Contribution to the understanding of typology and importance of forest-related conflicts in South East Europe region

Background and Purpose: The forest related conflicts has not been often a research topic in SEE. The first regional survey was conducted in five countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia, under the scope of the FOPER project. The aim of the study was to identify the most frequent forest related conflicts in terms of types, conflicts attributes, actors, their attitudes and power relations, as well as to investigate more in-depth nature of conflicts and theway howthey’ve beenmanaged and how it influenced forest policy development. Materials and Methods: Analytical framework consisted of progressive triangle with three conflict attributes-substance (S), relation (R) and procedure (P) [13] embedded in four concepts- culture (CU), conflicts (CO), conflict management (CM) and policy development (PD) [12]. In total 840 semi-structured interviews were sent to decision makers resulted in response rate of 60%. Results were statistically analyzed by using methods of descriptive and inferential statistics, such as correlation analysis, logistic regression and decision path models. Results and Conclusions: Analytical framework proved appropriate for studying forest related conflicts in SEE. The most frequent conflicts were between forestry and (1) Nature protection, (2) Wood processing industry, (3) Grazing and overgrazing, (4) Building and construction, and (5)Water management, with significant differences among countries involved. Conflict management depended on the culture, as an aggregate variable comprising education, professional competences, communication skills and previous experience