Participation in nature protection: does it benefit the local community? A Trigav National Park Case Study

This paper examines some aspects of participation in nature protection and tries to understand how this principle is implemented in Slovenia. The paper briefly outlines the institutional context of Slovene nature protection and examines how participation is positioned within it. The presence of different understandings of the participation principle and different interpretations regarding access to environmental decision making are identified. Key to this divergence seems to be the roles that some groups traditionally had in initiatives for nature protection. An attempt is made to understand if and how participation in the recent reframing of the Triglav National Park founding act has benefited the local community.