Kosovo's two national parks, south and west

Kosovo covers a little over 10,900 km², as I set out in how big is Kosovo, and yet it has two genuine mountain national parks in opposite corners. For me that is one of its big surprises, especially for anyone who only associates it with towns and monasteries.

Sharr, the first

Sharr Mountains National Park (Šar in Serbian) was the first national park declared by the Assembly of Kosovo, in 1986. According to Kosovo’s environment agency (AMMK), it began operating in 1995, was suspended from 1999 to 2002 and restarted in May 2002. It runs along the south, on the border with North Macedonia, and covers 39,000 hectares under its law, shared between Prizren, which holds half, Štrpce, Suhareka and Kaçanik. Its directorate is in Prizren, and the AMMK itself says the park needs a new law.

The natural bases for it are Prizren, Prevalla and the Brezovica area. The Sharr Mountains National Park page covers all of that.

Bjeshkët e Nemuna, the larger

Bjeshkët e Nemuna National Park, the Accursed Mountains on British maps, was created by Law 04/L-086 of 13 December 2012 and spans 62,488 hectares in Gjakova, Junik, Deçan, Peja and Istog, along Albania and Montenegro. The law splits it into a strictly protected zone, an actively managed one where ecotourism fits, and a third of sustainable use covering villages and pastures, plus a 50 m band around the edge. A directorate based in Peja runs it.

This is where you find the Rugova Canyon, the Liqenat and Drelaj lakes and Gjeravica, Kosovo’s highest summit.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Peja for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.

What lives in each

The environment agency’s own figures give a sense of what is being protected. The Sharr directorate speaks of some 2,500 plant species, 323 of them endemic, 200 bird species and 147 butterflies, with Bosnian and Macedonian pine forests between 1,500 and 1,900 m and four strict reserves, among them Rusenica, 300 ha set aside for the lynx. The 2003 study on Bjeshkët e Nemuna counts 37 mammal and 148 bird species, brown bear, chamois and golden eagle included. They are two separate inventories from different years, so I would not set them against each other figure by figure.

Which one to choose?

If you are staying in Peja, Bjeshkët e Nemuna, no question, since the canyon starts almost in town. If Prizren is your base, the Sharr. And with a week, both, because they sit far apart on the map despite both being high mountains.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Peja for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.

Rules and safety

According to the AMMK pages, the Bjeshkët e Nemuna directorate tackles illegal logging, hunting, fishing and building and handles fires, while Sharr has rangers on the ground watching over forests, flora and fauna. I found no published entry fee. The FCDO flags a wildfire season from April to October and old mines on the high border ground with Albania and Montenegro, which is the edge of Bjeshkët e Nemuna. Hence my insistence, in hiking in Kosovo, on waymarked routes.

Other protected areas

Besides the two parks, the AMMK manages two natural monuments of special importance, Gadime Cave and the Mirusha waterfalls, and lists Germia nature park on the edge of Pristina.