Social assessment of national parks through the example of the Aggtelek National Park
Abstract
Karst areas, which are less involved in productive activities are often declared protected areas that can have a positive impact on the lives of the local communities. To verify this hypothesis, we examine karst areas, where national parks have been established to preserve mostly geological but also biological values. According to the threefold system of objectives in national parks, not only protection and conservation, but also the presentation of the natural values to the outside world is important. Thus, tourism and related services are essential and often exclusive economic activities in these protected areas. Our questions are how national parks appear in the daily lives of the local communities and how much locals perceive the beneficial effects of national parks. The selected area of our study is the Gömör-Torna / Gemer-Turňa Karst on the Hungarian-Slovak border, where national parks have been established on both side of the border (Aggtelek National Park in Hungary and Slovak Karst National Park in Slovakia) to preserve karst landforms and caves. We conducted structured interviews with leaders of settlements in and around the national park. Interviews reveal the ambivalent system of everyday relationships. Local communities are experiencing multiple conflicts with national parks. The conflicts stem from the contrast that usually occurs within the threefold system of objectives of national parks (the tension between the practice of protection/preservation and presentation). Locals are negatively affected by the presence of national park as an authority, which limits to some extent their economic activities. They perceive national parks as barriers that prevents them from building a more diversified economy, so the existence of the national park is seen by the majority as a disadvantage rather than an advantage. Some people even question the need to protect nature, which can be seen as a legacy of the former socialist regime. Thus, we conclude that there is a need to change the attitudes of local communities more positive towards nature conservation.
References
Aagesen, D. 2000. Rights to land and resources in Argentina's Alerces National Park. Bulletin of Latin American Research 19. (4): 547-569. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-9856.2000.tb00123.x
Anderson, M.K. and Barbour, M.G. 2003. Simulated indigenous management: A new model for ecological restoration in national parks. Ecological Restoration 21. (4): 269-277. https://doi.org/10.3368/er.21.4.269
Anfield, J. 1993. Sustainable tourism in the nature and national parks of Europe. The George Wright Forum 10. (4): 87-94.
Arnberger, A., Eder, R., Allex, B., Sterl, P. and Burns, R.C. 2012. Relationship between national-park affinity and attitudes towards protected area management of visitors to the Gesaeuse National Park, Austria. Forest Policy and Economics 19. 48-55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2011.06.013
Arnberger, A., Eder, R., Allex, B., Preisel, H., Edenberger, M. and Husslein, M. 2018. Trade-offs between wind energy, recreational, and bark-beetle impacts on visual preferences of national park visitors. Land Use Policy 76. 166-177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.05.007
Arnberger, A., Eder, R., Allex, B., Preisel, H. and Husslein, M. 2019. National park affinity segments of overnight tourists differ in satisfaction with, attitudes towards, and specialisation in, national parks: Results from the Bavarian Forest National Park. Journal for Nature Conservation 47. 93-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2018.09.005
Arnberger, A. and Schoissengeier, R. 2012. The other side of the border: Austrian local residents' attitudes towards the neighbouring Czech Šumava National Park. Journal of Nature Conservation 20. 135-143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2012.01.005
Arpin, I. and Cosson, A. 2021. Seeking legitimacy in European biodiversity conservation policies: The case of French national parks. Environmental Science and Policy 116. 181-187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.11.011
Beatty, R.O. 1952. The conservation movement. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 281. 10-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/000271625228100102
Bell, J. and Stockdale, A. 2015. Evolving national park models: The emergence of an economic imperative and its effect ont he contested nature of the 'national' park concept in Northern Ireland. Land Use Policy 49. 213-226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.08.002
Bishop, K., Dudley, N., Phillips, A. and Stolton, S. 2004. Speaking a Common Language. The uses and performance of the IUCN System of Management Categories for Protected Areas. Cardiff, Cardiff University, IUCN - The World Conservation Union and UNEP - World Conservation Monitoring Centre.
Bollobani, E. and Uruçi, R. 2019. Geotourism potentials of the National Park "Mali i Tomorrit". International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks 1. 15-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijgeop.2019.03.001
Böhn, D. 2021. National park in Germany: Let nature be nature - But which nature? International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks 9. 30-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijgeop.2020.09.002
Byström, J. and Müller, D.K. 2014. Tourism labor market impacts of national parks. The case of Swedish Lapland. Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie 58. (2-3):115-126. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfw.2014.0008
Catlin, G. 1844. Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians. New York, Wiley and Putnam.
Carruthers, J. 1989. Creating a national park, 1910 to 1926. Journal of Southern African Studies 15. (2): 188-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057078908708197
Cohn, J.P. 1992. Central and Eastern Europe aim to protect their ecological backbone. BioScience 42. (11): 810-814. https://doi.org/10.2307/1312078
Comstock, T.B. 1874. The Yellowstone National Park. The American Naturalist 8. (2): 65-79. https://doi.org/10.1086/271264
Cronon, W. 1995. The trouble with wilderness; or getting back to the wrong nature. In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. Ed.: Cronon, W., New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 69-90.
Daim, M.S., Bakri, A.F., Kamarudin, H. and Zakaria, S.A. 2011. Being neighbour to a national park: Are we ready for community participation? Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 36. 211-220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.03.024
Dexler, Sz., Horváth, G. and Karancsi, Z. 2003. Turizmus, természetvédelem és tájhasznosítás kapcsolata egy nógrádi kistájrészlet példáján (The connection between tourism, nature conservation and landscape utilisation demonstrated on the example of a small landscape unit of Nógrád county). Földrajzi Közlemények 127. (1-4): 45-62.
Dollma, M. 2019. Geotourism of Thethi National Park. International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks 7. 85-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijgeop.2019.05.002
Dunlap, T.R. 1999. Nature and the English Diaspora: Environment and History in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Eagles, P.F.J. 2002. Trends in park tourism: Economics, finance and management. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 10. (2): 132-153. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580208667158
Esfandiar, K., Dowling, R., Pearce, J. and Goh, E. 2021. What a load of rubbish! The efficiency of theory of planned behaviour and norm activation model in predicting visitors' binning behaviour in national parks. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 46. 304-315. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2021.01.001
Fienitz, M., Busse, M., Fienitz, M. and Heiland, S. 2022. Analysing the impact of communication and public participation on the acceptability of Germany's Black Forest National Park. Journal for Nature Conservation 67. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2022.126155
Fine, K. 1988. The politics of "interpretation" at Mesa Verde National Park. Anthropological Quarterly 61. (4): 177-186.
Frost, W. and Hall, M. 2009. Reinterpreting the creation myth: Yellowstone National Park. In Tourism and National Parks. Eds.: Frost, W. and Hall, M., London-New York, Routledge, 16-29.
Gálosi Kovács, B. and Horváth, G. 2018. Határokon átnyúló természetvédelmi területek lehetőségei és problémái (Perspectives and problems of transboundary protected areas). Földrajzi Közlemények 142. (4): 309-327. https://doi.org/10.32643/fk.142.4.4
Gaynor, A. 2017. Entangled nature: The Stirling Range National Park. RCC Perspectives 2. 81-88.
Geraszimov, I.P. 1978. Ökológiai válságok a természet és az emberiség történetében (Ecological crises in the history of the nature and mankind). Földrajzi Közlemények 102. (1): 29-39.
Gessert, A., Nestorová-Dická, J. and Sninčák, I. 2018. The dynamics of tourist excursion ratios in Slovakia show caves from 2000 to 2014. Geografisk Tidsskrift / Danish Journal of Geography 118. 173-183. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167223.2018.1503552
Getzner, M. and Švajda J. 2015. Preferences of tourists with regard to changes of the landscape of the Tatra National Park in Slovakia. Land Use Policy 48. 107-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.05.018
Gissibl, B., Höhler, S. and Kupper, B. (eds.) 2012. Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective. New York, Berghahn.
Glendinning, M. 2003. The conservation movement. A cult of the modern age. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 13. 359-376. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0080440103000215
Habeck, M. 2004. Eastern Europe's environmental challenge. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 2. 4. 172. https://doi.org/10.2307/3868301
Hall, M.C. and Frost, W. 2009. Introduction. The making of the national parks concept. In Tourism and National Parks. Eds.: Frost, W. and Hall, M., London-New York, Routledge, 3-15.
Hidle, K. 2019. How national parks change a rural municipality's development strategies - The Skjåk case, Norway. Journal of Rural Studies 72. 174-185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.10.001
Hill, M.A. and Press, A.J. 1993. Kakadu National Park: An experiment in partnership. The Australian Quarterly65. (4): 23-33. https://doi.org/10.2307/20635740
Horváth, I., Mahunka, S., Simon, T. and Szujkóné Lacza, J. 1979. Nemzeti parkok kutatása - természetvédelem - tájrekonstrukció (Research of national parks - nature conservation - landscape reconstruction). MTA Biológiai Osztály Közleményei 22. 337-350.
Jakál, J. 1975. Az emberi tevékenység negatív hatásai és annak megjelenésformái a karsztvidéken (Negative effects of human activity and its various forms on karst region). Földrajzi Közlemények 99. (1). 19-24.
Juutinen, A., Mitani, Y., Mäntimaa, E., Shoji, Y., Siikamäki, P. and Svento, R. 2011. Combining ecological and recreational aspects in national park management: A choice experiment application. Ecological Economics 70. (6): 1231-1239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.02.006
Kim, M. and Jakus, P.M. 2019. Wildfire, national park visitation, and changes in regional economic activity. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism 26. 34-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2019.03.007
Kőszegi, M., Bottlik, Zs., Telbisz, T. and Mari, L. 2015. Human-environment relationships in modern and postmodern geography. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 64. (2): 87-99. https://doi.org/10.15201/hungeobull.64.2.1
Kőszegi, M., Bottlik, Zs., Telbisz, T. and Mari, L. 2019. A "nemzeti park" koncepció tér és időbeli változásai (Spatial and temporal changes in the concept of "national park"). Földrajzi Közlemények. 143. (4): 308-323. https://doi.org/10.32643/fk.143.4.2
Marcel, G. 2013. National parks in Europe. Studia Universitatis "Vasile Goldiş", Seria Ştiinţele Vieţii. 23. (1): 91-94.
Mateusz, R. 2021. A method to analyse variability and seasonality the visitors in mountain national park in period 2017-2020 (Stołowe Mountains National Park, Poland). Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism 35. 100407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2021.100407
Mayer, M., Müller, M., Woltering, M., Arnegger, J. and Job, H. 2010. The economic impact of tourism in six German national park. Landscape and Urban Planning 97. 73-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2010.04.013
McConnell, G. 1954. The conservation movement. Past and present. The Western Political Quarterly 7. (3): 463-478. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591295400700307
Mukherjee, A. 2009. Conflict and coexistence in a national park. Economic and Political Weekly 44. (23): 52-59.
Nash, R. 2014. Wilderness and the American Mind. 5th Edition. New Haven-London, Yale University Press.
Niedziałkowski, K., Blicharska, M., Mikusinski, G. and Jedrzejewska, B. 2014. Why is it difficult to enlarge a protected area? Ecosystem services perspective on the conflict around the extension of the Białowieza National Park in Poland. Land Use Policy 38. 314-329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2013.12.002
Nolte, B. 2004. Sustainable tourism in biosphere reserves of east central European countries - Case studies from Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Policies, Methods and Tools for Visitor Management MMV2. 349-356.
Petrova, S., Bouzarovski, S. and Martin, Č. 2009. Conservationist or fashionista?: Urban dwellers' expectations from national parks in the Republic of Macedonia. Urbani Izziv 20. (2): 128-135. https://doi.org/10.5379/urbani-izziv-en-2009-20-02-006
Pietrzyk-Kaszyńska, A., Cent, J., Grodzińska-Jurczak, M. and Szymańska, M. 2012. Factors influencing perception of protected areas - The case of Natura 2000 in polish Carpathian communities. Journal of Nature Conservation 20. 284-292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2012.05.005
Potter, R.B. and Beynon, B. 2000. National parks in Hungary: Developments post 1990. Geography 85. (3): 274-279.
Puhakka, R. 2008. Increasing role of tourism in Finnish national parks. Fennia 186. (1): 47-58.
Repka, P. and Švecová, M. 2012. Environmental education in conditions of National Parks of Slovak Republic. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 55. 628-634. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.545
Sabo, H.M. 2012. Ecotourism in Rodna Mountains National Park. Research Journal of Agricultural Science44. (2): 226-232.
Schamel, J. and Job, H. 2017. National parks and demographic change - Modelling the effects of ageing hikers on mountain landscape intra-area accessibility. Landscape and Urban Planning 163. 32-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2017.03.001
Schwartz, K.Z.S. 2006. "Masters in our native place": The politics of Latvian national parks on the road from communism to "Europe". Political Geography 25. 42-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2005.07.001
Selby, A., Petäjistö, L. and Huhtala, M. 2011. The realisation of tourism business opportunities adjacent to three national parks in southern Finland: entrepreneurs and local decision-makers matter. Forest Policy and Economics 13. 446-455. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2011.04.002
Stemberk, J., Dolejs, J., Maresova, P. and Kuca, K. 2018. Factors affecting the number of visitors in national parks in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 7. 124-133. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi7030124
Szalai, K. and Szilágyi, Zs. 2007. A táj a turizmus fókuszában (Landscape with focus on tourism). Földrajzi Közlemények 131. (3): 147−156.
Szvoboda, L. 1998. A természetvédelem múltja, az Aggteleki Nemzeti Park jelene és jövője (The past of the nature conversation, present and future of the Aggtelek National Park). In Az Aggteleki Nemzeti Park. Ed.: Baross, G., Budapest, Mezőgazda Kiadó, 12-17.
Telbisz, T., Bottlik, Zs., Mari, L., Petrvalská, A., Kőszegi, M. and Szalkai, G. 2014. Természeti tényezők hatása a népesség területi eloszlására a Gömör-Tornaikarszt és környezet példáján (The impact of physical environment on the spatial distribution of population - a case study of Gömör -Torna Karst and its surroundings). Földrajzi Közlemények 138. (4): 277-292.
Telbisz, T., Bottlik, Zs., Mari, L. and Petrvalská, A. 2015. Exploring relationships between karst terrains and social features by the example of Gömör-Torna Karst (Hungary-Slovakia). Acta Carsologica 44. 121-137. https://doi.org/10.3986/ac.v44i1.1739
Telbisz, T., Imecs, Z., Mari, L. and Bottlik, Zs. 2016. Changing human-environment interactions in medium mountains: the Apuseni Mts (Romania) as a case study. Journal of Mountain Science 13. 1675-1687. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-015-3653-0
Telbisz, T., Gruber, P., Mari, L., Kőszegi, M., Bottlik, Zs. and Standovár, T. 2020. Geological heritage, geotourism and local development in Aggtelek National Park (NE Hungary). Geoheritage 12. 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-020-00438-7
Telbisz, T. and Mari, L. 2020. The significance of karst areas in European national parks and geoparks. Open Geoscience 12. 117-132. https://doi.org/10.1515/geo-2020-0008
Trakolis, D. 2001. Perceptions, preferences, and reactions of local inhabitants in Vikos-Aoos National Park, Greece. Environmental Management 28. 665-676. https://doi.org/10.1007/s002670010251
Tózsa, I. 1996. Az Aggteleki-karszt idegenforgalmi potenciálja (Touristic potential of the Aggtelek karst region). Földrajzi Értesitő / Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 45. (3-4.): 299-312.
Turner, R.W. 2000. Managing multiple activities in a national park. Land Economics 76. (3): 474-485. https://doi.org/10.2307/3147042
Van Beeck Calkoen, S.T.S., Mühlbauer, L., Andrén, H., Apollonio, M., Balčiauskas, L. et al. 2020. Ungulate management in European national parks: Why more integrated European policy is needed. Journal of Environmental Management 260. 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110068
Veress, M. and Unger, Z. 2015. Baradla-Domica: large cave system on the Hungarian-Slovak border. In Landscapes and Landforms of Hungary. Ed.: Lóczy, D., World Geomorphological Landscapes, Springer International Publishing, 167-175. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08997-3_20
Wallsten, P. 2003. The "inside-out" process: A key approach for establishing Fulufjället National Park in Sweden. Mountain Research and Development 23. (3): 227-229. https://doi.org/10.1659/0276-4741(2003)023[0227:TIP]2.0.CO;2
Warchalska-Troll, A. 2019. Do economic opportunities offered by national parks affect social perceptions of parks? A study from the Polish Carpathians. Mountain Research and Development 39. 1. R37-R46. https://doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-18-00055.1
Waugh, F.A. 1918. A national park policy. The Scientific Monthly 6. (4): 305-318.
West, P., Igoe, J. and Brockington, D. 2006. Parks and peoples: The social impact of protected areas. Annual Review of Anthropology 35. 251-277. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123308
Whatmore, S. 2006. Materialist returns: practising cultural geography in and for a more-than-human world. Cultural Geographies 13. (4): 600-609. https://doi.org/10.1191/1474474006cgj377oa
Widawsky, K. and Jary, Z. 2019. Mass tourism in protected areas - underestimated threat? Polish National Parks case study. Open Geoscience 11. 1046-1060. https://doi.org/10.1515/geo-2019-0081
Yakusheva, N. 2019. Managing protected areas in Central Eastern Europe: Between path dependence and Europeanisation. Land Use Policy 87. 104036. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104036
Zgłobicki, W. and Baran-Zgłobicka, B. 2013. Geomorphological heritage as a tourist attraction. A case study in Lubelskie Province, SE Poland. Geoheritage 5. 137-149 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-013-0076-6
Copyright (c) 2022 Margit Kőszegi, Alena Gessert, Janetta Nestorová-Dická, Péter Gruber, Zsolt Bottlik
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
