Topic summary
Prespa Lakes
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Lake Prespa.
History
For many years, the Greek part of the Prespa Lakes region was an underpopulated, militarily sensitive area which required special permission for outsiders to visit. It saw fierce fighting during the Greek Civil War and much of the local population subsequently emigrated to escape endemic poverty and political strife. The region developed little until the 1970s, when it began to be promoted as a tourist destination. With its abundance of rare fauna and flora, the area was declared a Transnational Park in 2000. In 1999 the Society for the Protection of Prespa received the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award for its conservation efforts regarding the Lake Prespa Ramsar site, and was eventually included on 3 July 2013.