FOREST RELATED LEGISLATION IN SOME WESTERN BALKAN COUNTRIES REFERRING TO NATURE PROTECTION REGULATIONS

UDK 630*93:502(497) Within last few years, all Western Balkan countries have adopted new forest legislation aiming to introduce internationally accepted concepts of forest management. Due to specific social, political and economical realities that these countries have passed through, a number of nature protection regulations have been integrated into forest legislation. This paper compares nature protection regulations in Laws on Forests in Croatia (2005), Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2002) and Serbia (2010). It examines differences and commonalities in above mentioned Laws. Furthermore, the paper analyzes the level of consistencies between Laws on Forests and Laws on Nature Protection in Croatia (2005), Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2003) and Serbia (2009) in terms of “openness” and “greening” of forest related legislation. The results show that protection regulations within forest legislation, particularly those referring to forests with special management regime, can be strengthened by introducing the concept of high conservation value forests (HCVF). This concept includes also strategic changing of forestry sector position - from an inferior towards more proactive role in nature protection dialogue. The results of this paper can contribute to further improvements of current countries’ forest related legislation in domain of analyzed issues as well as creation of consistent forest and nature protection policies aimed at fostering cross-sectoral dialogue and cooperation.