Background and Objectives: Cultural ecosystem services of urban green spaces are increasingly important and often recognized as such by people living in urban areas. Qualitative studies on perception of cultural ecosystem services from urban green spaces are still rare. Previous studies addressed only certain types of urban green space and often only some services. There is a lack of understanding how people perceive cultural ecosystem services from different types of tree-based urban green spaces. Hence, the purpose of the study was to explore whether and how people perceive and use cultural ecosystem services of different types of tree-based urban green spaces. Materials and Methods: Focus groups were conducted with citizens in each city district. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and transcripts analyzed in MAXQDA software. We used bottom up code-category-theme approach to analyze the data without predefined set of codes or categories. Results: Place attachment, aesthetic and recreational services were more recognized than educational and cultural identity services. For place attachment, most important single attributes were positive memories, and good maintenance, while most important categories were facilities, existence of emotional ties, possibility of experiences, recreational use and access. Presence of specific tree species and presence of trees in general were most important attributes for aesthetic services, while possibility of experiences and trees were the most important categories. Conclusions: People perceived various cultural ecosystem services from tree-based urban green space, even though some services more than others. Recreation may be the underlying goal of our participants when interacting with tree-based urban nature. Forests, parks were recognized as those providing multiple cultural ecosystem services. However, other types of green spaces were also recognized as bearers of these services, albeit with less services and attributes attached. It supports the importance of careful planning of urban green spaces in terms of providing a variety of green space types. The study provides basis for later quantification of cultural ecosystem services (CES) from tree-based urban green space.

This paper examines the level of payment for ecosystem services (PES) concept implementation in the financing of water-related forest ecosystem services (ES) in the Republic of Croatia, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FB&H), the Republic of Slovenia, and the Republic of Serbia. The focus is on water-related forest ES recognised by the millennium ecosystem assessment (MEA). For the purpose of this paper, the term pure PES describes schemes that comply to all five conditions set by Wunder definition and term PES like for those schemes that miss some of those conditions. In the first step, the most important legislative documents related to forests, water, and environmental protection were selected. The second consists of a content analysis; focusing on the definition of ES; the definition of fees or payments; the establishment of ‘forest funds’, ‘water funds’, or ‘environmental funds’; and the way these funds were spent. Here we looked at the flow of funding into the forestry sector recognising forest management as the main water-related forest ES provider. Research revealed existence of well-established payments schemes in forestry in Croatia for almost 30 years and in FB&H for some 20 years which were assessed as closest to pure PES. In Serbia and Slovenia, there were no PES or PES like schemes in the forestry sector. In the water sector the well-established PES like payments schemes existing in all four countries. The environmental protection sector, however, rely more on the tax like rather than on the PES like schemes. Legislation in general recognised the link between forests and water, but this was much more evident in the forestry than in the water or environment sector. The role of the state is strongly pronounced in all countries studied, and was the main driving force behind all payments. However, this position of the state represents also the main obstacle for the development of pure PES schemes, together with underdeveloped private forestry and complex socio-economic conditions. Nevertheless, there is room for further development of pure PES and PES like schemes based on EU or global experiences.

Background and Objectives: Urban forests and green space contribute to human wellbeing. Green infrastructure is recognized by the European Union as a planning tool that contributes to the implementation of many public policies, with urban forests and green space as its main building blocks. Croatia and Slovenia are young democracies and recent members of the European Union. Hence, they also need to contribute to the implementation of those policies. Previous review studies on urban forests and green space rarely addressed scientific or professional publications in those countries. Furthermore, the body of knowledge about urban forest and green space research and practice in post-socialist countries is still rather weak. The goal of the paper is (a) to show that urban forest and green space research and practice is much stronger in these countries than it is possible to assume based only on previous review papers or only by searching Scopus and Web of Science, and (b) to describe publications written by scientists and professionals in the past 30 years. Materials and Methods: We used a trilingual systematic literature review to identify scientific and grey literature in various databases, as well as a snowballing technique, and yielded 211 publications in Croatia and 84 in Slovenia. Results: We identified many more publications on urban forests and green space science and practice in Croatia and Slovenia than it was possible to assume based only on previous review papers and when searching solely publications in English. Croatian authors showed continuity over time in terms of number of publications, while Slovenian publications have been on the rise in the past decade. In both countries, scientific papers were most frequent, and the vast majority of studies addressed capital cities. Croatian publications mainly focused on parks and park-forests, while Slovenian publications focused on urban forests. Interestingly, Croatian authors were affiliated with over 60 organizations, and in comparison to Slovenian authors, have stronger preference towards publishing in their local language. Green space planning and design followed by resource inventory were the most frequent themes. The least addressed themes in both countries were resource management, economic aspects, policy, legislation or governance. Conclusions: Important discussion in the future, especially in Croatia, would be regulation of urban forestry as a profession. Cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary studies, as well as focusing on cities other than capitals in future, can help in addressing issues such as climate change or application of participatory approaches.