3.3 Perception of stakeholders about land policy frameworks and land degradation
Perception of stakeholders about land policy frameworks and land degradation is important to assess the potential to mitigate the problem. Interviewed stakeholder groups represent key individuals or institutions that are instrumental in addressing land degradation. Of total interviewees, 45% were female and 55% were male. Most of the interviewees were farmers/ forest owners (33%), but also public companies (17%) and representatives from the local government (15%) and academia (13%). Most of the interviewees did not migrate during or after the War (75.00%), but from the interviewed refugees from another Entity, most were land owners/users (13.75%), whereas decision makers (7.50%) and representatives from non-government sector (3.75%) were in smaller number.
Only 13.3% of the interviews were not familiar with the term land degradation, embracing mainly land owners/users (Q4 in supplementary material). But the majority of those with knowledge about land degradation do not have many details about its drivers and impacts (60%), despite most of them are decision makers. Furthermore, considering global policies and commitments of BIH related to land and soil, 60% of responders had never heard about UNCCD, most of them included in the farmers/users stakeholders’ group (33%), followed by decision makers (21%) (Q10 in supplementary material). In addition, 62,2% of the responders had no knowledge about land degradation neutrality.
Stakeholders have identified several drivers of land degradation in BIH, including (i) soil erosion, floods, and torrents, (ii) overexploitation of forests in erosion prone areas, (iii) week implementation of existing policy or deficient policy framework, and (iv) overuse of chemicals in agriculture (Q8 in supplementary material). Nevertheless, most of the interviewees reported to never been affected by any kind of land degradation (58%) (Figure Q7 in supplementary material).
Perceptions toward existing policy frameworks that addresses land degradation is not considered appropriate, mainly among the land owners/users and non-government sector (Q5 in supplementary material). It is interesting to record that most of the decision makers are satisfied with the existing framework (25% vs 10%). Also, respondents reported on different gaps and challenges in existing land related policy framework (Q6 in supplementary material), identifying the weak implementation of existing frameworks as the main challenge (38%), as well as the need to improve the existing policy framework (28%).
Regarding the need of new rules and legislation to mitigate land degradation (Q9 in supplementary material), most respondents point out the need just to implement the existing ones (28%), but also to develop local strategic documents for land use planning (14%) and a law on pesticide use (14%).
Policy design processes are not sufficiently coordinated, because land owners/users, unlike decision makers, mostly do not participate in these processes since they are not interested (Q12 in supplementary material), and would not like to participate in future design of a policy framework (Q13 in supplementary material). Nevertheless, most stakeholders (62%) reported a willingness to participate in future policy design, particularly decision makers.
It is curious that only a limited number of stakeholders, mostly land owners, know and use incentives available at the entity or local levels for sustainable land management (SLM) (4%) (Q14 in supplementary material). About 47% of the interviewees have never heard about these incentives, while 29% of the farmers/users do not apply for the SLM incentives in their production.
Based on the questionnaire survey, the current awareness and knowledge of land degradation is not sufficient. The majority of the interviewees (82%) reported the importance of education and awareness raising campaigns as a mean to understand the drivers and impacts of land degradation, and measures to mitigate the problem (Figure Q15).
Traditional agriculture in BIH is still dominant and stakeholders have distinct perceptions about its impact on soil quality, with 54% of the respondents (mainly from non-government sector) considering to have negative impacts, and 46% identifying positive impacts on soil, mainly land owners/users (Figure Q16). Informally, during discussions performed during the questionnaires, some stakeholders identified different agriculture practices that are traditional but not sustainable, such as uncontrolled use of chemicals, shortage of manure usage, soil compaction due to heavy mechanization, cropland monocultures and land fragmentation. Stakeholders also identified possible reasons of land degradation, such as low education and awareness about sustainable land measures that will also provide economic support for households, because so far agriculture is not economically attractive in RS, people are generally reluctant to adopt new approaches and techniques. It was interesting that some stakeholders reported that land users not owning the seem to care less about degradation problems.