An Analysis of National Park Financing Mechanisms in Serbia

Protected areas are essential for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and protecting different cultural heritage. They are legally designated and managed to safeguard habitats, species, and ecological processes. The EU aims to protect 30% of its land by 2030, while in Serbia 9.74% of land is under protection. One of the important categories of protected areas represents national parks, which cover 17.3% of all protected areas in Serbia. In order to understand the mechanisms of financing national parks in Serbia, the period from 2008 to 2022 was analyzed. The 15-year period was selected due to the availability of data and the necessity for long-term analysis. All revenues are divided in four groups: business, fee, grant and other business revenues. The results of regression analysis show that the growth rate of business revenue is the most significant contributor among the revenue sources, with a very strong positive impact on the growth rate of total revenue in all four national parks. The growth rate of grant revenue also contributes positively to the growth rate of total revenue. However, its impact is much smaller than the growth rate of business revenue and fee revenue but still highly significant. A strong negative correlation (−0.82) is present between the growth rate of business and fee revenue in National Park Kopaonik. This suggests that with an increase in fee revenues, business revenues decrease. The results of this research show that business revenues are the most important, followed by fee and grant revenue.