doktori témaösszefoglalók - Környezettudományi Doktori Iskola ...

Cordula Mertens, 2007, levelezı
The role of public participation in biodiversity governance in Hungary
Supervisors: Dr. Pataki György, Ph.D., Dr. Kohlheb Norbert, Ph.D.
Importance of the topic and aims
The rapid decline of biodiversity in recent decades and the growing scientific knowledge about the importance
of this natural resource has considerably raised the awareness of policy makers on the international
level for this issue. There are several EU directives, as well as international conventions on nature conservation.
On the EU level, the most influential instruments of nature conservation are the Birds Directive and the
Habitats Directive, which have forced every member country to report and subsequently preserve and manage
Natura 2000 sites. The EU-regulations also call for an increased participation of civil society in environmental
policy-making, including nature conservation policy.
In Hungary there are several platforms for public participation. In 2005 advisory committees to the national
park directorates were established in all national parks. These advisory committees were the initial
focus of the PhD research. During the research conducted until now it has turned out that focusing only on
the advisory committees of national park directorates will provide less important results due to the very formal
nature and operations of these committees. With regard to public participation elite nature conservation
NGOs, such as WWF, MME (Bird Life Hungary), CEEWEB and FoE Hungary play a very significant role
in nature conservation policy-making, including Natura 2000. So in order to gain a profound understanding
of public participation in nature conservation policy-making, the research focus has been shifted from the
national park advisory committees to national-level nature conservation NGOs. The research aims at understanding
the role of civil actors in increasingly complex multi-level biodiversity governance structures.
Finished work and main results
For the EU-FP6 GoverNat project, which supports this PhD, two case studies on Hungarian national park
governance have been conducted in 2008.
For the Kiskunság National Park existing data was analysed focusing on multi-level governance structures.
An ambiguous role of EU regulations and funding for nature conservation management could be observed.
The national park directorate and local farmers are in a conflict-rich relationship and therefore have
not managed to join forces to develop a common strategy for a sustainable regional development, especially
addressing the severe water shortage of the region. From the national and EU-level there is little awareness
for the specific regional problems.
The case study on the role of participation in the foundation and management of the Körös-Maros National
Park has shown that informal networks can be very influential for a successful nature conservation
management. The research in the Körös-Maros National Park also revealed that the advisory committee to
the national park directorate is a relatively formal body and not the most important platform for participation.
Some NGOs, especially MME, do play a crucial role in national park governance.
Further plans
The semi-structured interviews with NGO members, ministry officials, as well as representatives of national
park directorates are to be conducted during March and April 2009. The collected data will be analysed
in the following months, until fall 2009.
List of publication accepted for publishing in 2008:
Bodorkós, B., Mertens, C. (2008): Institutional Analysis of Biodiversity Governance in Hungary - Local
Farmers and the National Park in the Borsodi Mezıség. Proceedings of the 2nd THEMES Summer
School on Institutional Analysis of Sustainability Problems; Vysoké Tatry, Slovakia, 18-29 June 2007
Jongman, R.H.G., Béla, Gy. Pataki, Gy. Scholten, L., Mérı, Á., Mertens, C. (2008): D 7.1 Web report on
the effectiveness and appropriateness of existing conservation policies and their integration into other
policy sectors. Rationalising Biodiversity Conservation in Dynamic Ecosystems (RUBICODE)
Santaoja, M., Treffny, R., Mertens, C. and Jolibert, C. (2008): Looking for a place to anchor. Confusing
thoughts along an interdisciplinary dissertation journey. In Farrell, K. N., van den Hove, S., Luzzati, T.:
Beyond reductionism: interdisciplinary research in Ecological Economics. Routledge, London
(forthcoming)
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