Wykorzystanie źródeł zewnętrznych w finansowaniu edukacji przyrodniczo−leśnej w regionalnych dyrekcjach Lasów Państwowych

The study objectives were to identify external sources of financing the nature and forest education and to analyze the level of their use in regional directorates of the State Forests (RDSF) in the years 2006−2016. In addition, we studied the relationship between the amount of external and internal financing. As a data source, we used reports on educational activities of the State Forests for the investigated period. The work determines the relationship between individual categories of external funds and the amount of total funding and the amount of external financing for forest and nature education in individual RDSFs. In order to examine the relationship between the amount of external and internal financing, correlation analysis of changes was carried out. The conducted research confirmed the diversity in the use of the individual external sources in the financing of forest and nature education in the State Forests. The RDSFs use mainly money from the voivodeship funds for environmental protection and water management. They also conduct extensive cooperation with various entities, which participate in expenditures, hence a significant share of these funds in the financing of forest and nature education. We found a weak correlation between the amount of funding raised from voivodeship funds for environmental protection and water management and own sources of education financing (r=0.2162) and between other external sources and own sources of funding (r=0.2717). On the other hand, a high correlation occurred between funds from voivodeship funds for environmental protection and water management and other external sources of financing and external financing (r=0.6544 and 0.617, respectively). RDSFs should intensify their activities aimed at changing the structure of financing sources, in favor of increasing the share of external funds. The priority in this respect should be to clarify the rules of financing forest and nature education from the state budget and of using the funding opportunities from this source.