The factors and dynamics of land-use conflicts
Abstract
The paper reports on a qualitative empirical research exploring land-use conflicts related to four agro-ecosystems (forest, pasture, orchard and plow land) and the services they provide. The qualitative research design was based on purposive sampling of farmers and other stakeholders as key informants, semi-structured interviews as data collection method, and grounded theory inspired qualitative content analysis as data analysis. As a result a model of land-use conflicts were built based upon six major factors and their co-evolutionary interaction. The following six factors were identified as ones that influence the occurance, unfolding and intensity of land-use conflicts: (1) type and quality of agro-ecosystem, (2) economic-financial conditions, (3) institutional structure and power dynamics of conservation and agricultural public policy systems, (4) personal attitudes of rangers, (5) cultural-historical background of the local farming community and (6) time and other external factors (e.g. climate dynamics). The novelty of the analytical framework developed lies in its multi-critera character and dynamic understanding of factors’ interplay it conveys. The results of the present research can contribute to development of a more flexible, participatory, dialogue-based and adaptive decision- and policy-making process that are adequately sensitive to the local natural, social and economic needs and, consequently, better prevents land-use conflicts to emerge and/or escalate.
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