Nature Park Zlatibor : a political ecology study

Abstract

Set in the Southwestern region of Serbia, Nature Park Zlatibor poses an issue to the local people who reside in the area. The park has been created in 2017 and has since been managed by the state-owned enterprise “Serbiaforests”. Local people complain about the lack of participation, consultation, and communication with the park management. Their right to use local environmental resources and to develop have been either restricted or reduced, making many of the local people rather angry. Knowing this, I decided to spend almost a year conducting research and living in the area. This thesis is a result of more than thirty interviews and numerous conversations with these local people. Using a grounded theory approach has led to an application of a classic political ecology lens to the case, which highlight issues such as “accumulation by dispossession” and discourses on “wilderness” and human-nature dichotomy. A realisation is reached by concluding that the management of protected areas as we see it today, does not necessarily work in the humanities benefit. Many would argue that conservation embedded in capitalistic socio-economic environments focused on “economic growth” and “profitability” cannot be sustainable. And in the sea of examples to confirm this claim, we might just also find Nature Park Zlatibor too.