Abstract
Since the Schengen Treaty came into full effect in Poland in December 2007, national borders should no longer restrict cross-border travel between Poland and Germany, so one might expect that the separating effects of the border on recreational activities would be strongly diminished. However, recent studies show that very little international tourism actually occurs in the protected areas along this border, so it seems obvious that it still functions as a mental and cultural barrier, though this phenomenon has not yet been examined adequately. For this reason, we analyze the barriers to cross-border tourism for the case of protected areas along the Polish-German border by evaluating various influencing factors . These protected areas constitute an ideal case because the landscapes on both sides are quite similar and could easily be overlooked as factors that mediate travel decisions. This chapter serves as an introduction to the book by outlining several key issues, describing the survey region along the border between Poland and Germany, elucidating the research questions addressed, and providing an overview of its contents and organization .
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Notes
- 1.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung (2018) reports that a German municipality on the Austrian border suffers traffic jams caused by border controls that were re-established in the wake of the 2015/16 migration crisis. This case study exemplifies the barrier effect of borders.
- 2.
Best (2012) illustrates these mutual images with vivid examples (e.g. caricatures, quotes) from his discourse analysis .
- 3.
Trienes (2013, p. 98) shows a map of European border regions indicating areas with ‘very high’ and ‘high’ levels of disparities along the Polish-German border.
- 4.
In the per capita GDP -ranking of all 276 EU NUTS-2 regions cited, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg and Berlin rank 166, 152 and 64, respectively, with per capita GDP values of €24,882, 26,484 and 35,607.
- 5.
While national parks are discussed in detail in Sect. 5.2, we briefly provide basic information on biosphere reserves and nature parks in Germany, and landscape parks in Poland. In contrast to national parks, nature parks and biosphere reserves in Germany focus on cultural landscapes and their preservation. They are also permanently inhabited. According to BNatSchG (2009, §27), nature parks have two major goals: first, the conservation , development or restoration of cultural landscapes characterized by diverse uses; second, to function as areas particularly well-suited for recreational purposes because of their landscape assets. These are areas where sustainable tourism should be promoted to foster sustainable regional development . UNESCO biosphere reserves have existed in Germany since 1979, characterized by a broader approach that sees them as model regions for sustainable development . Their legal mandate does not mention recreation or tourism promotion at all, stressing instead the “primary purpose of conserving, developing or restoring landscapes shaped by traditional, diverse forms of use”, “ways of developing and testing forms of economic activity that are especially conserving of natural resources ” and “purposes of research, of observation of nature and landscape and of education for sustainable development ” (BNatSchG, 2009, §25). Today, Germany has 105 nature parks and 17 biosphere reserves. Landscape parks in Poland are a type of protected area of lower status than national parks and with less stringent restrictions on development and economic use (usually IUCN Category V). A landscape park is defined as “an area protected because of its natural, historical, cultural and scenic values, for the purpose of conserving and popularizing those values in conditions of balanced development .” (GBl. 2009, Nr. 51, Pos. 1220, Art. 16). Today, 122 landscape parks exist in Poland (Mayer & Woltering, 2017; Steingrube & Zbaraszewski, 2014).
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Mayer, M., Zbaraszewski, W., Pieńkowski, D., Gach, G., Gernert, J. (2019). Barrier Effects of the Polish-German Border on Tourism and Recreation: The Case of Protected Areas. An Introduction. In: Cross-Border Tourism in Protected Areas. Geographies of Tourism and Global Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05961-3_1
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