Nature conservation and rural development in central Europe: Beyond a local conflict, a conflict of paradigms?

Social conflicts involving protected areas are a constant that crops up, in varying degrees, in nearly all studies of measures for protecting nature. Central Europe forms no exception. After the collapse of Communism in 1989 and the strong assertion of democracy at the local level, persons living near protected areas and elected officials from rural areas seem to have difficulty accepting the structures established for conservation purposes. A major factor in these conflicts has to do with disputes about land-use or between neighbors. Tensions also well up from a deeper level, from the contradiction between the viewpoints adopted in central European rural areas. A protected area defines a relationship between rural society and nature. It bears a dominant paradigm that orients rural development at the European scale and places the area to be protected at the core of strategies relating to the multifunctionality and sustainability of rural areas. Although this paradigm figures in most rural development strategies or, at least, is a facade for the strategies worked out by experts, all local actors do not necessarily share its values. Beyond their environmental dimension, the social conflicts surrounding protected areas shed light on tensions related both to the question of territorial governance and to the definition of global strategies of rural development in Europe.