A post by Juliette Aymon, Liene Hennig, Marco Güntert and Manuela Jäggi
The Ljubljana Marshes Nature Park is an area of significant agricultural and ecological importance and home of endangered species. New regulations that limit agricultural activities in that area have led to resistance from farmers. A lack of communication is one of the underlying issues that have so far hindered a successful co-existence of agricultural production and nature protection in this Natura-2000 area. Analyzing the network of key actors resulted in suggestions to enhance collaboration between stakeholders, ensuring sustainable agricultural production while protecting biodiversity.
Ljubljana Marshes: valuable land for agriculture and biodiversity
The Ljubljana Marshes Nature Park, a 135 km² landscape park in Central Slovenia, is an area of significant agricultural and ecological importance, characterized by swampy terrain [1]. It is one of the last known habitats of endangered species such as the false ringlet butterfly and the adriatic marbled bush cricket. However, over the past two centuries, land-use changes, including intensified agriculture, have severely depleted this vulnerable ecosystem.
Strike for balance
Under the new European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), mandatory regulations such as delayed grassland cutting, and prohibited grazing were introduced in 2023 to protect agrobiodiversity in Slovenian Natura 2000 areas [2]. These regulations, especially the delayed mowing, sparked a significant farmers’ strike. Reacting to this protest, regulations were withdrawn and replaced by a voluntary payment scheme a few months later [3]. The situation highlights the necessity for improved communication and collaboration among involved stakeholders to achieve an optimal balance between agricultural and ecological priorities.
A multi-actor system
The Slovenian regulations and payments under the new CAP were introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food. However, regulations for Natura 2000 areas, such as the Ljubljana Marshes, were created by the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy. Farmers and the Ministry of Agriculture were not sufficiently included in this process (see figure 2). This lack of communication contributed to resistance on the farmers’ side. The different organizations that represent farmers on a political level supported the protest. Members of Ljubljana Marshes Nature Park and BirdLife Slovenia are only occasionally communicating with farmers who own lands in the Ljubljana Marshes.
The way towards a participative system
The first step to create regulations that consider both nature protection and agricultural production is to support strong communication between stakeholders of the Ljubljana Marshes.
First, farmers producing on the marshland could build an association to represent their interests. Secondly, there is the need to strengthen communication of the Ministry of the Environment with farmers and the Ministry of Agriculture to involve them in the creation of regulations for Natura 2000 areas.
Furthermore, the Nature Park and farmers of the Ljubljana Marshes would benefit from regularly collaborating on a one-to-one basis or in groups of farmers, considering specific parameters of each field. Rotational mowing and precise segmentation of marshlands in sensitive and less-sensitive areas would be both relevant methods that should be considered.
Finally, it would be beneficial to regularly gather all main actors around a table to create a participative strategic plan for Natura 2000 areas to fix goals and discuss the improvement of the plan.
This blog post was written as part of the “Agrobiodiversity Summer School” in Slovenia in August 2024, as a cooperation project between the ZHAW Institute of Natural Resource Sciences, the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland (FiBL) and the Biotechnical Faculty of University of Ljubljana and is supported by the Mercator Foundation Switzerland.
References
- Ljubljana Marshes Nature Park. (2024). Nature Parks of Slovenia. https://www.naravniparkislovenije.si/en/nature-parks/ljubljana-marshes-nature-park ↩︎
- At a glance: Slovenia’s CAP Strategic Plan. (2023). European Commission. https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2024-01/csp-at-a-glance-slovenia_en.pdf ↩︎
- Key demand by farmers resolved. (2023, June 23). The Slovenia Times. https://sloveniatimes.com/38880/key-demand-by-farmers-resolved ↩︎