The focal point of this article is to discuss whether or not, or to which extent, nature protection can be considered a factor differentiating the level or speed of regional socio-economic development. We decided to use empirical evidence in order to test the historical belief that nature protection poses limits to economic development that may lead to stagnation if not decline in areas where it is applied. We used three large-scale Czech protected areas and tested the hypothesis saying that areas under special regime of management due to nature protection suffer from economic underdevelopment. Based on the analysis both of objective data and subjective reflection of the situation by local popidation we can conclude that protected areas should not be seen as territories a priori handicapped.