A negative attitude toward wetlands along with an ignorance regarding them and a lack of awareness about their value have often led to their transformation by humans. Their massive degradation and consequently their disappearance were the main reasons for the establishment of the Ramsar Convention, the first intergovernmental agreement on the preservation and sustainable use of wetlands. There are three wetlands in Slovenia on the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance: the Sečovlje salt pans, Škocjan Caves, and Cerknica Lake and its surroundings. Using a questionnaire survey, we tried to ascertain the level of public awareness about wetlands and attitudes toward their conservation. On the basis of the results acquired, we discovered that public awareness about wetlands conservation depends primarily on the location of residence and the social structure of the population. A negative opinion on the advantages of life in the protected areas within which the Ramsar localities are located was revealed, the result of a lack of information and insufficient knowledge of the environmental and economic functions of wetlands. Effective programs of education and involvement of the population in activities in protected areas must be implemented in the future. The comprehensive education of local people and interdisciplinary cooperation are the key points for changing human perception on the importance of protecting these vulnerable ecosystems.

This article determines which landforms attract people the most and whether one can speak of collective patterns in the aesthetic evaluation of a landscape. It therefore concerns enjoying the beauty offered by a more or less reshaped natural environment. This study is based on the Triglav Lakes Valley (Dolina Triglavskih jezer) in Slovenia which, due to the few man-made changes introduced there, includes hardly any anthropogenic “unnecessary noise.” The online survey included more than six hundred people and used photos of various landforms. Lakes were found to be the most attractive to the respondents, and fractured rock areas were the least attractive.

The study presented in this article focuses on the role of a smart waste bin (waste container) designed for waste management and explores what types of interventions people consider more appropriate in promoting environmentally responsible behaviour—based on norms or on an individual’s emotions. The smart waste bin development process was people-centred and paid particular attention to human experiences, allowing for various interaction modalities. By incorporating various sensors for waste volume and weight measurement in conjunction with presence and user identification capabilities, the experience was personalised. User feedback was collected by an extensive survey, consisting of four systematic sections, where values, attitudes, norms, perceived behavioural control, behavioural intention and actual behaviour were examined. The survey was completed by 194 respondents. The results showed that participants at the declarative level show a high level of environmental awareness and are very much willing to handle waste appropriately. Additionally, the results of the R&D process indicated that relatively cheap and efficient technological solutions can be developed to support waste management and sustainable lifestyles if the human-centred approach is taken into account.

In recent years, post-consumer textile waste has become an important issue that attracts attention from activists, scientists and the media. The production and use of clothing has more than doubled in the last fifteen years due to declining costs, streamlined operations and rising consumption under the influence of fast fashion. According to research, the average European buys as much as 26 kg of textiles each year and discards 11 kg, while a very small share of post-consumer textile waste is recycled. This article presents the findings of a study on household textile waste in the capital of Ljubljana. The research showed that despite the significant declarative environmental awareness of people for sustainable behavior in the field of textile waste, the share of those decreases with exposure to actual behavior. However, there are few people who are completely uninterested in reducing textile waste, as most people are aware of the problem and pay more and more attention to it. The authors study the management of textile waste and its creation by the inhabitants of Ljubljana in the broader context of the influences of fast fashion, as well as the cultural specifics of the Slovenian society.

In this study, we used a survey to examine how urban residents in Ljubljana, Slovenia, value and use distinct urban public spaces. Specifically, we were interested to assess if urban public spaces in the city are used/perceived as restorative environments. To do this, we addressed the question: To what extent do restorative dimensions differ in nine selected urban public spaces, varying in size, design, amenities, number of visitors, and, most importantly, degree of naturalness? Results from survey allowed to determine to what extent the selected urban public spaces in Ljubljana differ in terms of their perceived degree of restoration. We hypothesized that urban public spaces with a higher degree of naturalness in the city have a higher restoration value than urban public spaces with a lower degree of naturalness. Surprisingly, the urban public space that was above average on most restorative dimensions was the Old Town. These results are somewhat at odds with the attentional restoration theory, which states that the combination of dimensions is most typical of natural environments. However, this could be an indicator of the effectiveness of the city’s current policies to improve the quality of life for its citizens.

Our research focuses on implementing multilevel governance of wetlands to achieve an effective participatory process and its overall positive effects on wetland ecosystems and their protection as well as on local sustainable development. The aim of the research is to develop a methodology for establishing the Wetland Contract, a voluntary agreement to foster sustainable management and development of wetlands, to ensure greater coordination and consensus building between various stakeholders involved in management and to limit conflicts between preservation issues and economic activities in wetlands. The Wetland Contract and the integration process for establishing it in Ljubljansko barje Nature Park proved itself able to overcome conflicts between institutional and legal jurisdiction and is showing itself to be a dynamic path capable of activating a desirable relationship between various interests and supporting new forms of multi-sectoral stakeholder participation in wetland management. It has also contributed to a dialogue and shared responsibility among stakeholders.