Stakeholders' opinions towards water-related forests ecosystem services in selected Southeast European countries (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia)

Vuletić, Dijana (author), Krajter Ostoić, Silvija (author), Báliková, Klára (author), Avdibegović, Mersudin (author), Potočki, Kristina (author), Pezdevšek Malovrh, Špela (author), Posavec, Stjepan (author), Stojnić, Srđan (author), Paletto, Alessandro (author)

Even though water-related forest ecosystem services are important for forestry and water management sectors, they have different definitions and are regulated differently in each sector, which makes them poorly recognized. How stakeholders from two main sectors (forestry and water management) perceive the importance of water-related forest ecosystem services, the trade-offs between ecosystem services and the effectiveness and implementation of payments schemes related to forest water ecosystem services were our areas of interest. We have conduct surveys with different groups of stakeholders from both sectors in four selected countries (the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia) with a lot of similarities and the potential to learn from each other. The results show that in spite of the spotted differences among analyzed countries, there is a high level of agreement among respondents on all investigated aspects. In addition, even though different payment schemes exist in three of four countries, stakeholders are rarely aware of their existence, or it is better to say that they do not recognize them as payment schemes for ecosystem services because of their names and definitions, which do not clearly define ecosystem services. Mostly, they use bundled services and non-voluntary payments and are designed and implemented by the states. Due to the strong role of states and the low transparency in the existing schemes, we looked at possible conditions reflected through stakeholders’ opinions for overcoming that obstacle for the development of new payment schemes. We found that there is a high level of acceptance of payments schemes as more effective than “command and control” schemes and of the involvement of other stakeholders in decision-making processes as those conditions that can positively influence development of new payment schemes in all four countries. These results give us hope that in spite of the strong role of the state in selected countries, the role of stakeholders will be more acknowledged and, by that, the future schemes will be more harmonized among the sectors and their goals and needs, contributing to its effectiveness as well.

• Language: English
• Keywords: water-related ecosystem services, WES, stakeholder analysis, questionnaire survey, payments for ecosystem services, PES, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, SE Europe, Southeast Europe, Europe
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 16 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 13, iss. 21, art. 12001
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-132734
• UDC: 630*9
• ISSN on article: 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su132112001
• COBISS.SI-ID: 83008515
• Publication date in RUL: 02.11.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2071-1050
• COBISS.SI-ID: 5324897

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 01.11.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: ekosistemske storitve, voda, plačilo za ekosistemske storitve, anketa, Bosna in Hercegovina, Hrvaška, Slovenija, Srbija, Evropa, JV Evropa, Jugovzhodna Evropa

Projects

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: COST
• Project number: CA15206
• Name: Forests for Water
• Acronym: PESFOR‐W