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SEČOVLJE SALINA NATURE PARK
With its surface area of approximately 750 ha, the Sečovlje Salina Nature Park is situated in the southwesternmost part of Slovenia, along the border with the Republic of Croatia in the southern part of the
Municipality of Piran. The northern part of the Park with the still active salt production is called Lera. From
the southern part of the Park, called Fontanigge, it is separated by the Grande Canal.
The salt pans of Sečovlje are part of the Nature Park. In the north, they border on the St. Bartholomew
Canal. In the east, the majority of the border runs alongside the former narrow-gauge railway, while in the
south it is bordered by the St. Odoric Canal, through which the River Dragonja flows today after having
been redirected into the canal years ago. In the west, the pans are protected by the levees in the Bay of
Piran.
The Lera area is divided into the crystallization area and the seawater condensation area. Lera features
typical habitats of animal and plant species limited to the salt fields with various salinity levels, salt-pan
canals, and levees.
Fontanigge is located between the Grande Canal and the River Dragonja. In the west, it is bordered by a
high-water levee, and by farmland in the east. Fontanigge features a network of canals that used to serve
as a seawater inflow for individual salt fields as well as an outflow for wastewater and precipitation water,
and as transport waterways.
In SSNP, three key aspects of the usage of space are intertwined: environmental protection, culture and
economy with its three industries: salt panning, visiting, recreation, and other supplementary activities.
The Government of the Republic of Slovenia has adopted the Decree on the Sečovlje Salina Nature Park in
order to protect the natural area and biodiversity of the typical salt pan ecosystem.
Flora and fauna of the salt pans
The salt pans of Sečovlje were created on the alluvial sediments of the River Dragonja and are man-made.
With hundreds of years of altering the former mouth of the River Dragonja and converting the surface into
salt fields, which also meant the beginning of salt panning, the living conditions here were pretty similar;
however, they started changing after the salt making activities ceased. The once vast water surface areas
have completely dried out in some places, numerous halophytes started growing in the semi-dry and dry
pools, and the species composition of organisms, including birds, started to change.
Salt pans with high salinity level are characterized by salt-loving plants or halophytes. Typically, they are
found in the vicinity of river mouths into the sea and in salt pans, but also directly along the coast in the
area sprayed by the seawater. Numerous halophytes feature fleshy leaves, they are succulent and their salt
content is very high compared to other plants. In autumn, many halophytes acquire red-purple shades of
colours.
The salt pans of Sečovlje are particularly famous for their birds. So far, more than 300 different species
have been registered, which comes as no surprise since the salt pans represent a large body of water that
is used as a feeding and rest area, or wintering grounds during the migration period. Some of them also
breed in the salt pans. However, birds are not the only inhabitants of the salt pans. Numerous smaller
animals also live in the Sečovlje salt pans’ habitats and many of them cannot be found anywhere else in
Slovenia. The shallow saltwater features bristle worms, small crabs, shellfish, fish, larvae of some fly
species, and numerous other creatures that often find themselves on the menu of the birds. Also some bee
species that can only be found here in Slovenia live in the Sečovlje salt pans.
Salt panning heritage
The cultural heritage of the salt pans of Piran reflects the hundreds of years of the salt workers' life and
work on the Adriatic Sea’s northeastern coast. From the many salt pan areas that once existed in the Gulf
of Trieste, only those at Sečovlje and Strunjan have survived till this very day, making their importance
even greater. It puts them on the level of ethnological, technical, historical, urban, and natural heritage of
utmost importance. Salt fields, canals, banks with stone walls, steps and sluice gates, salt workers’ houses
with their surroundings, footpaths and transport routes, bridges, pumps, etc. belong to the immobile
cultural heritage.
In the 14th century, the cultivation of petola, an artificially cultivated crust comprised of cyanobacteria
and other bacteria types, gypsum, carbonate minerals and also clay to a lesser extent, began in the
crystallization ponds of the salt fields. Petola prevents salt to be mixed with the mud, but it also acts as a
biological filter. At Lera, salt is produced in accordance with the medieval traditions, however, the salt
making process was substantially modernized by the Austrians in 1904, when they modified the area by
combining several crystallization fields in the centre of the salt pans into a single unit surrounded by ponds
of various condensation levels.
In the Fontanigge area, salt production was abandoned in the 1960s, however, within the framework of
the activities carried out by the Salt-making Museum, salt making in accordance with the medieval
methods is still being demonstrated. Each saline field used to represent a separate salt-pan with its own
ponds for seawater condensation and crystallization. The Museum encompasses a group of buildings that
used to serve as the residences of the salt workers’ families and as salt warehouses.