Climate change governance in forestry and nature conservation in selected forest regions in Serbia : stakeholders classification and collaboration

Stanišić, Mirjana (author), Lovrić, Marko (author), Nedeljković, Jelena (author), Nonić, Dragan (author), Pezdevšek Malovrh, Špela (author)

Climate change, with various economic, environmental and social consequences, is one of the greatest challenges faced by society. Climate change governance in forestry and nature conservation includes developing joint activities and collaboration among stakeholders that combine different interests, influences and competences at national, regional and local levels. This research aims to classify climate change stakeholders within the forestry and nature conservation sectors in Serbia. They are classified according to their interests and perceived influences. We analyze factors impacting the development of different areas for the collaboration by combining stakeholder analysis and social network analysis. A total of 103 representatives of civil society and public sector organizations in forestry and nature conservation at different governance levels with expertise in climate change participated in the survey. The results show that most civil sector organizations are distributed in the ‘subject’ quadrant with lower perceived influence and are not well interconnected. Seven different areas for the collaboration were identified, with disconnected stakeholders and limited representation and mostly peripheral position of civil society organizations (except in the case of the area for the collaboration through workshop and seminars knowledge exchange). The analyzed factors have different positive and negative effects on the development of the different areas for the collaboration, with the frequency of contacts standing out as a significant factor of collaboration at the level of the whole collaboration network. There is a strong indication of a centralized, top-down approach to climate change governance in forestry and nature conservation in Serbia. Multilevel and horizontal stakeholder governance is needed to achieve effective implementation of strategic climate-change policy commitments. The most important step to achieve such a structure is the empowerment of local-level organizations in climate change collaboration.

• Language: English
• Keywords: climate change, forestry, stakeholders, classification, area of the collaboration, multilevel governance, Serbia
• 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: 32 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 12, iss. 6, art. 709
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-132740
• UDC: 630*94(497.11)
• ISSN on article: 1999-4907
• DOI: 10.3390/f12060709
• COBISS.SI-ID: 65496835
• Publication date in RUL: 02.11.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Forests
• Shortened title: Forests
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 1999-4907
• COBISS.SI-ID: 3872166

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: 01.06.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: klimatske spremembe, gozdarstvo, deležniki, klasifikacija deležnikov, področje sodelovanja, večstopenjsko upravljanje, gozdarstvo, Srbija

Projects

• Funder: MESTD - Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia
• Project number: 451-03-9/2021-14/200169