The topic of this final paper is the role of tourism in the sustainable development of protected areas. The main reason for conducting the research was to gain a better insight into nature protection, the way tourism takes place in protected areas and its management. Research has shown that sustainable tourism plays a major role in the management of protected areas, contributing to the economic development and preservation of protected areas by generating revenue, which will be used for the sustainable management of individual areas. The model of sustainable development could be a long-term process, which requires the effort of all stakeholders to ultimately bring benefits and directly contribute to the creation of sustainable tourism. Today, nature protection in the Republic of Croatia is relatively well organized and there are a number of laws in the field of nature protection. The key problems that arise in the functioning and maintenance of protected areas are the lack of legislation, the inability to finance, insufficiently developed management plans, poor environmental awareness and lack of urbanist plans. The development and improvement of the park system through legislation should contribute to the improvement of work, sustainable development and the quality of life of local communities.