SALT-PANS THROUGH THE CENTURIES

The short, no more than 46.6 km long coast of Slovene Istra was at the beginning of this century still strewn with a number of salt-pans. The most important among them were the piran salt-pans, of which only the miniature pans at Strunjan and the extensive Secovlje salt-pans (covering some 850 ha) along the mouth of the Dragonja river have survived to this day. The first written records concerning the Piran pans, for which it is not known when they actually began to spring up, date to the second half of the 13th century from the Piran statute. During several changes in political and social conditions as well as with their continuously new rulers: the Venetian republic, French and Austrian Empires, Italian state, Yugoslavia and Slovenia. There have been a number of significant turning points in the spatial and technological development of the salt-pans, the last one at the end of the 60's, when the production of salt was abandoned in the southern part of Secovlje salt-pans called Fontanigge. This area has been continuously transformed, by the workings of nature, into a series of diverse and more or less saline biotopes which supplement each other and form a closed ecosystem.

MUSEUM OF SALT - MAKING

In last decade a museum complex has been set up in the abandoned Fontanigge salt-pans. The Museum of Salt-making consists of two restored salt-pans houses, their appertaining salt fields and once navigable Giassi channel, the the main channel for the inflow of salt water. In one of the museum houses a collection of old salt-making tools is kept, while the other contains two salt repositories and two modestly equipped rooms and a kitchen, in which salt field workers can reside as well as those working on various research and pedagogical projects. The salt fields consists of basins of different evaporation grades and crystallization basins, where salt is harvested during the summer.

SECA - FORMA VIVA PENINSULA

The peninsula extends into the landscape of the Secovlje salt-pans with its southern slope. With its more or less agriculturally transformed green cultural terraces it represents a fragment of the characteristic littoral cultural landscape supplemented by the elements of our cultural heritage: the Forma viva exhibition grounds of stone statues (monuments of architecture and art) and the archaeological site.

NATURAL HERITAGE OF THE SALT - PANS

As a rich treasury of plant and animal life, the Secovlje salt-pans rank among the most important natural heritage sites in Slovenia. Their sub Mediterranean climate, high salinity of water and abandoned salt-making activities in the greater part of the pans create very special ecological conditions, in which only the organisms best adapted to them can survive.
The plants striving in salt-impregnated soils are called halophytes. In the closed channels with somewhat deeper and very salty water we can chance upon Ruppia maritima, while in periodically flooded salt basins Salicornia herbacea is prevalent.

Most common on the banks of the channels and slightly raised abandoned salt basins are plants with imperceptible flowers which like Salicornia herbacea belong to the family Chenopodiacea: Arthrocneumum glaucum and A. fruticosum, Halimone portulacoides, Suaeda marittima, Salsola soda and Atriplex tatarica. These plants are accompanied by Limonium angustifolium which with its lilac inflorescence in the summer months colours the dried up salt fields. On the rocky enbankments of the main channels strive another two halophytes: the umbellate Crithmum maritimum and Inula critmoides with yellow inflorescences of the group Compositae. The only habitat of Bellevalia romana is due to the nearby airfield endangered and partially even destroyed. the botanical significance of the Secovlje salt-pans is substantiated by the fact that no less than 45 species from the Red list of endangered plants in Slovenia are found in this area.
The Secovlje salt-pans are inhabited by a small number of land vertebrates, including the representatives of some genuinely Mediterranean species, such as Suncus etruscus, the smallest mammal in the world, Lacerta sicula and Myoti blythi which is considered the first truly reliable record of this bat species in Slovenia. The salt basins with several times saltier water than in the sea are the natural surrounding of numerous water animals, such as Artemia salina, some shellfish, variuos bristleworms and Aphanius fascinatus. The abundance of food enables a quick development of numerous fry, which later on move to the sea.
The Secovlje salt-pans are particularly exceptional from the ornithological point of view, for the birds have virtually ideal living conditions there due to the warm climate and abundance of food in the basins. More than 200 species have been recorded in this area; some 80 of them breed here permanently or periodically. In the spring and autumn months large flocks of migrates rest in the pans, while many order birds spend the entire winter in there. Among the rare breeders in view of the number of pairs are the Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus), Yellow-legged Gull (Larus cachinnans), Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus), Common Tern (Sterna birundo) and Litlle Tern (Sterna albifrons). The Secovlje salt-pans are very interesting also in the winter, when numerous gulls, ducks, geese, stints (Calidrie sp.), shanks and sanpipers (Tringa sp.) dwell here, as well as some birds of prey, particularly harriers (Circus sp.). The most common as far as egrets and herons are concerned are the Little Egret (Egretta garzetta) - which is the symbol of the Secovlje Salt-pans Landscape Park - as well as Grey Heron (Arede cinerea), Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea) and Squacco Heron (Ardeola ralloides).

THE SALT - PANS TODAY

On the basis of the decree issued in 1989 by the Piran council, the area of the Secovlje salt-pans and Seèa peninsula was proclaimed a landscape park. This was the consequence of its extremely rich natural and cultural heritage as well as the wish to preserve the pans as a characterictic morphological element of the littoral cultural landscape of Slovene Istra. The area of the pans wirhin the park was due to its exceptional cultural tradition, which includes architectural, technical, technological, ethnological and language heritage, further decreed and ethnological and technical monument, while the four smaller salt-pans areas - the so-called Ob rudniku, Stare soline, Stojbe and Curto-Pichetto - were given the status of nature reserves.

SECOVLJE SALT - PANS - A RAMSAR SITE

THE SECOVLJE SALT-PANS WERE DUE TO THEIR EXCEPTIONAL LANDSCAPE AND ECOLOGICAL VALUE IN 1993 INCLUDED, AS THE ONLY WETLAND IN SLOVENIA, INCLUDED ON THE LIST OF RAMSAR SITES.

The Ramsar Convention was adopted, within the framework of UNESCO, in February 1971 in the Iranian town of Ramsar as the Convention on Wetlands of International importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat. This international agreement on conservation and wise use of wetlands, which should prevent a further destruction of such habitats, has been to date signed by more than 100 countries all over the world. Salt-pans are certainly among the most endangered wetlands in the Mediterranean. As a result of the ecologically unfriendly development in this century, this picturesque element of the Mediterranean cultural landscape is virtually disappearing before the eyes of our generation, the element which has with its strategic significance and cultural tradition played an important role in the development of the Mediterranean civilizations up to the present day. Disappearing together with them, however, is also the extremely rich life, closely associated with the unique salt-pans ecosystems.

PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION

In order to preserve the Secovlje salt-pans as a characteristic landscape element and as an area rich natural and cultural heritage, the protective legislation as defined in the decree clearly stipulates that all those activities are limited which have a negative impact on the ecology of the landscape and its outer form. Prohibited are especially all kinds of hunting, any pollution of air, water and soil, construction of dense settlement on Seca peninsula, any changes in land-use and, particularly in nature reserves, any human intervention which would change the living conditions for the local flora and fauna. Also prohibited is to pick plants as well as to damage habitats and nest sites of the local animals. Any encroachments upon nature in Secovlje Salt-pans Landscape Park are possible only on the basis of a preliminary consent given by the Regional Institute for Conservation of Natural and Cultural Heritage Piran.