Who Is For or Against the Park? Factors Influencing the Public’s Perception of a Regional Park: A Slovenian Case Study

Abstract

To effectively organize cooperation with stakeholders in the planning and management of protected areas, it is important to understand their perception of the protected area and the factors influencing that perception. This study identifies the factors and their impact on locals' perceptions of the Kamniško-Savinjske Alps Regional Park in designation, Slovenia. The results of discriminant analysis show that the local population that supports the park has significantly different views of its potential from the population that opposes it. In addition, the local population that supports the park was personally notified by the founders about the plans, while the opposing population was not. Therefore, the former is more trustful of the founders' procedures and there is more cooperation with all interest groups than with the opposing population. Contrary to our expectations, higher education, place of residence, and gender do not affect the population's support for the park. These results confirm that a consideration of the factors that affect the local population's perception of the protected area contributes to more effective involvement of stakeholders in the process of park creation, which is important for the successful management of protected areas.

People’s views towards Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…Conversely, independence for conservation was not influenced by levels of education. The last result is consistent with Nastran and Istenic (2015) findings, which indicate that education does not affect population support for the park. It can be explained that the fulfillment of livelihood determines the behavior of individuals more than other aspects such as education.…”

“…This information suggests that improving the benefits of clean water and the traditional gardens in each adjacent village are an important tool for nurturing and improving people perceptions. In other words, these findings imply that community access to park benefits is a crucial component in creating the positive perceptions (Fiallo and Jacobson 1995;Silori 2007;Karanth and Nepal 2011;Garner et al 2012;Nastran 2015;Nastran and Istenic 2015).…”

“…Currently, the majority of the remaining forest is located in conservation areas, including national parks. However, in many cases, the presence of national parks raises several social problems (Verbist and Pasya 2004;Hollenbach 2005;Langton et al 2005;Silori 2007;Yogaswara 2009; Deni 2011; Diantoro 2011; Karanth and Nepal 2011;Garner et al 2012;Kadir et al 2012;Kadir et al 2013;Mir et al 2015;Nastran 2015;Nastran and Istenic 2015;Rawat and Chandra 2015;Tadesse and Taketay 2017). For example, villagers around the park assume that they have lost access to forest resources and land ownership due to the presence of national parks.…”

Social capital of the community in the management of Danau Sentarum National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…Many studies on the management of National Park have been conducted in various countries with diverse topics (Chapman 2003;Dressler et al 2006;Zhou and Grumbine 2011). In many cases, the presence of national parks raises several social problems (Kadir et al 2013;Nastran and Istenic 2015). Community around the park assumes that they have lost access to natural resources to the presence of national parks.…”

Public support for protected areas in new forest frontiers in the Brazilian Amazon

“…Public support for PAs can be influenced by several factors, but, among the factors described in the literature, education, income, age, gender, place of residence and place of origin seem to be the most influential on individual attitudes regarding environmental protection (e.g., Gelissen 2007, Nastran & Istenic 2015, Bragagnolo et al 2016. For instance, education and income, respectively, are the first and second most significant predictors of positive attitudes towards PAs (Bragagnolo et al 2016).…”