Croatia National Parks and Protected Areas by IUCN Management Category Classification

IUCN Category II is one of the most widely recognized protected-area categories in the world because it brings together strong ecosystem protection and public-facing values. A National Park is meant to conserve large-scale ecological processes and representative species and ecosystems, but it is also expected to support compatible spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational, and visitor opportunities. This makes Category II especially important for countries that want protected areas to function both as core conservation landscapes and as places where people can meaningfully experience nature without undermining long-term ecological goals.

IUCN Category V recognizes that some of the world's most valuable conservation landscapes are not places without people, but places shaped by a long and continuing interaction between people and nature. In these areas, biodiversity, cultural identity, local livelihoods, scenic quality, and historical land-use patterns are often deeply intertwined. The category is used where safeguarding the integrity of that interaction is itself essential to conservation. Category V is therefore especially relevant to lived-in landscapes and seascapes whose value depends on continuity, stewardship, and the maintenance of characteristic ecological and cultural patterns over time.