DISCUSSION
Post-conflict societies deal with several problems and facing land issues are too politically sensitive or technically complicated to be tackled early in the post-conflict period, which is the case of BIH (EU-UN, 2012). Land degradation is an important problem in BIH, particularly driven by soil erosion, despite 76.8% of the RS territory is affected by very low intensity (Table 3). Nevertheless, some stakeholders are not aware of land degradation (Q4 in supplementary material) neither soil erosion problems (Q8 in supplementary material).
Considering the complex political and administrative structure of BIH, where land-related competences are at the entity level, political communication and appropriate implementation of the existing legal and strategic framework, synchronization and mutual co-ordination is of great importance to combat land degradation, despite representing a real challenge (Q9 in supplementary material). The post-conflict situation often leads to a dysfunctional land administration system, characterized by limited prioritization of land policy and poor institutional and regulatory framework (Augustinus and Barry, 2006), as highlighted by 64% of the stakeholders interviewed (Q5 in supplementary material).
As a “potential candidate country” to the European Union (EU), BIH transposed over the last years many EU environmental directives that address soil indirectly (e.g. water directive, nitrate directive) into legislation, at the state and entity levels, but environmental policy frameworks are still not aligned with EU frameworks. Existing environmental policy frameworks are dispersed in several documents in BIH (Table 2) which comprise an additional challenge, but if implemented appropriately, land degradation issues would be addressed more effectively. Analyzing existing land related strategic and legislative framework, namely under LDN commitment in BIH, separately by each administrative unit (in the period 2016-2018), in the RS and BD, the main conclusion was that the existing policy framework is sufficient but implementation is weak (Kapović Solomun, 2018a). In contrast, in FBIH it may be necessary for additional laws on soil protection (Čustović and Ljuša, 2018). This confirms that both the complexity of land administration and weak political communication on land in BIH. Also, the existing land use planning system differs between entities, and entity and cantons in FBIH. Thus, the complexity of the legislative and strategic frameworks also creates complexity in approaches and implementations. In a post conflict environment, this presents a significant challenge to reduce, restore and reverse land degradation, starting from the local to the entity and state level.
The Civil War contributed to the destruction of valuable data, which suggests the need for further research to update what has been done in the past century. Land related issues most often rely on the academic community and non-governmental organizations, particularly in regards to understanding the consequences of soil degradation. The lack of soil data as well as land monitoring makes it difficult to assess current land condition and to define priorities to address land degradation.
Drivers of land degradation are further exacerbated by the insufficient and complex administration and weak land planning system. General assessment toward one of the most important drivers - soil erosion - is that the current state of many areas is more favorable, primarily due to displacement during and after the Civil War and reduction of anthropogenic pressure on soil. This consequently led to restoration of vegetation cover and encroachment, but only of those regions where the productive soil layer was not destroyed by erosion. The decrease in soil erosion intensity was due to migrations, where many households were abandoned especially in the area at the border between the two sides of the conflict, which resulted in shrub encroachment, and spread of forest cover and areas that were suspected of land mines (Lazarević, 1986; Tošić et al., 2012). However, in context of economic and social development, this is devastating and symbolizes a decrease in the population and household numbers, migration, decrease of arable areas, very slow technological development and economic growth. Another consequence of the Civil War was intensive deforestation and illegal logging in hilly/mountain areas, near the former war lines between the two entities, which has resulted in additional land degradation today and weakened protective function of forests upstream (Kapović and Eremija, 2009).
As a post-conflict society with a weak socio-economic situation, BIH is often faced with the misunderstanding of the importance of land conservation, not only by decision makers but also by the land owners and users. Local stakeholders assessed land degradation as less important and severe than soil experts (Q8 in supplementary material), and individual perception about land degradation and drivers, depends on the main source of income for their households. A common issue in post-conflict countries, where many people are still refugees and land they cultivated is not their property but someone from “another” entity (Lal, 2015). Perceptions of the severity of land degradation often depends on education level and knowledge, income source for the individuals, and whether they are affected or not (Marioara and Tăușan, 2016; Jendoubi et al., 2020).
The perception of land degradation differs between decision makers (on all levels) and other stakeholders, where decision makers claimed that the existing policy framework is sufficient and it should not be improved, while others disagree on this (Q5 in supplementary material). Design of entity policy framework on soil gathers mostly representatives of other ministries, institutes and academia, while local level and NGOs are underrepresented (Q9 in supplementary material). Policy design processes are not sufficiently coordinated, because land owners/users mostly do not participate, unlike decision makers (Q12 in supplementary material). There are public debates on laws, but people usually perceive it as “they cannot change anything” therefore they are not active. Among the stakeholders, decision makers and non-governmental sector were more motivated to contribute to improving or developing land related policies and strategic framework rather that land owners/users (Q13). Perception of land policy frameworks by different stakeholder’ groups is important to understand the willingness of these groups to participate and act upon policy design and implementation.
Since policy and legislation is politically very sensitive question in BIH due to the post conflict environment, land related strategies and laws are entity jurisdiction, but the state level encourages every document to be on the state level, which have caused political discrepancies between two entities and entity- state level for the last 30 years. This research has shown that political and administrative organizations have a significant influence on the implementation of land-related legal and strategic frameworks.