DIAGNOSIS OF FUNCTIONING OF NATIONAL PARKS IN POLAND IN THEIR SOCIOECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT

1 The University College of Tourism and Ecology in Sucha Beskidzka, Leisure and Tourism Department e-mail: bartlomiej.walas@wste.edu.pl 2 The University School of Physical Education in Wroclaw, Faculty of Physical Education, Department of Tourism e-mail: wojciech.fedyk@awf.wroc.pl 3 The University College of Tourism and Ecology in Sucha Beskidzka, Leisure and Tourism Department Babia Góra National Park e-mail: pasiertom@poczta.onet.pl 4 University of Gothenburg, Department of Conservation e-mail: sandor@gvc.gu.se


Introduction
Declaration of the word Congress of National Parks 1 from 1992 clearly indicates the need to establish relations and symbiosis of national parks (NP) with the local environment, but as various studies indicate Bożętka, 1995;Hibszer, 2013;Hibszer, Partyka, 2009;Królikowska, 2007;Dynowska, 2016;Olko, 2011;Sawicki, Zaręba, 1998) not only from the point of view of achieving the objective of nature conservation but also cooperation contributing to the sustainable development of the area.
However, it is true that the conservation of resources also requires intensive activities due to excessive tourist traffic in some NP (Kruczek, 2017;Warcholik, Semczuk, 2011) which seems to be an easier phenomenon to control than mutual expectations of socio-economic nature of stakeholders. Therefore, managing a NP requires legal, organizational and relational optimization, in line with sustainable development of their location.
Since Poland's accession into the EU structures, there have been a lot of legal changes, such as the new Law on Nature Conservation (2004;Solon, 2005), which have led to changes in people's awareness, organizational and management changes as well as the relations with the local community and local technologies (Odrowąż-Pieniążek, Radziejowski, 2006;Skawiński, 2006;Woźniak, 1997). Local government administration is being granted more and more decision making competences in relation to protected areas. These changes call for a new model of functioning of Nature Parks, which will include dialogue with its scientific and research environment, local business, local community and local government. However, one must keep in mind the fact that each park has different conditions of functioning, and its management, including tourist traffic service, may vary from other parks. In order to implement the model it is crucial that national parks have proper national and social status, appropriate organization and an effective system and level of financing and management. One may get an impression that nature conservation is not a scientific but social and marketing problem.

Research methodology
The aim of the conducted research was to depict social attitudes, phenomena and conflict areas, opinions and positions of stakeholders towards the tools for the implementation of statutory objectives by the units managing national parks.
Diagnostic tests were carried out in all national parks in Poland, between September 2017 and February 2018, as a part of the commission of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The research technique was an individual in-depth interviews and it included the employees of park management (director or deputy director of NP, chief accountant, specialist in nature conservation) and representatives of the environment (municipalities: commune head or deputy, environmental protection officers, residents). A total of 230 interviews of 10-11 people "per park" were conducted. In order to identify the attitudes of stakeholders and the problems of functioning of NP, the FGI technique was used -a focused group interview (focus groups) with teams of the following parks: Drawa NP, Słowiński NP, Tatra NP and Kampinos NP. A similar formula was used to query the "surroundings" of the surveyed NPs, and thus four FGI sessions with local self-government authorities, representatives of residents, and business representatives. In total, 8 sessions of focus groups were conducted.
In the research, it was hypothesised that the focus of all these stakeholder groups is not the national park or local economy, but a balanced territorial area, shared by the interest and functioning of all its stakeholders (Figure 1).

Research results
As a result of the research, mutual expectations, relationship status as well as problematic and conflict areas among the indicated types of stakeholders were diagnosed, and the obtained results will be the basis for a strategic diagnosis as a starting material for building NP optimization models at further stages of the research process.
The research carried out on two focus groups (representatives of parks and representatives of the "surroundings") indicated a strongly diversified assessment of the state of functioning of national parks in the context of their socio-economic environment (Tables 1 and 2). Clearly visible causes of fundamental differences of opinion (direct, prevailing statements of respondents) depend mainly on the location of the national park and the assessment of the consequences of their legal regulation or their status, but perhaps also on the personality of park managers and municipalities, which should be the subject of a deeper, further assessment in the research process. NP should conduct activities taking into account the values, resources and cultural development of the local community.
The professionalism, knowledge and involvement of the employees of NP are visible.
NP should coordinate its decisions with the public.
In the NP, the primacy of nature protection over human protection is apparent.
NP is running a business. However, the park's revenues also result from the fact of using municipal infrastructure. Therefore, the NP should share its income with the commune.
NP acts as a tourist enterprise deriving significant income from this. Meanwhile, the local self-government is deprived of this income.
NP should allow the local residents to pick up mushrooms.
NP has too far-reaching powers resulting in limiting investments, especially in the buffer zone; therefore, the NP should participate in compensating for the development of municipalities or investment restrictions should be significantly reduced.
NP activities are understandable from the point of view of NP logic, but not from the point of view of recipients.
It is visible that NP is blocking the expansion of buildings owned by residents.
NP should be included in the structures of the self-government.
As a consequence, NP revenues may be related to local government revenues.
There is a lack of possibility to use NP natural resources in a satisfactory way (e.g. lack of admission of residents to obtain timber, forest undergrowth).
The fact of the existence of a NP is something positive in the sense that there is an entity that organizes nature conservation and utilization of nature. However, the NP construction of functioning is faulty itself.
Conducting ecological activity is by all means a positive activity of NP.
The NP directorate should be harnessed in the life of the local community and be associated with the development of this community.
NP applies the same rigors to the NP area and its surroundings (buffer zone).
Scientific research in NP is undoubtedly needed; the fact of financing them from the NP budget is a disputable matter.
The basic problem is that the local government receives too little compensation for "having" a NP in the commune area.
Entry into the NP area should be paid, but the NP should share these revenues with the local community.
NP is interested in the smallest possible tourist traffic, which is contrary to the interests of residents.
NP may be a driving force for the development of tourism provided that it is harnessed in the local economy and the interests of residents.
Most of NPs are lacking funds. NP should take more into account the interests of the local community and especially the interests of entrepreneurs conducting tourist activities using the natural resources of the park.
There is no conflict between running a business and financing NP tasks from public funds. NP should have a stable source of financing and this can only come from public funds. On the other hand, conducting business activity by the NP should finance local development and support, for example, cultural heritage, tourism "industry", etc. The NP protection plan, which is imposed by the law, is not adequate to reality; it is prepared for 20 years and does not allow to react to the changing nature, law or circumstances related to the NP activity.

Source: elaboration based on own research
We need to have a new law on NPs.
1 2 NP does not conduct any economic activity -the only activity is nature protection. There is no forestry -trees are not planted to be cut down, but to grow free (the same applies to fish and animals).
There should be a separate protection plan for each NP -taking into account the specificity of a given park.
NP is left alone with financial matters.
Maybe municipalities should spend their money on NP, and not receive a subsidy for the fact that the commune is located in the park.
The forest service people have tax exemption, but there is no exemption for the park service people -it is not a good distinction because our tasks are similar.
The park should be able to have a greater impact on the shape of the nature conservation plan and conservation tasks.
Forestry services have procedures that have been developed for years -it is easier to manage. In NP, everyone has their own and each park has separate procedures, too. There is no formalization at the central level.
NP should have an impact on the development -definitely more prominent in the park and in the buffer zone.
A legal state entity is a bad solution; if we were a budgetary unit , we would not have problems with VAT -then one could function better (it applies mainly to "poor" parks -deprived of tourists).
There are models of park management in the world that take into account greater social participation in its management. We do not have this obligation, but because we operate in a specific social environment, we try to make this participation and acceptance significant.
There is definitely a lack of different management tools that would be formalized at the central level.
Delegation and decentralization of tasks.
No possibility of affecting the organizational structure of the park. Support and understanding of the local community.
We can acquire more external funds as a legal state entity. Understanding by the partners of the core of strict (passive) protection and active protection.
All legal tax bases (including VAT and income tax) incorrectly place the park as a form of enterprise, which obscures the image of the park.
Poor ecological awareness of residents, but relatively good ecological awareness of local governments.
The Nature Conservation Act leaves a lot of scope for over-interpretation in the field of land planning and management, which leads to many ambiguities and conflicts.
On the one hand, the constitution gives every citizen the right to use their property, and on the other hand, we have a law on nature protection that restricts the disposal of own property.
Forest fund supports NP in the implementation of conservation tasks (in financial terms) -without this, we would not be able to carry out the basic tasks of the park.
The existing research funding structure is not beneficial for the park and the scientific community.
Source: elaboration based on own research.
As a part of the research process, a series of theses and phenomena were presented to the groups of respondents for evaluation. They concerned the NP itself or its surroundings and the commune ( Table 3). The obtained results point to such issues and areas, which clearly differentiate the respondents in terms of: the economic function of NP or limiting the availability of economic activity, whereas a set of precise conflicting actions has been identified (however, not represented in the article due to the volume of the text). Nature conservation specialists claim that the source of the presented controversies lies in increasing pressure on the use of natural resources of a given NP for economic purposes, the lack of effective landscape protection rules, in particular in the immediate vicinity, progressive spatial isolation of a NP as a result of uncontrolled urban development in the environment of the park and resulting in liquidation of natural ecological corridors. There is also no social climate for creating new national parks or for regulating the boundaries of the existing ones (Raj, 2018).
On the other hand, environmental stakeholders expect unconditional opportunities to run their own business and infrastructural investments, to limit the commercial activity they run (in their opinion) by the NP which is restricting the competitiveness, and the financial contribution of the park to the development of the commune. Seemingly contradictory positions indicate that the goal of all stakeholders should be the pursuit of compromise solutions, cooperation, respecting nature protection and economic development.
It is worth noting that the positions are not uniform, because even in the group of NP managers there are different assessments of the current legal status (which is: legal state entity). Also, the representatives of the environment are not in agreement either, or contradict themselves, in assessing the role of a NP in the development of the commune. One should look for reasons of this discrepancy in the specificity and local conditions of operation of each park, in the education financing system.
The location of parks, the ability of reception of tourist traffic, historically shaped conditions of ownership of land, the need to raise funds 2 for the implementation of protective and educational tasks somehow forces some park managers to undertake tasks that are not always consistent with the expectations of the environment. However, they are not common, because, for example, collected opinions during focus tests clearly showed a positive perception of the park (Kampinos NP) or extremely negative (Słowiński NP). Source: elaboration based on own research.

Discussion
The analysis of the obtained research results and a deepened interpretation of the conclusions from the literature review allow for a synthetic assessment of the conditions of functioning of national parks using the PESTEL method (Table 4).
The combination of environmental factors affecting the national park allows for an original attempt to assess their level of significance (from 0 to 10), the probability (weight) of occurrence (from 0 to 1) and the calculated expected value. 3 The higher the expected value, the stronger the influence of a given environmental factor on the functioning of the national park.
The results of ranking environmental factors indicate that at the stage of building optimization models of the NP activity on the given area, the amendment of legal regulations will be necessary, both those directly related to the national park and nature protection as well as tasks specified in legal acts concerning local government. It seems at this stage of assessment of the results of the diagnosis that it will probably be a set of "hard" tools of even management and political character, the introduction of which will minimize the negative consequences of attitudes of both parties. Source: elaboration based on own research.

Conclusions
Against the background of the results of the performed research and analyzes, it seems justifiable to indicate a few key recommendations referring to the postulated changes in the functioning of national parks in Poland, in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their activities from the perspective of the selected stakeholders.
Further organizational development of Polish national parks is necessary, in particular with regards to the hierarchy of the supervision and management system, as well as the legislative issues. It is necessary to develop and implement a more stable system of financing national parks, adequate to their role. The development and functioning of national parks should be a counterweight to the widespread consumerism in the scope of uncontrolled spatial development and excessive exploitation of natural resources.
The protection of the natural heritage of Poland, located within the borders of national parks, should obtain a real status and level of social acceptance, equivalent to the protection of historical and cultural heritage. It is necessary to develop an identity and social recognition, following the example of, say, American parks, as the "Service of National Parks" in Polish society. Further work on building the position of national parks in the awareness of Polish society through appropriate education, dialogue with the local community and promotion of Polish national parks is desirable.
Recommendations for the next stage of research on optimization models for the operation of national parks should be diversified for each of them, taking into account local conditions of the environment and expectations of stakeholders.