Stakeholders' Perception of the Impact of the Declaration of New Protected Areas on the Development of the Regions Concerned, Case Study: Czech Republic

Abstract

Floodplain forests at the confluence of the rivers Dyje and Morava (in the southeastern tip of the Czech Republic) are completely unique ecosystems in terms of area and ecology. For many years, there has been an effort by the state's nature protection officials to declare the area as a Protected Landscape Area. This effort is met by the resistance of foresters and other local stakeholders. The study focuses on the identification of stakeholders' comments and objections to the planned declaration of the Soutok PLA and the comparison between the objections raised and the attitudes of stakeholders from existing PLAs. Using the content analysis of 247 paper documents, the first part of the study determines the negative arguments that are subsequently verified in the second part on the basis of 17 semistructured standardized interviews and interview surveys of 200 respondents. The analysis of the interviews and surveys was based on the grounded theory method. The theoretical sampling and snowball techniques were used to recruit the respondents. The interviews and surveys showed that most concerns over restrictions established by the conservation status are unnecessary since experience showed that they are either not registered or not established by the PLA status, and their application is provided by other legislative standards.