Provision of Environmental Goods (Landscape and Wildlife) on Potentially Abandoned Land: The Case of the White Carpathians Protected Landscape Area

Abstract

"At the beginning of transition, the economic decline of agriculture partially relaxed the pressure on wildlife. However, policy continued to concentrate on regulating the intensity of production rather than creating incentives to protect environmental qualities. The structural adjustment process in agriculture caused low-return (poor) land to be released from production, especially in protection zones with severe environmental restrictions. Land abandonment therefore resulted, causing a rapid degradation of wildlife and landscape in places where these natural values were legally protected. This article examines the organisation of the provision of landscape and wildlife in the White Carpathians protected landscape area after 1997. Since that time, new agricultural legislation and policy has recognised compensations for restrictions and has gradually introduced incentives to cultivate potentially abandoned land. It was found that there was more than one governance structure, and that these were not necessarily supporting each other. Our investigation concluded that solving the conservation problem is not separable from the rural development problem of the region; therefore, there is a need for the participation of local communities in terms of contributing not only producers, but mainly consumers, of high natural values."