Sonja Trifunovova (ESR, Institute for Forecasting, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovak Republic) Previous education ( ): Department for Biology and Ecology Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Novi Sad (Serbia) April 2007: employed as an ESR on GoverNat project Since September 2007: External PhD student at Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava (Department for Landscape Ecology)

GoverNat: Multi-level Governance of Natural Resources Tools and Processes for Water and Biodiversity Governance in Europe A Marie Curie research training network funded by the EC under the 6th Framework Programme Overall objective: To develop new solutions for multi-level environmental governance and to facilitate their use by decision-makers in an enlarged EU.

Institutional changes in biodiversity governance in Countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Research problem How the structure of institutional interplay influence effectiveness of biodiversity governance? (with focus on forest ecosystems in protected areas)

Why forest ecosystems I Importance for biodiversity conservation II Conflicts over management of forests inside protected areas

Why institutional interplay? Institutional changes have lead to institutional density. “Successful governance involves additional institutions at lower levels of societal organization, e.g. at the level of EU, the level of the national political system and the local level.” (Young, 2002) Underpins the concept of rationally designed governance institutions, because institutions that can be influenced by other institutions partially escape control of their members (Oberthur, Gehring 2006)

Focus: How do changes of property regimes influence biodiversity governance?

Methodology: Elaboration of case studies in different post-socialist countries (Slovak Republic, Serbia, Czech Republic?) Unit of analysis: local communities using forests within 2 National Parks National Park “Slovak Paradise” (Slovak Republic) National Park “Fruška Gora” (Serbia)

Thank you