Ore mountains - social and economic conditions: Difference between revisions

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 The Czechoslovakian Communist Party and government strategies of the 1950s and 60s emphasised the development of heavy industry and energy, dependent almost exclusively on brown coal. The largest deposits of coal are located in the basins of the foothills of the Ore Mountains, at Sokolov, Chomutov, Most and Teplice. These areas were developed exclusively on the basis of coal mining at the expense of other economic activities, the natural environment, the existing built environment, social structures and public health. Everything had to make way for coal mining, as coal was considered the “life blood of industry”. Mining executives, mining projection auxiliary operations, and especially Communist party functionaries were rewarded for increasing the quantities of coal mined and the excavation and relocation of as much overburden as possible.<ref name = Riha>Říha,M., Stoklasa, J., Lafarová, M., Dejmal, I., Marek, J., Pakosta, P., Beránek, K. Environmental mining limits in North Bohemian Lignite Region. Společnost pro krajinu, Praha 2005. Translation: Petr Kurfürst. Updated for the ISPoS summer school in September, 2011</ref>
-Surface mining and the power plants fuelled by the extracted brown coal eliminated human settlements and monuments – together with 106 municipalities, including the 650 year old royal city of Most, hundreds of square kilometres of cultural landscape were destroyed, along with drainage and water management systems created over hundreds of years, the ecological stability of landscape, and its agricultural and forestry potential were all shattered. To eliminate these adverse effects, technically interesting but environmentally inefficient projects emerged, such as the Podkrušnohorský water supply conduit (in the Lower Ore Mountains)   the rerouting, with the use of pipes, of the river Bilina through the Ervěnický corridor between Jirkov and Komořany. This serves as the entire water supply system of North Bohemia replacing the original local sources of drinking water in the area. Railways, roads and other technical infrastructure projects were similarly rerouted through the same corridor. Vast swathes of landscape traditionally cultivated for centuries disappeared. While land reclamation has been carried out with great success in many cases, it is beyond the scope of devastation in this region. Priority was given to agricultural recultivation, even though it required long-term, artificial irrigation and adding other deposits in the soil, less attention was paid to forest and water recultivation. The landscape was impoverished by its loss of diversity and essential ecological stability, but on top of this, there are devastated areas, overburden heaps, weed infested land, undrained holes in mine collapses, ash sludge, and mining dumps. Poisoned by polluted air, forests in the Ore mountains died (see [Case study: Environment in the Usti region]), and mining began to threaten the remaining healthy beech forests on the southern slopes of the Ore Mountains, key to maintaining the ecological stability of the region. The region was in ruins, and increased illness was evident not only in forests, but also in the physical and mental health of the residents. This was the debacle of the “planned economy“.<ref name = Riha></ref>
+Surface mining and the power plants fuelled by the extracted brown coal eliminated human settlements and monuments – together with 106 municipalities, including the 650 year old royal city of Most (see [http://gis.mesto-most.cz/mostdominulosti/index.html historical overview]), hundreds of square kilometres of cultural landscape were destroyed, along with drainage and water management systems created over hundreds of years, the ecological stability of landscape, and its agricultural and forestry potential were all shattered. To eliminate these adverse effects, technically interesting but environmentally inefficient projects emerged, such as the Podkrušnohorský water supply conduit (in the Lower Ore Mountains)   the rerouting, with the use of pipes, of the river Bilina through the Ervěnický corridor between Jirkov and Komořany. This serves as the entire water supply system of North Bohemia replacing the original local sources of drinking water in the area. Railways, roads and other technical infrastructure projects were similarly rerouted through the same corridor. Vast swathes of landscape traditionally cultivated for centuries disappeared. While land reclamation has been carried out with great success in many cases, it is beyond the scope of devastation in this region. Priority was given to agricultural recultivation, even though it required long-term, artificial irrigation and adding other deposits in the soil, less attention was paid to forest and water recultivation. The landscape was impoverished by its loss of diversity and essential ecological stability, but on top of this, there are devastated areas, overburden heaps, weed infested land, undrained holes in mine collapses, ash sludge, and mining dumps. Poisoned by polluted air, forests in the Ore mountains died (see [Case study: Environment in the Usti region]), and mining began to threaten the remaining healthy beech forests on the southern slopes of the Ore Mountains, key to maintaining the ecological stability of the region. The region was in ruins, and increased illness was evident not only in forests, but also in the physical and mental health of the residents. This was the debacle of the “planned economy“.<ref name = Riha></ref>
 ==Opposition to the communist regime==