THE CONCEPTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO NATIONAL PARKS.

The environmental segment has been absent from traditional understandings of security for a long period of time. Although the concept of environmental security as a relatively new term appears in the 1960s, we see the initial ideas about the symbiosis of human and nature in the ancient philosophers. These origins are just an evolution of what is nowadays called environmental security – a concept which includes protection from harmful impacts, human safety, sustainability and legal framework. In addition to this, with the more increasing disturbances of the natural balance and the harmful processes for people’s health and the environment, the question of how to achieve sustainable growth arose, as a logical continuation of the previous process – i.e. how to protect future generations from the irrational wasting of the resources today. Just between these concepts, the mechanism of nature protection called ‘national parks’ emerges as a real solution which, on one hand, will minimize and prevent the attacks towards the nature and, on the other hand, will provide space for development of the sustainable growth. The research continues to deal with the analysis of the two concepts and their understanding, presenting their presence in the international and domestic regulation, with a special focus on the national parks in the Republic of North Macedonia, which have assignments to form protected and natural entities. The analysis of the national parks, as a partial part, aims to reveal how these concepts are implemented on the ground, offering considerations of critical points and directions for national legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]