**4. Conclusions**

In the contemporary social context, the role and significance of Croatia's protected areas should be viewed through the fulfilment of long-term goals to protect global and national biodiversity and ecosystem process, and to make recognisable contributions to sustainable development and strengthening of the local and regional economies.

In the management of Croatia's protected areas, many of the goals of the main global and national policies and programmes have been accomplished. In terms of international bench-

<sup>13</sup>Criteria for the inclusion of natural properties in the World Heritage List—Chapter D.

marks of success in managing protected areas, it could be stated that the Croatian parks system is achieving excellent results in best practices of protected area management.

An important hurdle for improving management of the Croatian parks system is the lack of a comprehensive strategic plan for protected areas, systematic weakness of the institutional framework, ineffectiveness in resolving outstanding issues (legal and property relations, spatial planning, etc.), and issues concerning sufficient financing and cost structures.

For the continued development of Croatian protected areas, their ongoing revision is required. At the national level, it is necessary to adopt a strategy to strengthen the credibility with specific instruments to improve management and to define the priorities in resolving outstanding issues in protected area functioning.

The national parks system is expected to strengthen the contribution of developing the local communities, through sustainable and win-win solutions, which will have equal success in responding to the development challenges of protected areas and to the socioeconomic needs of their broader surroundings.

Future priorities in improving the tourism function of protected areas should be placed on optimising organised visitor systems and achieving greater authenticity and quality of the visitor experience.

With the existing management concept of Krka National Park, based on functional and project organisation, a decisive advantage has been gain in management efficacy, which ensures a high level of results of Krka National Park in all fields of management. Many of the key objectives of protected areas have already been accomplished, to the highest level of excellence, and some have been recognised as the best global practice in managing protected areas.

An important management challenge the park still faces is the need for an efficient response to protected biodiversity and ecosystem services through the establishment of a higher level of adaptability and management elasticity, above all to reduce the impacts of climate change and the increasing pressures of growing numbers of visitors and the consequences that these impacts bring.

An important impulse in achieving the management goals of Krka National Park will be the adoption of the new spatial plan, which will set out to define the spatial organisation of park infrastructure and visitation models, and to define the possibilities of developing permitted activities in the park, and their content, positioning, and intensity.
