Implementing Natura 2000 in Croatian forests: An interplay of science, values and interests

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Abstract

With the accession to the European Union (EU) Croatia has also joined the ecological network Natura 2000. This ambitious network of protected areas has been established across the EU based on the Birds and the Habitats Directives, for which the national designation of protection areas should be founded on scientific criteria. A review of these processes in different EU member states shows, however, that many factors have affected the designation process, such as power and influence of different interest groups and capacities of the administrations responsible for implementation. In this paper, we assess the activities of an expert working group which has prepared the forestry section of the Ordinance on Natura 2000, the basic legislative act by which the network is formally implemented in Croatia, in view of understanding which factors influenced the site designation in this country. The activities of the working group are analyzed through three theories: Advocacy Coalition Framework, Rational Choice Theory and Theory of Communicative Action. Methodologically, the analysis was based on 58 interviews with 29 the members of the working group. The results indicate that the Advocacy Coalition Framework has the greatest explanatory value for this case. Science was frequently used to substantiate claims, with forest sector experts mostly referring to sustainable forest management, and conservation actors to concepts of conservation biology. Adherence to these concepts between both sides has systematically distorted communication within the working group, which was characterized by a lack of a mutual understanding of what constitutes the appropriate scientific information for the transposition of Natura 2000 in Croatian forestry.

Introduction

Natura 2000 is the largest network of protected areas in the world. The European Union initiated this ecological network through the implementation of the EU Habitats Directive (Council Directive 1992/43/EEC) and Birds Directive (Council Directive 2009/147/EC), which together establish a legal policy framework for biodiversity conservation that member states must follow. There is substantial leeway as to how this policy framework is implemented by EU member states. However, in the case of the Habitats Directive, Annex III sets a series of scientific criteria for site designation, and the European Court of Justice has ruled that these scientific criteria are to be the exclusive basis for the designation of conservation areas (C-67/99, C-71/99, C-220/99; EC, 2006).

National implementations of Natura 2000 differ across the EU, with regard to both the share of protected areas and the management of these areas. Differences in implementation pathways relate to differences in policy culture in each country (McCauley, 2008; Mocsari, 2004; Van der Zouwen & Van den Top, 2001) or institutional fit (Borrass, Sotirov, & Winkel, 2015). Alphandéry and Fortier (2001) describe French national implementation of Natura 2000 as a process where different groups of actors rationally pursue their interests, ultimately leading to sub-optimal outcomes regarding site designation compared to a scientific expert approach. Ferranti, Turnhout, Beunen, and Behgel (2013) portray national implementation processes as the interaction between conservation and economic considerations. This interaction and the prevalence of economic considerations can be clearly traced in various countries: Greece (Apostolopoulou & Pantis, 2009; Papageorgiou & Vogiatzakis, 2006); Germany (Chilla, 2007; Von Haaren & Reich, 2006); Italy (Postiglione, 2006); Hungary (Buzogány, 2009; Mertens, 2009); Romania (Börzel & Buzogány, 2010; Krüger, 2001); and Bulgaria (Hristova, 2012; Sotirov, Lovriö, & Winkel, 2015).

Croatia has only recently begun the process of implementing Natura 2000. In September 2013 (year of accession to the EU), the Croatian government prepared the Ordinance on Natura 2000, the document with which Natura 2000 was formally implemented. The State Institute for Nature Protection (SINP) developed the Ordinance, according to which 37% of Croatia is encompassed by the Network.

Croatian forest cover is 2.49 mil. ha and forest area spans on 2.76 mil. ha, where 76% of forest area is State owned. The total growing stock is 418 mil m3, where 52% of forests are designated for economic purposes, followed by protective (30%), and special purpose forests (18%; almost exclusively in the national system of protected areas). Based on the 2006–2015 period, harvesting was performed on 783,404 ha and the average annual allowable cut was 6.5 mil. m3 (Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Croatia, 2015). Under Natura 2000, a total of 326,432 ha have been designated for protection of forest habitats, with a very limited share of private forests. Counting both directly protected forest habitats and those covered via the protection of forest-dependent species, Natura 2000 spans 0.92 mil. ha of forest area. In protected areas, the predominant habitat types are Illyrian Fagus sylvatica forests (Aremonio-Fagion, 140,394 ha), followed by Illyrian oak-hornbeam forests (Etythronio-Carpinion, 34,074 ha) and Sub-Atlantic and medio-European oak or oak-hornbeam forests (Carpinion-Betuli, 26,599 ha). The forest area covered by Natura 2000 is proportionally distributed across Croatia’s biogeographical regions (Mediterranean, Alpine and Continental) and across forest types, and it goes far beyond the national system of protected areas that has already been in place before the implementation of Natura 2000, additionally including the most economically important sessile oak area, the Spačva basin (Lovriö & Lovriö, 2013), which is 43,549 ha in size.

The forest-related elements of Croatia’s Natura 2000 implementation were developed by the Working Group on Forestry of Natura 2000 in Croatia (WGFNC). The aim of the group was to develop a list of forest areas that should be covered by Natura 2000, and to develop management guidelines for the protection of forest habitats and forest-dependent species. The group was formed by SINP in the beginning of 2010, who invited different organizations to nominate up to two representatives and two substitute representatives. Other than SINP nominating the leader of the working group (also SINP’s employee), who was tasked to moderate the discussion, no other procedural elements for WGFNC have been set. The composition of the working group was designed in order to contain all organizations from both the forestry and the nature conservation sectors who have interest in how Natura 2000 is implemented in forestry. The group did not only include representatives of scientific organizations; consequently, different political considerations and dynamics, not only science, shaped the Natura 2000 implementation process for Croatian forests. In this paper, we aim to investigate the professional and political dynamics of this working group. Our research question is:

How has the interplay of the involved actors shaped the implementation of Natura 2000 in Croatian forests?

We tackle this question against the background of three different theoretical perspectives: (1) the belief-based Advocacy Coalition Framework (Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993); (2) an interest-focused perspective relating to Rational Choice Theory (Coleman, 1990); and (3) a communicative perspective from the Theory of Communicative Action (Habermas, 1984).

Section snippets

Advocacy coalition framework

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) predicts that policy actors form advocacy coalitions based on a three-part system of shared normative and causal beliefs: (1) deep core beliefs include basic ontological and normative beliefs, such as the relative value of social equality versus individual freedom; (2) policy core beliefs relate to the translation of deep core beliefs into basic normative commitments and causal perceptions for a specific policy sub-system; and (3) secondary beliefs

Methods

The research for this case study uses content analysis of primary data to test a series of hypotheses developed based on the three introduced theoretical perspectives. We follow the prospective case-study design (Bitektine, 2008): testable predictions (or hypotheses) based on theory are made at the beginning of the research, and criteria for the evaluation of the findings are developed, i.e. a “guide” with assumptions regarding which findings will support a theoretical perspective as the most

Main results

Our data reveals the existence of two major, opposed actor groups in the WGFNC. Interviewees regularly used the terms ‘we’ and ‘they’ when commenting on the activities of the WGFNC. When asked who the ‘we’ and ‘they’ are, interviewees consistently described these groups as the forestry (APFOA, CF, CFRI, CFS, CUPFOA, FES, FOF, MDH, MDF) and the nature conservation sectors (CASA, CNMH, MCDNP, SINP). In order to better map out the two sectors, a ‘we’ code was used. Every time the interviewees made

Discussion and conclusions

To begin with a reflection on our methods, we note that a potential limitation of the validity of our findings for the Croatian Natura 2000 implementation process is our focus on only the work of the WGFNC. In this regard, it is interesting to note, however, that at the end of every interview interviewees were asked if someone else should have been present at the WGFNC meetings. If the answer was ‘no’, then we mentioned NGOs as potentially important stakeholders. The predominant response was

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contribution of Professor Tom A. B. Snijders (University of Groningen and University of Oxford) to the development of the study (Lovriö, 2014) upon which this publication is based. We thank Theresa Cashore and Amelia Pope for providing many useful comments on how to improve the paper. Special thanks go to all the members of the Croatian working group on forestry in Natura 2000, as without their great support this study would not have been possible.

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