan Carević, along with the results of surveys conducted with residents regarding their experiences with climate change. From the Ministry of Culture and Media, Petra Smajić gave a lecture on the topic of risk management for cultural heritage and the legislative framework, while Martin Bućan from Split-Dalmatia County presented the Desirmed and A-AAGORA projects.

At the end of the presentations, a round table was held on the topic “From global science to local action”, moderated by Sandra Bračot, and the discussion was attended by Professor Mirko Orlić, Vinko Trbušković, Petra Smajić and Martin Bućan.

The second day of activities was reserved for a project meeting of partners, about the activities carried out so far, future tasks in further work packages, financial construction, and the outline content of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan was presented, which will be further developed in the coming months.

For more information about the CAMPUS project, visit https://www.italy-croatia.eu/web/campus.

Objava The International Conference and the 4th meeting of partners on the CAMPUS project pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

“Feel the Pulse of the Forest” is the name of the initiative that was implemented in 2024 in cooperation with Plitvice Lakes National Park and the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, University of Zagreb, and refers to the installation of 10 sustainable biomonitoring stations in the Park area that monitor tree growth, carbon absorption and meteorological data. One of the stations is located in the visitor zone of the Plitvice Lakes National Park, where visitors can see the biomonitoring station on site with a detailed explanation of the research on information boards and read the data on the trees they are currently observing from the QR code. In this way, exploring the nature of the Plitvice Lakes turns into an interactive learning experience that deepens the visitors’ awareness of forests as key “carbon reservoirs” and their importance in understanding climate change.

Biomonitoring of tree growth and carbon storage allows scientists from the Plitvice Lakes National Park and the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology to gain a deeper understanding of forest and climate processes, while the measuring station in the visitor zone enriches educational programs, guided tours and visitors’ insight into the Park’s efforts to preserve nature and adapt to climate change.

Plitvice Lakes National Park Management is extremely proud that through this nomination, the efforts of the Park’s employees to preserve this unique natural treasure have been recognized on a global level.

The announcement of the winners in all categories will take place at the ITB Berlin fair in 2026, one of the world’s most influential tourism fairs, where Plitvice Lakes National Park will once again be in the spotlight as one of the prominent examples of sustainable development in tourism.

Objava Top 100 Story of Plitvice Lakes National Park finalist for prestigious Green Destinations Award in Environment and Climate category pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

The last time we had this outlook was in 2014, but the numerous challenges we faced in the reporting period for 2017, when our outlook was rated as “significant concern”, up until the recently published IUCN World Heritage Outlook 4 in 2025, have meant that we are only now receiving the final confirmation of our higher rating for effective management and conservation.

The categories (or ratings) are determined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN), with four categories in total: critical, significant concern, good with some concerns and good. Reports on the state of the world heritage conservation have been published every 3 years since 2014. However, the last report was published after a period of 5 years, in October 2025.

The state of conservation assessment summary highlights the fact that the values of Plitvice Lakes National Park have so far been well preserved, despite the threats which have been putting the sensitive environment under pressure for decades. The water quality is good and stable, as shown by long-term monitoring conduced by the National Park. The good quality of water also contributes to continuous formation of tufa barriers, an outstanding universal value described by the World Natural Heritage selection criteria (vii), (viii) and (ix). Specific measures have been implemented since 2017, including the control of tourist facilities and inspection, later followed by the installation of water treatment devices, research on moving water intake structures outside of the Park boundaries and the start of the Spatial plan amendment procedure. In order to alleviate the pressure generated by visitors, we have invested in infrastructure, limited the number of visitors and enabled online ticket sales. Overall management of the area has been assessed as mostly effective with well-defined zoning, investments in scientific research and monitoring and the establishment of communication and interaction with the local community. Challenges and threats still exist, but with the cooperation of all stakeholders and further positive developments in management and conservation, we will strive to mitigate them as much as possible in the coming years.

You can find more information at https://worldheritageoutlook.iucn.org/explore-sites/plitvice-lakes-national-park, and World Heritage Outlook 4 is available for download at https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/52596. 

Objava After 8 years, Plitvice Lakes National Park has received international confirmation of its good management and conservation practice pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".