Selected Problems of Sustainable Development of Environmentally Valuable Areas of the Lublelskie Voivodship

The overall objective of the study was to identify the problems of sustainable development of environmentally valuable areas of the Lubelskie Voivodship, as seen from the perspective of local authorities. Implementation of the adopted objective was served by the analysis of the results of research carried out in 2013 in the Lubelskie Voivodship in the 30 communes of the greatest ecological value in the Lubelskie Voivodship according to the index developed by D. Guzal-Dec within the assessment of natural value in the study of the ecological value of rural and urban-rural communes of the Lubelskie Voivodship and the analysis of documents of local development strategies of the researched communes. The study included a questionnaire survey of 383 councilors representing 86% of respondents. In light of the conducted analysis we can claim that problems of socio-economic development, such as unemployment, poverty, emigration of young people, difficulty in developing social capital, poor infrastructure — both social and technical, including roads and sewers, are still important issues of sustainable development. and environmental problems are not seen as important when compared to the essential problems of socio-economic development, as well as the small scale of direct environmental threats.