This research explores development conflicts within Kopaonik National Park (NP) arising from the prioritization of winter tourism, particularly skiing activities and the associated infrastructure. This emphasis has led to the marginalization of the unique natural heritage that warranted the park’s establishment in 1981, presenting an unusual case of exploiting and jeopardizing significant Balkan natural heritage. Tourist facilities situated in protection zones II and III interface with natural reserves in protection zone I, escalating conflicts and spatial impacts and raising concerns about the preservation of reserves and the park’s original purpose. Kopaonik Mountain, inherently suited for winter tourism, faces the challenge of accommodating a ski center within its exceptional natural heritage. Legal and planning activities support winter tourism without adequately defining its compatibility with the park’s natural heritage. Through an in-depth analysis of legal documents, plans, projects, and studies, this paper highlights conflicts, especially with natural heritage, expressing concerns for the park’s future. The Spatial Plan of the Special Purpose Area of National Park Kopaonik, as a highly important strategic document, leans toward winter activities, prompting a critical review. The paper concludes with suggestions to alleviate winter tourism’s negative impacts and proposes sustainable practices within the realm of protected natural heritage and other human activities.

Serbia's commitment to just green transition (JGT) is clear and confirmed by ratifying a series of international declarations, mostly followed by the adoption of relevant laws, strategic documents and action plans at the national level. However, it is evident that the implementation faces a number of challenges, often leaving Serbia lagging behind at the European, and in some cases even regional level. This chapter is dedicated to shedding light on the reasons behind the gap between Serbia's formal commitment to the goals of a just green transition and the real changes that should result from it. The research focuses on determining how far Serbia has progressed in defining specific measures to achieve the goals of a just green transition, as well as the reasons for the lack of implementation of already defined measures. As it is noticeable that each of the existing policies is strictly sectoral, dedicated to one of the pillars of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans (or some even more specific issues), we have also tried to examine the degree of their coordination and focus towards achieving JGT goals. The results of the conducted analysis gave us the opportunity to draw conclusions about key obstacles on the road to just green transition in Serbia, as well as proposals for overcoming them.

Just Green Transitions (JGTs) address the shift to sustainable, low-carbon economies while ensuring fairness and inclusivity. Central to global policies like the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal, JGTs remain multidimensional, diverse, and complex in their interpretation and application. This handbook explores JGTs with a focus on the Western Balkans (WB), examining their potential to address regional disparities, socio-economic challenges, and governance gaps. Highlighting the EU’s Just Transition Mechanism and Green Agenda for the Western Balkans (GAWB), it showcases strategies and case studies demonstrating the interplay of technical, economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Providing actionable frameworks and offering insights for policymakers and practitioners to design inclusive and context-specific transitions. The handbook emphasises collaboration, citizen engagement, and adaptive governance as essential for equitable and resilient green futures.

Based on the relevant theoretical and methodological approaches and settlement-demographic components, in this paper is determined a functional urban settlement structure in the territory of the Republic of Serbia. Chronological overview of the changes in urban settlement's population from the postwar period to the present was intended to show the relations between demographic processes and development of the functional urban regions, to determine the degree of spatial differentiation of the territory of the Republic of Serbia and to establish the trends of the settlement formation as one of the factors of spatial and regional development. Small functional urban regions (whose center consists of urban settlements with 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants) are proposed as the instruments for decentralization of the territory of the Republic of Serbia. On the basis of current functional urban structure and spatial demographic polarization of the Republic of Serbia, generally are given the possible planning directions with the aim of rational regional development of the entire area.

The paper presents a perspective functional connecting of settlements that belong to the territories of diff erent local self-governments, elaborated on the example of under Rtanj settlements. The observed area covers the atars of rural settlements, belonging to the territories of Boljevac and Sokobanja municipalities in Eastern Serbia, between whom there are certain types of functional complementarity but also development limitations. The paper presents conceptual proposals for the establishment of a rational organization of settlements in this area based on relevant theoretical-methodological assumptions and qualitative-quantitative indicators. Considerable attention is being given to the users of space harmonization interests, and especially on the interests harmonization of the tourism development and population, environmental protection, nature protection, natural and cultural-historical assets.