Prokosko lake - a monument to man
Haris Jahic, University of Sarajevo (BA)
Natural resources are much diversified. This natural rarity, according to one object, in this case Prokoško Lake, situated in central Paleozoic morphostructures of Vranica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, gets different ranges of protection. They range from the lower taxonomic levels, to the higher, even though the natural habit of the lake, its basin and water quality are altered by anthropogenic activities. Lacustrine ecosystem experienced number of changes from the typical natural, when it was placed in the fifth level of protection as a nature park. When the natural landscape diversity ambient is replaced with anthropogenic lake, it was declared by a rigorous higher level of protection - natural monument. In the near past the same lacustrine system is “protected” as the park of wilderness. The lake has lost its natural habit and became an anthropogenic lake, which we ironically call it a “monument to man”. Prokoško Lake is the highest lake in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1,636 m). F. Katzer (1902) postulated that the modification of a lake basin is occurred under the influence of Würm glaciers, as it confirmed in recent works by M. Spahić (2001). The lake was known by the indigenous sort of aquatic lizards Triturus alpestris Reiser Werner (1902). Due to human error by intrusion of salmonids in lake water, endemic species of lizards are completely disappeared.