From inflexible national legislation to flexible local governance: management practices in the Pelister National Park,Republic of Macedonia

The involvement of local people in protected area management a key factor in the sustainable and efficient protection of wildlife, and an economically preferable approach for the effective everyday care and protection of the environment. This paper aims to explore the community participation and protected area management challenges faced by national park authorities in developing countries, through a case study of the Pelister National Park in the Republic of Macedonia. The paper focuses on the multiple social, economic and political expressions of flexibility in national park management at the local scale. These examinations are based on field research in Pelister, executed in the summer of 2006, and involving 20 in-depth interviews with local policy-makers, nature protection experts and local inhabitants, as well as a questionnaire survey of 140 residents of three villages in and around the park (Nizhepole, Malovishta and Brajchino).