Abstract:
Socio-economic systems created by man in karst areas or near such areas are very often in violation of their natural sustainable development. Prolonged anthropogenic impact causes significant changes in karst-genesis, which at the present stage of development of human society are expanding and deepening. Solving the problems caused by the human karst interaction requires active collaboration and joint efforts of all those interested in the sustainable development of karst areas. This means that stakeholders need to be precisely identified. It is also important to study stakeholders’ knowledge and awareness in the field of karst, their attitude towards the risks and the protection of karst areas, as well as their attitudes towards the need to develop and implement regulations, norms and rules regarding the position those stakeholders occupy and the role they play. Tracking and analysing the views and understandings of stakeholders with different competencies, will help to properly assess the need and readiness to develop and implement appropriate regulatory techniques and control models in the management of karst areas. This determines the purpose of this study – to establish the extent of understanding and how stakeholders perceive karst, and what their attitudes and willingness to create and implement regulations for land use and management of karst areas are. The study of the attitudes of stakeholders for the creation and implementation of regulations in land use and management of karst areas was conducted through a survey. The results of the „Survey of knowledge, practices, and attitudes of various stakeholders towards land use and management of karst areas“ were used as a starting point. Three types of stakeholders were surveyed as group entities: authorities (divided into seven subgroups), the tourism business (representatives of the show caves in Bulgaria) and NGOs (representatives of cave clubs and associations in Bulgaria). The information gathering model is a standardized questionnaire. The questions included in the survey are organized in four thematic areas – knowledge and awareness, practices, attitudes and perceptions. Within these thematic areas, the information collected through the survey was also analysed. Some important conclusions about the expressed attitudes for management and administration of karst areas were summarized in the following areas: the need for regulations, readiness to create and implement regulations, and the need for lifelong karst training. In conclusion, the results of the survey presented in this paper, provide useful data on attitudes and readiness to create, introduce and implement regulations in karst areas.