Conference Agenda

The management of protected areas (PAs) involves multiple objectives and a wide range of actions and measures. These objectives include biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration, provision of nature-based recreation opportunities, and the supply of natural resources such as timber or agricultural products. Protected area management is increasingly challenged by growing societal demands, which may in some cases be conflicting—for example, between recreation and biodiversity protection. Furthermore, limited empirical evidence exists on the general population’s preferences for different approaches to nature conservation, such as traditional conservation strategies versus rewilding approaches. In this study, we conducted a nationally representative survey in Serbia (886 respondents) to elicit public preferences for protected area management and to examine trade-offs between nature protection, including rewilding measures, and other uses such as nature-based recreation and timber production. A core research objective was to identify population groups with potentially conflicting preferences regarding protected area management. Preferences were estimated using a discrete choice experiment. The results indicate that visitors to protected areas exhibit significantly different preferences for management measures compared to non-visitors. In general, visitors show stronger preferences for improvements in protected area management, particularly with respect to enhanced biodiversity conservation. Both visitors and non-visitors exhibit statistically significant and positive preferences for expanding areas under strict protection. However, preferences diverge with respect to specific rewilding measures, such as the reintroduction of European bison and the expansion of habitats for lynx and capercaillie, for which visitors express stronger support, indicating a greater appreciation of rewilding processes within protected areas. Despite differences in preferences between visitors and non-visitors, results reveal statistically significant and positive willingness to pay (WTP) values for both a biodiversity-oriented management strategy and a tourism- and resource-oriented strategy. Visitors display slightly higher WTP values for both strategies. In addition, socio-economic characteristics such as age, gender, and income significantly influence individual preferences for protected area management. While the PAs are partly financed by entrance fees our results show that non-recreational users have also a significant WTP pay for increased nature protection in the PAs and may justify a public tax-based funding of increased protection in PAs. Using WTP estimates to inform the level of such contributions can help align financing instruments with societal preferences, enhance the legitimacy and acceptability of policy measures, and reduce reliance on unstable public funding sources.