摘要：This paper deals with the economic development of a socially fragile rural area whose natural and cultural heritage is protected by a specifial law. This subject is, in generaly, extremly important because the social fragility of a rural community and its individual households is related to its fragile physical environment, scarce natural resources, and poorly developed infrastructure, but the relevance of this research object is on the top list in protected rural areas. The problem of modern society is how to keep them populated when economic activities of residents must be related with restrictions. The author in this paper presented resultats of the research of economic product of Regional Park Škocjanske Caves in Slovenia as an expample of the protection as the stimulus for local development. The identified economic product of Park Škocjanske Caves consists of economic activities selected as desirable by 19 out of 25 local households on the one hand, and of common activities carried out by the local tourist society on the other. Considering the interests and availability of prerequisites to carry out the selected economic activities, the economic product for each household was defined and some recommendations how to realise the common economic product were specified. The economic products of individual households seem to be compatible and realisable, but the ways of marketing it have not been agreed upon yet. In the future a special attention has to be paid to the cooperation among the households and to the common marketing of the local economic product. The complexity and step by step realisation of a development project requires interdisciplinary team of experts working with a local community for a longer period of time.
关键词：fragile rural areas; economic product; Regional Park Škocjanske Caves; Slovenia
