The Bavarian Wood (Germany) and Bohemian Wood (“Sumava”, Czech Republic) national parks represent the largest connected protected forest ecosystem in Middle Europe (circa 93.000 hectares). Due to its relatively original character it serves as an outstanding habitat for some of Europe’s most endangered species, such as the Lynx or the Capercaillie.
Also the conservation areas support one of the highest tourism turnovers in the Czech Republic and Southern Germany, which represents an increasing threat to its ecosystems integrity.
 
This paper provides an overview of the parks ecological characteristics and requirements, the tourism usage and its impacts within the area and finally attempts to combine landscape planning and conservation skills to create an environmental master plan for tourism,  that should assist the park managements to develop a sustainable ecotouristic use of the parks ecosystem. Thereby the paper highlights the theoretical concept of a Three-Phase-Spatial-Analysis, an ecologically oriented planning method of the German Environmental Impact Assessment (“UVS - Umweltverträglichkeitsstudie”) as its basic approach.