Paper short abstract:

During socialism, an area between Yugoslavia and Hungary was depopulated and rewilded. After socialism, it has been heritagized to preserve biodiversity. I explore that biodiversity is partly an outcome of ecological management of the Iron Curtain, which today represents burden to farmers.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in villages along the Slovenian-Hungarian border, in the area of Goričko in Slovenia. During socialism, respective sides of the border were depopulated and rewilded. Because of preserved biodiversity, however, the post-socialist Slovenia turned Goričko into a regional park. Besides, it has become part of the European Green Belt initiative, whose aim is to preserve natural heritage along the former Iron Curtain. Today, part of biodiversity in this area are big wild animals (red deer, roe deer, wild boar), which cause trouble to local farmers. The latter regularly complain that the presence of animals on cultivated lands for them represents a burden. I will focus on farmers' narratives on wild animals, particularly on their perception that the number of these animals has enlarged after the fall of the Iron Curtain. As they explain, the previous, guarded border had protected farmlands from animals, whereas the contemporary, permissive border turned their fields into feeders. At the same time, I will focus on local narratives and historical data on ecological management of the Iron Curtain, part of which was afforestation of the borderlands in Hungary. This specific ecology of the border had presumably led to wildlife procreation in the borderlands, which today represent both heritage and burden.