Metohian Prokletije National Park
Prokletije Mts. are positioned at the rim of the Mediterranean region as the largest individual mountain mass of the Dinarids. They are composed of around 40 mountain units divided between Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania. In Serbia, the Prokletije Mts. are positioned at its southwestern edge, in the region of Metohija, as a high natural wall 90 km long and up to 2,656 m high. This area is now in the procedure of receiving the status of the National Park “Prokletije”, wich would cover the area of 99,000 ha. Geological structure of the Prokletije Mts. consists of sediment, magmatic, and metamorphic rocks, dating from the Palaeozoic to the Quaternary. They build impressive, steep, and hardly passable ridges among which wild mountain rivers have cut gorges deep even more than 1,000 m. Great complexity of the relief makes the Prokletije Mts. the most complex, most inaccessible and wildest mountains on the Balkan Peninsula, and, after the Alps, in Europe as well.
The basic forms of the relief on the Prokletije Mts. are the glacial, periglacial, high-montane karstic, and fluvial relief. Particularly attractive are the glacial cirques, glacial lakes, rock ramparts, snow cirques, rock seas, sliding blocks, dolines, pits, lost rivers, and caves. In a very developed river network, the largest river courses are the Beli Drim, the Pećka Bistrica, the Dečanska Bistrica, the Lođanska Bistrica, and the Erenik (Ribnik). All these rivers and their tributaries have cut deep, wild, and very attractive valleys. Some of them are widened by the work of glaciers, and others are almost impassable, narrow, very deep gorges and canyons with numerous cascades, waterfalls, unexplored channels and crevices.
There are almost 1,800 plant species of different origin and age on the Metohian Prokletije Mts. Particularly significant are the numerous Tertiary and glacial relics, as well as 256 Balkan endemics, among which there are 20 local endemics, growing only on the Prokletije Mts.: Silene oliverae, Draba bertiscea, Pedicularis ernesti-mayeri, Wulfenia blecicii, Centaurea alba ipecensis, Silene macrantha, Hieracium acropolioscapum
etc.. The vegetation of the Prokletije Mts. is built of rich forests where, among many species of trees, various species of oak (Quercus cerris, Q. frainetto, Q. petraea), hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), hop hornbeam (Ostrya carpinifolia), Oriental hornbeam (Carpinus orientalis), and sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) dominate at lower altitudes, and the Balkan beech (Fagus moesiaca), silver fir (Abies alba), Norway spruce (Picea abies), endemic relic Bosnian and Macedonian pines (Pinus heldreichii, Pinus peuce), and dwarf mountain-pine (Pinus mugo) at higher altitudes. Above the forest belt, there are various shrubby communities where Siberian juniper (Juniperus sibirica) and blueberry (Vaccinium sp.) dominate. The mountain peaks and slopes below them are covered with endemic relic vegetation of pastures, meadows, rocky grounds, high-montane peat bogs, rock crevices, and neves.
The fauna of this mountain system is also a unique biological resource. It is inhabited by 139 species of butterflies, 14 species of amphibians, 34 species of reptiles, more than 200 species of birds, and 38 species of mammals (bats excluded). The most attractive species are the Alpine salamander (Salamandra atra), Alpine newt (Triturus alpestris), griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), capercaillie
(Tetrao urogallus), eagle owl (Bubo bubo), Balkan snow vole (Dinaromys bogdanovi), pine marten (Martes martes), stone marten (Martes foina), otter (Lutra lutra), wild cat (Felis silvestris), grey wolf (Canis lupus), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), brown bear (Ursus arctos), chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) etc.
For their exceptional biological diversity and the large number of endemic and globally importantspecies, the Prokletije Mts., along with the Šar-Planina Mt., belong to one of the six European centres of biodiversity. Besides the natural heritage, the cultural-historical heritage of the Metohian Prokletije Mts. is globally important. The most important group of objects are those built in the period of the medieval Serbian state. These are, for example, the Monastery Gorioč (14th century), the Monastery of Holy Virgin Hvostanska (14th century), and the Monastery Crna Reka (16th century). The Monastery Visoki Dečani and the Patriarchate of Peć have a special place in the culturalhistorical heritage of the medieval Serbian state. The Monastery Visoki Dečani (1327 – 1335), is the endowment of King Stefan Uroš III Dečanski and his son King Stefan Uroš IV Dušan. It was built at the point of exit from the attractive gorge of the Dečanska Bistrica. The Patriarchate of Peć (13th century) is the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the endowment
of Serbian religious superiors from the 13th and 14th century, and it is located at the point of exit from the gorge Rugovska Klisura, one of the most attractive gorges in Serbia. These two monuments of the Serbian culture were included in the list of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage in 2005.
