ABSTRACT
Area protection policy is currently experiencing a remarkable growth in significance in almost all European countries. This is manifest not only in the creation of new protected areas and the expansion of existing ones, but also becomes apparent in the ongoing paradigmatic debate in research and practice on the significance of protected areas and their potential role as instruments for regional development. This is particularly true in the case of large protected areas which are of major interest on the basis of their spatial extent alone. Furthermore, the greater majority of large protected areas are in peripheral rural areas which are frequently characterized by a lack of suitable development potential. Such large protected areas are increasingly assigned a role in the development of these regions, and are often created with this express intention.
