MULTIFUNCTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL AREAS IN THE IMIELNO COMMUNE BEFORE AND AFTER INTEGRATION WITH THE EU

The main aim of the article is to present the evaluation of opinions of inhabitants about multifunctional development of rural areas in the Imielno commune. The evaluation is based on the compilation of opinions of inhabitants who expressed their views in questionnaires before and after integration with the EU. In Poland, the territory covered by protected areas amounts to 33.1%. The region with the highest percentage of protected areas is located in the Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship 62 %. There are 72 municipalities in the Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship, among which in 49 protected areas cover more than half of the Svvietokrzyskie area. One of them is the Imielno municipality, in which protected areas occupy 51%. Most of these areas are landscape parks and protected landscape areas. The poll was conducted among 117 inhabitants who expressed their opinions in questionnaires before the EU integration and 109 people who expressed their opinions after that event. This paper presents the conditions and courses of ecodevelopment preferred by the inhabitants of the Imielno municipality in the Nadnidzianski Landscape Park before and after integration with the EU. The research was based on inhabitants' opinions concerning particular courses of development, i.e. tourism, services, handicraft, industry, agriculture, food processing, and environmental protection. The results show that before the integration with the EU, agriculture and services were the most preferred courses of development in the protected areas of the Imielno municipality, whereas after the integration the respondents preferred industry and agriculture.