Mass tourism in protected areas – underestimated threat? Polish National Parks case study

The article considers the tourist traffic as possible to elements of inanimate nature in protected areas. The highest form of protection in Poland - national parks, has been taken into account. The main goal is to diagnose the situation based on the analysis of official documents elaborated by the national park authorities. One of the important elements is to diagnose the threat to nature and indicate ways to neutralize it. At the beginning, the geotouristic potential of these parks was presented, where this type of resources is considered important from the point of view of tourism. The tourist function of the most important attractions in Poland was indicated. In the top ten there are as many as 4 national parks, including Tatrzański which takes first place. The size of tourist traffic in all 23 parks was analyzed. As a result, it was shown that the most popular, where tourist flow is of mass character, include mountain parks with significant geotouristic potential. Next, the current protection plans for them were analyzed: Tatrzański, Karkonoski, Table Mountains and Pieniński, where the annual tourist flow varies between 0.5 million and almost 4 million visitors per year. Threats were assigned to 4 groups: existing internal threats, potential internal threats, existing external threats and potential external threats. In each of the types of threats special attention was paid to those related to inanimate nature. It also indicated the ways in which park managers want to influence the change of negative trends. The basic conclusion was indicated, which boils down to the postulate of a balanced approach to the protection of both types of nature: animate and inanimate. In the case of animate nature, threats and suggestions for improving the situation seem to be much better diagnosed than in the case of inanimate nature