Paper short abstract:

This presentation concerns the impacts that the introduction of a more participatory method of park management has had so far on the way that nature and natural heritage is understood, constructed and negotiated in Triglav National Park.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation concerns the impacts that the introduction of a more participatory method of park management has had so far on the way that nature and natural heritage is understood, constructed and negotiated in the case of Triglav National Park in Slovenia. Triglav National Park, Slovenia's only national park, was first established in 1924 by the drafting of a legal relationship between a pioneering association of nature conservationists and the state. The state accorded the association the rights and responsibilities for caring for the park's landscape, which was naturalized as an endangered area regardless of the existence of small landowners in the park, who were literally written out of the heritagization of the park's natural landscape. This dynamic has repeated itself through history as the park expanded until 2010, when new park legislation required the drafting of a more participatory plan of park management. In this paper I will present an analysis of the social processes through which this management plan has come into being and how they inform existing and emerging negotiations concerning nature, nature conservation and natural heritage within Triglav National Park.