Contribution short abstract:

This presentation will examine the specificities of access to natural resources for the inhabitants of a mountain settlement from an SES (social and ecological systems) perspective. Resources are abundant in the settlement, but access to them is limited/problematic for the locals. This raises the question of the extent to which the specific dynamics can be examined from the perspective of different trap situations, in particular the entitlement trap approach.

Contribution long abstract:

The settlement investigated in this presentation was established as a logging camp at the end of the 19th century. As long as timber was plentiful in the area and/or socialist/paternalistic distribution provided the goods necessary for a livable life, a semblance of prosperity was maintained despite the crises that occurred - and were almost continuous. Thus, the inherent problems of the system - that local people do not actually have access to resources, or have access to them only through intermediaries - have also remained constantly hidden. However, after the collapse of the socialist system and the timber industry, and the closure of the mill, these problems suddenly surfaced. The locals had to look for new opportunities almost overnight, while the principles of distribution hardly changed. The village has now discovered other resources in addition to the wood of the forest: gathering forest fruits and mushrooms, but access issues remain unresolved. A competition is therefore under way, which has now extended to the process of touristification (creation of a landscape and use of resources for touristic purposes). This presentation examines this competition and under-codified situation and looks at the relationship that locals built with the environment and natural resources. In order to capture the complexity of the problem, the paper adopts an SES (social and ecological systems) approach and also asks how plausibly the entitlement trap as an explanation describes the relationship within the community and between the community and the environment.