Biosphere Reserves - Suggested Model of the Institution of Commons (Case study of the Šumava Biosphere Reserve)

An attempt to address the interdependence between human economies and natural ecosystems has been articulated in ecological economics, among others, in terms of ecosystem services. Introducing ecosystem services yields positive result in the sense that the theoretical concept of cultural landscape has been complemented by the more or less effective political scheme, suitable as a basis for practical decision making. Nevertheless, practical management of ecosystem services on landscape scale is a rather complex task. The concept of institution of commons could be suggested to be used when dealing with the problem of implementation of ecosystem services concept in practice. The overall aim of the contribution is to discuss whether or not, or to which extent, UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the modern strategy in biodiversity conservation backed up by internationally agreed upon conventions, can be used as a model for institution of commons in landscape-scale nature protection. The discussion is based on empirical evidence gained within a long-term research conducted in the Šumava Biosphere Reserve, Czech Republic.