Relations between forestry and nature conservation The example of Slovakia

Relations between forestry and nature conservation are becoming clear in the political struggle for territorial nature conservation requirements and compensation as key instruments of the Slovak forest conservation policy. This article analyses this conflict using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The focus is on the question how advocacy coalitions convert their beliefs into concrete policies. So that a little-noticed aspect of ACF will be deepened and a contribution to a better understanding of policy changes is made. Based on the results of several research projects conducted at the Technical University in Zvolen, the changes in the programmatic configuration of the instruments since the founding of the Slovak Republic in 1993 and the changes that have been made at the behavioral level, are investigated. The identified policy change represents a change of policy beliefs, which is reflected in the new instruments of the policy field. In addition to expanding of protected areas and restrictions that already existed before, the novelty lies in compensation schemes for loss of private property use. This is based on a change of core beliefs, which has taken place across policy fields together with the system change and is expressed in a new constitutional guarantee of private property In forest conservation the new regime, however, was completed only to a very small degree, so that ultimately the political implementation of the new beliefs stayed at the policy-impacts level. The policy change can be explained by the political struggle of an economically and an ecologically oriented advocacy coalition. Following the paths of change according to the AFC, the analysis shows the change of political system, administrative reforms, change of government, the budgetary situation, natural disasters, learning processes and negotiations as factors that were utilized by the coalitions. The political system change turns out to be the decisive event which has been taken as an advantage by the ecologically oriented coalition to expand nature conservation regulations and build strong political resources, in particular actionable nature conservation associations and a separate nature conservation administration. The economic coalition has also used the change of political system for the new protection of private property for compensation regulations which could have been pushed through due to fact that the association have built effective structures. However, the implementation of the compensation scheme could not be achieved. It lays within the competence of the nature conservation administration and is blocked from their side referring to lack of funds. The ecologically oriented coalition though has sufficient resources to maintain the high level of conservation areas. The policy change on programmatic level, in which a new core belief is reflected in private property was therefore not effectively completed. The resource mobilization of advocacy coalitions explains the result.