2.2 Stakeholder perceptions of land degradation
A survey of the stakeholder perceptions was performed to understand the
current policies involving aspects of land degradations focused on
knowledge gaps, failure in policy implementation, and institutional
responsibilities and their role in the process under the post-conflict
environment. A total of 60 relevant stakeholders, inclucing state,
entity and local land related policy and decision makers, farmers,
private forest owners, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scientists
and public companies were interviwed (Table 1) . The structure
of stakeholders is defined based on the level at which decisions are
made, and involvement in decision making at three levels: state, entity
and local. The stakeholders were grouped in three classes: (i)decision makers , including people who design and implement land
related policy framework on the state, entity and local level of
decision making; (ii) land owners/users , those individuals and
institutions who directly influence soil health by applying different
practices, such as farmers and private forest owners; and (iii)
non-governmental institutions , including people from universities,
institutes and NGOs who are aware about land degradation problems in
BIH.
The survey was based on oral questionnaires, focused on the perception
of stakeholders on legislative and institutional frameworks related to
land degradation, having in mind the post-conflict perspective of BIH.
Interviews were designed in order to gather relevant information from
institutions and representatives responsible for soil and land, and land
owners/users. The interviewed were questioned on their perception of
land degradation and its drivers, soil policy frameworks and their
challenges, their willing to participate in policy design, and personal
benefit of incentives for SLM. Another question was the legal status of
the interviewed, if they were refugees from another entity during the
Civil War, in order to infer the about the influence of post conflict
environment on their atitude toward policy framework. Further details on
the questionair are provided in the Supplementary material. Interviews
were conducted online through a google questionnarie, and some of them
(for land owners/users) were taken personally. Questionnaries were
distributed from July to November 2019.